“Should I give my pets CBD?” is a question that vets are getting asked more and more these days. TL;DR: no, its a waste of time and money. To understand why …
36 Comments
Do you speak another language than English, by chance? There's something about your accent that sounds different from "normal" Canadians.
I recently discovered your channel during the lockdown. Thank You so much for the information. I have 3 cats (9 years old and two siblings 16 years old). My 9 years old mixed Persian is FIV positive and has liver problems and Pancreatitis. My 16 years old also have the same liver problem. They are both on hepatic Royal Canin dry food and Trovet Hepatic cat food, and L-Lysine supplement. I am really frustrated with Vet bills as my cats have been in and out several times in the past few months and was considering trying CBD oil or Milk Thistle as I read some people found it "helping" their cats. Please make a video on how to look after an FIV cat and also cats with Fatty liver and again medical problems with Senior cats.
If your cat is 19 and must have osteoarthritis based on hesitation jumping and has seizures every few weeks (less than once a month, some from auditory triggers), could gabapentin help with both pain and seizures? I donāt want to risk his kidneys with multiple medications (he drinks a lot and pees a lot, but blood tests were ok for age) and can you get it in liquid? He gets very anxious (pants and yowls) going in the car, he gets so anxious being taken out the back room away from us at the vetās office so much he looses bladder and bowel control and he hates tablets as much as most cats. Given his age, we try not to upset him with unnecessary visits unless there is definitely going to be a benefit to him (letās face it, he wonāt have many more years, so quality of life is it).
the federal ban on marijuana and its derivatives in the US means that weāre not going to see rigorous, well-funded trials anytime soon. thatās a shame but it also doesnāt excuse the anecdote-based salesmanship of cbd products. as somebody with chronic pain issues, i recognize those mall kiosks as preying on people who donāt have access to good healthcare. iām optimistic about medical marijuana but beware of any salesperson selling me a cure-all, for me or my pets.
Love this video! I'd love to know if the observational placebo effect also applies to homeopathic treatments that owners give their pets. (Honestly, I don't see how homeopathic "medicine" works in humans either, apart from the placebo effect.)
Ooooffff, the level of sass in this video is unprecedented for our good doctor! A+ on science and best practice above all. This man does his research and it is chef's kiss wonderful to see.
I heard that cats show you their bottom as a sign of affection as in "I show you my vulnerable side". And lick their bottom in front of you. Granted, they wouldn't do that if they felt unsafe around you, but I am repulsed by that. Is it appropriate to look away and move away to show, that I don't find that good to look at or will that make the cat feel unsafe? How can I make a cat not associate that with bad emotions while not doing that in front of me?
K.I.S.S. Is your audience brain dead ? Why circumnavigating the information ? You're a great person for providing info, bringing us all closer to correct cat care. Edit edit edit. Please condense it.
Can you do a video explaining the risks and "benefits" of feeding cats/dogs raw meat? I almost fell for it because I was closely following Jackson Galaxy… but I no longer feel that way. I know many people who follow him also follow you closely, and I think it would be great to have another science based video debunking a lot of the myths out there.
Oh Doc, i wish i had found your channel earlier and knew more about this topic. I spent hundreds and hundreds of money in CBD pets oils because my cat had this… skin disease (?) that made him scratch himself whole day and night every where on his body. he hadn't fleas or ticks, he was a house cat regularly treated and checked so we really had no idea what could it be. some vets said it could be some sort of allergy, like dermatitis, but there was no exam we could do to figure it out. one of these vets here told me to test these CBD oils and I did. at first i had like the impression of him doing better, but i guess it wasn't properly related to the CBD's.
he passed away in september when after all those CBD cares we started using cyclosporine on him as the last vet said (with no exams at all… that still shocks me today to know) and his liver and kidneys actually… gave up on him. he passed away horribly after vomited himself for a whole day. vets couldnt do much at that point. i miss him so much and always blame myself for not helping him properly! i had no clue what to do and apparently no vet that had examined him knew what was best for him and what that disease affected him. he was pretty much young! about 4.5 years when he passed! (male, spayed)
thanks to this experience i started studying vet btw. still studying. i hope i will help other animals like my little angel that had to pass away because of somebody that only cared about money and had no idea what they were doing š
Interesting topic doctor. In California, the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) is doing research as we speak. I would never give a cat CBD or THC until research is done, but that is me.
Don't forget that placebo effect is not the only way to end up with a "fake" effect. There's also, regression to the mean. Or even plain old random luck.
I donāt smoke weed myself, but iāve never been in the camp that outright rejects the possibility that it could be useful. Iāve read two studies (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6326553 is one, i canāt find the other atm) that seem to indicate that cbd might be useful for regulating sleep hormones (although more research is needed). Of course, these studies were done on humans, whose bodies can tolerate things that animalsā bodies cannot (aspirin, for example). Thereās very little info on what an effective and safe dose for a human would be, and none for what a safe dose for a dog or cat would be. Also, the industry is entirely unregulated: a company can claim that their product contains a certain dose of cbd, but may actually contain much less (or none), or not even be in a form that can be absorbed by the body. So at best, the cbd gummies for dogs are an expensive scam. At worst, youāre giving your pet something that could harm it in the long run.
My cat was having seizures, I was so scared for him. A vet told me to use CBD oil. It seemed to work at first, then it didnāt, and I didnāt know how much to give him. I didnāt want to give him too much and the articles I read online were just so… inconclusive.
So I got a second opinion and the new vet said it looked like my cat had a severe flea allergy that was causing him to itch so badly heād spasm. (At the time I did not know that even though he wasnāt carrying fleas, when he goes outside some might jump on him, bite him, then jump off, or die, or something. Live and learn.)
The vet gave him a steroid shot to help with the itching, and most importantly we put him on a steady, long lasting flea medication starting that day. Heās been better ever since! So yeah, CBD oil was a wrong suggestion in my catās case, and I will be more mindful in the future.
Edit: PS – he is sleeping on my feet right now. š Thank you my wonderful vet, and to you, too, Helpful Vancouver Vet, for being just so great!
Yea, the whole CBD thing…People need to slow their role. Never saw a drug come out so quickly and literally claims that it fixes almost every illness known to man..,..CAN YOU SAY BS!
I am curious about your opinion about raw diets for pets – particularly commercial raw diets, which typically arrive freeze dried or frozen, often claim to be nutritiously complete and are high pressure processed. Similarly to the issue of CBD oil, raw diets have no scientific studies backing them up, but I don't know anything about the scientific evidence backing up traditional pet food. Unlike your CBD vs. traditional medicine argument, a raw diet would seem to have a slightly higher risks than traditional pet food, but it's hard for me to evaluate that risk – is it similar to the risk I take in eating sushi or a rare burger? Is it lower, because of the HPP process? Or is it higher, because standards are lower on the preparation of animal food?
The benefits of raw diets appear to be anecdotal. Are the benefits of other diets more rigorous? I have no idea.
I agree with your larger point, that treatments should not be recommended by doctors unless there is scientific evidence for it. But at minute 5:25, you seem to be claiming that the only people expressing interest in whether marijuana can treat medical conditions are people who aren't scientists, and are expressing interest only as a tool to argue for its legalization. That is demonstrably untrue. In the United States, marijuana is a section 1 drug, which makes it almost prohibitively difficult for scientists to study in a rigorous way. Many researchers argue that marijuana should be easier for scientists to access for research purposes, because they want to see if it could actually treat certain issues. These researchers do not appear to have any ulterior motives regarding its legalization for general usage.
Again, I'm not arguing against your main point – without that research, doctors should not be recommending marijuana or CBD, no matter why that research doesn't exist. A scientist having interest in whether CBD or marijuana can treat an issue is only the first step of the scientific method, and nothing to base medical recommendations on. But that interest does exist.
Thank you for a wonderful video. You are fantastic at getting the message across. I was mesmerised. Not every professional can teach the ordinary person – you have a wonderful skill. You are just brilliant š
My vet suggested I try CBD to treat my cat's hyperestesia, which I did and my poor kitty had the worst reaction to it. He caved for 5 hours, and looked scared and confused. I think he got pretty high, while I got really scared and decided to throw that horrible stuff away. At the same time I was trying it on myself as I was going through a stressful time and couldn't sleep, I bought two different bottles, one which was supposedly made specifically for animals and one for us humans, both of them pretty expensive. I have to say I also had a terrible reaction to CBD, I did not relax at all, I felt nauseous and dizzy. This stuff doesn't work, it's a waste of money and I definitely do not recommend it for pets or humans. I hated it and I'm sure my kitty hated it too. There are some trends or 'alternative methods' that are just not worth putting your pet's safety and health at risk, at least in my experience and my humble opinion.
my previous dog was very afraid of thunder, fireworks and everything loud. when she got older this fear was only getting worse. The last two years of her life she got afraid even when she just smelled that it will beging raining and she allways started to tremble like crazy, hyperventilating, drooling and trying to hide. it was actually scary and sad to watch. my gf and i talked to a few different vets about what we could do to help her, but no medicine we gave her helped, for a time we were even giving her medicine which is designed for humans (vet suggestion) which maked her so high she could barelly walk and even though she stoped trembling, you could see she was still afraid, just to high for her body to show usual signs and we stoped with that medicine. when vet suggested cbd droplets we tried and dog visualy calmed and was still able to walk straight. don't get me wrong, she was still on high alert, but she didn't tremble, drool or hyperventilate so as far i'm conserned cbd droplets are awsome, but i do respect and appreciate how you are, or trying to, approache everything from scientific angle and even though my experiance with cbd is great, i couldn't agree more with everything you said. we need more reserch with cbd and thc.
Do you speak another language than English, by chance? There's something about your accent that sounds different from "normal" Canadians.
Do you still feel the same way now as you did in February about CBD?
I think people really need a PSA on tylenol and ibuprofen. The general idea there is already a strong enough argument why we need more testing.
If you hang your cabinets with nails, I don't want to be anywhere near your kitchen
I recently discovered your channel during the lockdown. Thank You so much for the information. I have 3 cats (9 years old and two siblings 16 years old). My 9 years old mixed Persian is FIV positive and has liver problems and Pancreatitis. My 16 years old also have the same liver problem. They are both on hepatic Royal Canin dry food and Trovet Hepatic cat food, and L-Lysine supplement. I am really frustrated with Vet bills as my cats have been in and out several times in the past few months and was considering trying CBD oil or Milk Thistle as I read some people found it "helping" their cats. Please make a video on how to look after an FIV cat and also cats with Fatty liver and again medical problems with Senior cats.
S Q U I SH THAT LIKE BUTTON GUYS!
100%agree with you. See the same things with CBD being used by chefs. Why they are so excited by it is confusing!
If your cat is 19 and must have osteoarthritis based on hesitation jumping and has seizures every few weeks (less than once a month, some from auditory triggers), could gabapentin help with both pain and seizures? I donāt want to risk his kidneys with multiple medications (he drinks a lot and pees a lot, but blood tests were ok for age) and can you get it in liquid? He gets very anxious (pants and yowls) going in the car, he gets so anxious being taken out the back room away from us at the vetās office so much he looses bladder and bowel control and he hates tablets as much as most cats. Given his age, we try not to upset him with unnecessary visits unless there is definitely going to be a benefit to him (letās face it, he wonāt have many more years, so quality of life is it).
the federal ban on marijuana and its derivatives in the US means that weāre not going to see rigorous, well-funded trials anytime soon. thatās a shame but it also doesnāt excuse the anecdote-based salesmanship of cbd products. as somebody with chronic pain issues, i recognize those mall kiosks as preying on people who donāt have access to good healthcare. iām optimistic about medical marijuana but beware of any salesperson selling me a cure-all, for me or my pets.
šš»Someoneās been watching Dr. Grandeās channel š
Love this video! I'd love to know if the observational placebo effect also applies to homeopathic treatments that owners give their pets. (Honestly, I don't see how homeopathic "medicine" works in humans either, apart from the placebo effect.)
3:17 "It's red because it goes faster." š I'm dead
Ooooffff, the level of sass in this video is unprecedented for our good doctor! A+ on science and best practice above all. This man does his research and it is chef's kiss wonderful to see.
I heard that cats show you their bottom as a sign of affection as in "I show you my vulnerable side". And lick their bottom in front of you. Granted, they wouldn't do that if they felt unsafe around you, but I am repulsed by that. Is it appropriate to look away and move away to show, that I don't find that good to look at or will that make the cat feel unsafe? How can I make a cat not associate that with bad emotions while not doing that in front of me?
K.I.S.S.
Is your audience brain dead ?
Why circumnavigating
the information ?
You're a great person
for providing info,
bringing us all closer
to correct cat care.
Edit edit edit.
Please condense it.
Can you do a video explaining the risks and "benefits" of feeding cats/dogs raw meat?
I almost fell for it because I was closely following Jackson Galaxy… but I no longer feel that way.
I know many people who follow him also follow you closely, and I think it would be great to have another science based video debunking a lot of the myths out there.
I love that you bring up that physionomy of cats and dogs are not the same as humans, and will react badly to the drugs we use.
Throwing out the CBD shit I got for my kitty. Feeling ashamed for not knowing better. Thanks for the video doc!!!!
ššššš awesome explanation
Oh Doc, i wish i had found your channel earlier and knew more about this topic.
I spent hundreds and hundreds of money in CBD pets oils because my cat had this… skin disease (?) that made him scratch himself whole day and night every where on his body. he hadn't fleas or ticks, he was a house cat regularly treated and checked so we really had no idea what could it be. some vets said it could be some sort of allergy, like dermatitis, but there was no exam we could do to figure it out.
one of these vets here told me to test these CBD oils and I did. at first i had like the impression of him doing better, but i guess it wasn't properly related to the CBD's.
he passed away in september when after all those CBD cares we started using cyclosporine on him as the last vet said (with no exams at all… that still shocks me today to know) and his liver and kidneys actually… gave up on him. he passed away horribly after vomited himself for a whole day. vets couldnt do much at that point.
i miss him so much and always blame myself for not helping him properly! i had no clue what to do and apparently no vet that had examined him knew what was best for him and what that disease affected him. he was pretty much young! about 4.5 years when he passed! (male, spayed)
thanks to this experience i started studying vet btw. still studying.
i hope i will help other animals like my little angel that had to pass away because of somebody that only cared about money and had no idea what they were doing š
Interesting topic doctor. In California, the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) is doing research as we speak. I would never give a cat CBD or THC until research is done, but that is me.
Don't forget that placebo effect is not the only way to end up with a "fake" effect. There's also, regression to the mean. Or even plain old random luck.
I donāt smoke weed myself, but iāve never been in the camp that outright rejects the possibility that it could be useful. Iāve read two studies (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6326553 is one, i canāt find the other atm) that seem to indicate that cbd might be useful for regulating sleep hormones (although more research is needed). Of course, these studies were done on humans, whose bodies can tolerate things that animalsā bodies cannot (aspirin, for example). Thereās very little info on what an effective and safe dose for a human would be, and none for what a safe dose for a dog or cat would be. Also, the industry is entirely unregulated: a company can claim that their product contains a certain dose of cbd, but may actually contain much less (or none), or not even be in a form that can be absorbed by the body. So at best, the cbd gummies for dogs are an expensive scam. At worst, youāre giving your pet something that could harm it in the long run.
Cool vid
My cat was having seizures, I was so scared for him. A vet told me to use CBD oil. It seemed to work at first, then it didnāt, and I didnāt know how much to give him. I didnāt want to give him too much and the articles I read online were just so… inconclusive.
So I got a second opinion and the new vet said it looked like my cat had a severe flea allergy that was causing him to itch so badly heād spasm. (At the time I did not know that even though he wasnāt carrying fleas, when he goes outside some might jump on him, bite him, then jump off, or die, or something. Live and learn.)
The vet gave him a steroid shot to help with the itching, and most importantly we put him on a steady, long lasting flea medication starting that day. Heās been better ever since! So yeah, CBD oil was a wrong suggestion in my catās case, and I will be more mindful in the future.
Edit: PS – he is sleeping on my feet right now. š Thank you my wonderful vet, and to you, too, Helpful Vancouver Vet, for being just so great!
Scientific medical research? Hm. Wonder if the POTUS has heard of this…
Yea, the whole CBD thing…People need to slow their role.
Never saw a drug come out so quickly and literally claims that it fixes almost every illness known to man..,..CAN YOU SAY BS!
Cmon people…Use your brain.
I am curious about your opinion about raw diets for pets – particularly commercial raw diets, which typically arrive freeze dried or frozen, often claim to be nutritiously complete and are high pressure processed. Similarly to the issue of CBD oil, raw diets have no scientific studies backing them up, but I don't know anything about the scientific evidence backing up traditional pet food. Unlike your CBD vs. traditional medicine argument, a raw diet would seem to have a slightly higher risks than traditional pet food, but it's hard for me to evaluate that risk – is it similar to the risk I take in eating sushi or a rare burger? Is it lower, because of the HPP process? Or is it higher, because standards are lower on the preparation of animal food?
The benefits of raw diets appear to be anecdotal. Are the benefits of other diets more rigorous? I have no idea.
I agree with your larger point, that treatments should not be recommended by doctors unless there is scientific evidence for it. But at minute 5:25, you seem to be claiming that the only people expressing interest in whether marijuana can treat medical conditions are people who aren't scientists, and are expressing interest only as a tool to argue for its legalization. That is demonstrably untrue. In the United States, marijuana is a section 1 drug, which makes it almost prohibitively difficult for scientists to study in a rigorous way. Many researchers argue that marijuana should be easier for scientists to access for research purposes, because they want to see if it could actually treat certain issues. These researchers do not appear to have any ulterior motives regarding its legalization for general usage.
Here is a Forbes article about a researcher who was finally able to complete a clinical study on marijuana and PTSD research, after navigating the byzantine system in place. It took her ten years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrebourque/2019/04/15/how-cannabis-prohibition-is-killing-veterans/#2aaad97521a7
Again, I'm not arguing against your main point – without that research, doctors should not be recommending marijuana or CBD, no matter why that research doesn't exist. A scientist having interest in whether CBD or marijuana can treat an issue is only the first step of the scientific method, and nothing to base medical recommendations on. But that interest does exist.
Anyone who has tried to use CBD for actual physical pain management knows that it's a placebo. Thank you so much for saying it
Thank you for a wonderful video. You are fantastic at getting the message across. I was mesmerised. Not every professional can teach the ordinary person – you have a wonderful skill. You are just brilliant š
thank you for the video, it was very enjoyable and insightful
"this video is sponsored by… science" – ahaha, I enjoyed it so much, thank you š also, the WH40k reference… š
So … how about catnip?
My vet suggested I try CBD to treat my cat's hyperestesia, which I did and my poor kitty had the worst reaction to it. He caved for 5 hours, and looked scared and confused. I think he got pretty high, while I got really scared and decided to throw that horrible stuff away. At the same time I was trying it on myself as I was going through a stressful time and couldn't sleep, I bought two different bottles, one which was supposedly made specifically for animals and one for us humans, both of them pretty expensive. I have to say I also had a terrible reaction to CBD, I did not relax at all, I felt nauseous and dizzy. This stuff doesn't work, it's a waste of money and I definitely do not recommend it for pets or humans. I hated it and I'm sure my kitty hated it too. There are some trends or 'alternative methods' that are just not worth putting your pet's safety and health at risk, at least in my experience and my humble opinion.
my previous dog was very afraid of thunder, fireworks and everything loud. when she got older this fear was only getting worse. The last two years of her life she got afraid even when she just smelled that it will beging raining and she allways started to tremble like crazy, hyperventilating, drooling and trying to hide. it was actually scary and sad to watch. my gf and i talked to a few different vets about what we could do to help her, but no medicine we gave her helped, for a time we were even giving her medicine which is designed for humans (vet suggestion) which maked her so high she could barelly walk and even though she stoped trembling, you could see she was still afraid, just to high for her body to show usual signs and we stoped with that medicine. when vet suggested cbd droplets we tried and dog visualy calmed and was still able to walk straight. don't get me wrong, she was still on high alert, but she didn't tremble, drool or hyperventilate so as far i'm conserned cbd droplets are awsome, but i do respect and appreciate how you are, or trying to, approache everything from scientific angle and even though my experiance with cbd is great, i couldn't agree more with everything you said. we need more reserch with cbd and thc.