Here’s a veterinarian who is doing his part to help pets live longer.
Dr. Gerald Buchoff is a veterinarian in Little Falls, New Jersey, who takes care of animals with holistic medicine and chiropractic treatment.
“Holistic medicine, by definition, means conventional plus alternative,” he told Dylan Dreyer on Friday’s 3rd hour of TODAY. “So we’re not just talking about me doing treatments and diagnoses that are off the wall or different, but the therapy is where things diverge.”
He also said the treatment is not limited in scope.
“Dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, we see everything,” he said.
Buchoff even gave Dylan’s 11-year-old schnauzer, Bosco, a chiropractic adjustment.
“It’s like a spring-loaded mallet, and it pushes on the vertebrae and also on the pelvis and it actually turns on or opens ganglia nerve switches,” he said. “I am essentially optimizing the flow of information in Bosco.”
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“I find chiropractic great for not only treatment, but also for prevention,” he added.
Buchoff started practicing holistic veterinary medicine 25 years ago. He analyzed records from his career and discovered that animals who received holistic treatment lived 40% longer than those from his time as a traditional veterinarian.
Buchoff offers a wide range of other services, acupuncture, cold laser therapy and biophotonic — or ozone — blood treatments, which he said helps blood cells heal animals.
Jackie Morrone’s 10-year-old Maltese, Mochi, was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma by a conventional veterinarian this summer, so she elected to take him in for holistic treatment over chemotherapy and says the results have been spectacular.
“He has been the most active I’d ever seen him, after four weeks of treatment,” she said. “It’s not just hokeypokey stuff. It actually is effective.”
Buchoff said there are small steps people can take to keep their pets healthy, including brushing their coats with a slicker brush each day and brushing their teeth on a daily basis. He also recommends thumping their thymus 10 taps each day and wiping their paws when they come in the house.
Holistic treatment does not cost much more than traditional veterinary services and pet insurance may cover some of it because it's not considered preventative care.
Oh, and how did Bosco like her experience? Dylan said the holistic approach "kind of gives her a lot more energy."
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