Should you use colloidal silver (CS) on your dog?

I was thrilled to see Dogs Naturally Magazine DNM giving colloidal silver (CS) the thrashing it richly deserves in a recent blog article.  Despite the favorable reputation that this magazine enjoys, it usually offers very little useful information.  What it does mostly is confuse dog owners and sell harmful remedies and dietary additives.  But this time DNM deserves a little credit.  Knowing their track record, I’m suspicious that they may have some cure-all magic potion that they recommend over CS.  But, for now, I am grateful for their objective treatment of this one topic. 

What is colloidal silver?

Apart from the negative opinion of CS, the article also does a good job of describing the various marketed incarnations of CS.  So, I won’t be doing any of that.  If you’re curious, please have a look at the article.  My article is going to be a further condemnation of CS and a critique of DNM’s perspective.  In the latter, I’ll be revealing how DNM shows a bit of hypocrisy in condemning CS. 

Briefly, for our purposes here, I’ll just define it as tiny silver particles suspended in a liquid or gelatinous medium that is touted for its “natural, curative” properties. 

Colloidal Silver is not “holistic”

Colloidal silver features prominently in the arsenal of the typical “holistic” minded dog-owner.  True holism, however, involves determining what’s CAUSING a problem.  It’s definitely not just smearing some suppressive agent on it and hoping it goes away.  That’s what “holism” does, as it is currently practiced in the “alternative health community”.  It’s just a kinder, gentler form of medical reductionism, and it makes all the same mistakes.  And DNM is normally a big advocate of suppressing symptoms with “natural” remedies and potions.  That’s why their withering review of CS was unexpected.  CS IS “natural”, after all. 

To better understand what CS is really doing when it’s used, let’s take a look at some of the symptoms it is used for.  For each symptom, I’ll offer an explanation of what’s going on with the symptom, and why just stopping it is not the best course of action.  In its article, DNM says CS can:

 Kill bacteria, including some antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Why would we want to kill bacteria?  If they’re there, they are needed by the body because they have a function to perform.  Bacteria, being necrophages, eat dead matter. If they are present in larger numbers than we would like, we need only decrease their food supply.  Food supply determines population numbers in all living organisms, including very tiny ones. To just kill them solves nothing.  It also stops a beneficial process and creates more of a problem. Even “natural” antibiotics do this!

 Control some fungi and yeasts, including Candida and ringworm

Control the food supply and you will control the microorganism population.  Wastes coming through the skin cause “ringworm”, not fungi or yeasts.  Bacteria, fungi and yeasts are always on site where the waste is, ready to be blamed for whatever we want to blame them for.  They’re really there for a very important reason – to fix a problem.  They’re doing us a favor by consuming what would otherwise quickly accumulate to unmanageable levels (waste).

Manage skin inflammation, infections and rashes

Why “manage”, when we can remove causes and allow the body to resolve these problems completely?  Inflammation is not a mistake!  It is a life-saving mechanism that the body employs to bring heat, fluids, and other resources to an area where healing needs to be accomplished.  It only does this because waste in the bloodstream is interfering with healing.  Inflammation is the body’s effort to get the waste out so healing can commence.  It requires understanding and cooperation, not silver particles suspended in a liquid. 

 Heal burn and wound infections

Do you notice it is not the burns and wounds themselves that CS is being used for?  Rather, it’s the subsequent “infections”.  That’s because nothing except the body itself can heal burns and wounds.  And the body produces “infection” in its efforts to heal. 

“Infection”, so-called, is just inflammation.  It occurs because of waste in the bloodstream, not because of microorganisms.  The microorganisms do not bring the waste.  Do flies bring garbage, do mosquitos bring stagnant water, do ants bring the picnic?  No, they are all there by invitation.

 Fight eye infections like conjunctivitis

Don’t be bamboozled by the medical industry’s penchant for giving the same exact condition a different name depending on where it occurs in or on the body.  “Itis” means inflammation.  Its location does not matter, inflammation is always the same thing.  And it always requires the same response:  Removal of cause!

 Fight E coli and cholera bacteria

It should be obvious by now that it is folly to attempt to make war on the microscopic world.  Humanity and all other life forms have lived harmoniously with microorganisms for millions of years.  They greatly outnumber us.  If they really had it in for us, they’d have killed us off long before the extremely misguided ‘war on germs’ became a thing.

 Manage sinus infections (as a nasal spray or rinse)

Sinus “infection” is also called “sinusitis”.  There’s that “itis” suffix again.  We know what that means, we know what causes it and we therefore know how to resolve it without remedies.  And here once again we get to the crux of the hypocrisy in DNM’s condemnation of CS.  They are not recognizing that even if it weren’t for the unique negative effects of using CS, it still would not be beneficial because its only function is to kill bacteria.  Bacteria do not CAUSE the problem of “infection”.  They are nature’s innocent, hard-working, life-preserving trash collectors. 

 Some studies suggest it may help control viruses like HIV and Hepatitis C. And it may cause apoptosis (cell death) in certain cancer cells.

Viruses are not microorganisms and they do not need to be “controlled”.  Very simply, they are spent particles of cellular debris.  They are a natural part of the cellular disintegration that occurs millions of times every day in every living organism.  The cell is the “house” for the DNA.  When it can no longer continue to exist in its present form, the DNA breaks it down.  It sends the used particles of the former cell out to be recycled by other cells.  The remaining unrecyclable particles go out as waste.  In misfed, vaccinated and medicated dogs, cellular death is accelerated.  So, more viruses are actually produced in the body.  But this is only harmful to the extent that they add to the overall waste load.

Cells get old and die, just like everything else

Cellular death happens naturally, too.  So “viruses” are a normal, natural part of life.  In themselves, they are never harmful.  It’s never necessary to fear them or do battle with them.  Our job is only to make sure our dogs live in accordance with their biological adaptations.  That way, their cells can live out their full potential.

Cancer is self-preservation

There is no need to “kill” cancer cells, either.  The body creates cancer cells deliberately.  It does this when the internal environment is polluted and oxygen-deprived.  Cancer is the body’s attempt to save the life of the organism by turning cells that rely on oxygen into the kinds of cells that do not require it.  It’s not a mistake, just like inflammation is not a mistake.  The proper response is not to kill these cells, because cancer only “spreads” when its causes continue.  It is best to understand why the body converted them and take away its REASONS.  That’s all I’ll say about cancer here.  If you want to know how to give your dog his best shot at preventing or reversing cancer, please read this article. 

The harm that colloidal silver does

What the DNM article says about the harmful “side” effects of CS is true, so I won’t reiterate.  But let’s just look more closely at what the article says about what happens when CS gets into cells: 

“Once in the cell, silver can disrupt DNA and its replication”. 

What this means is that rather than the DNA molecule being able to sustain and replicate itself, as only DNA can, CS stops or impedes that process.  For the sake of “controlling” something that’s already dead (“viruses”), or killing something that actually performs an important function in the body (microorganisms), we’re going to stop our dog’s very own DNA from being able to sustain their very lives?  Doesn’t make much sense to me.

“Suppressive medicine”

Here DNM trips on itself again.  They call CS “suppressive medicine”, and they seem to understand what that means:

Holistic vets warn against using suppressive medicines to treat your dog. Suppressive medicines may relieve symptoms … but they drive disease deeper. And it often comes back … in a more dangerous form.

Absolutely true.  However, they seem to forget that all the substances that they deem “beneficial”, and actually sell, do the same thing.  Here’s an article where they list 10 things that, in reality, should absolutely not go into a dog.  These include various oils, garlic and turmeric.  But these are wholeheartedly recommended by DNM because of their “antibacterial” properties. 

And in the next sentence, DNM again shows its hypocrisy:

Because of colloidal silver’s antibacterial effects, it’s highly suppressive. That means it may not cure your dog. And it could cause a problem that’s worse than the one you started with.

They are calling CS “suppressive” because of its antibacterial properties.  If that’s the case, the products in their article above need to be on that list too.  No matter how innocent they may seem, if they are used to stop a symptom and they are effective, it’s because they gave the body a distracting influence to deal with.  That’s precisely what drugs do, only more harmfully.  Stopping symptoms stops healing, irrespective of the additional harm caused by the substance.

All of medicine is suppressive

If someone were to suggest that a dog owner go home, begin feeding their dog properly and fast him when he’s symptomatic, that person would patently NOT be practicing medicine.  That’s just good common sense.  Such a quality is missing from all forms of medicine.  And that includes what passes for “holistic” medicine.  The only way that “holistic medicine” could truly BE holistic is if it were to do what I do.  I simply tell people how to remove the causes of their dogs’ diseases. 

In this article, DNM quotes veterinary homeopath Dr. Dee Blanco:

“Modern day homeopaths understand that use of colloidal silver poses two dangers … and probably more. First, the suppression of the symptoms, driving the disease deeper. This isn’t a curative response.” 

I wonder if Dr. Blanco would call stopping a cough with Manuka honey “suppressive”.  Or stopping allergy symptoms with quercetin, sometimes referred to as “nature’s Benadryl”.  These things are also “suppressive”.  Remember, DNM itself set the definition of “suppressive” as being anything that is “antibacterial”.  In my view, it’s not only that characteristic which makes a substance “suppressive”.  It’s also the inappropriateness of the ‘food’, which gives the body one more useless thing to eliminate.  Nearly all of the products DNM sells fall into this category.    

“Over-use of colloidal silver causes suppression and toxicity in the body. These must be treated in order to find a deep and permanent cure for the patient.”

Dr. Blanco seems to think that toxicity requires “treatment”.  It doesn’t.  It requires only that the source of the toxicity be stopped permanently.  Then the body can clean up the mess and heal itself.  Nothing except food that aligns with an organism’s biological adaptations can help with this process.  And sometimes even that can complicate matters.  That’s why extended fasting is sometimes needed.  The miracles that fasting accomplishes is another topic we won’t be hearing DNM talk about any time soon, I daresay.

The remainder of DNM’s article mainly lists the maladies that CS is used for and pushes their products.  Hotspots, for example, are best treated with “Manuka Honey Wound Care” ($36) or “Full Spectrum Hemp Salve” ($46), according to DNM.  And then when the hotspot comes back in 6 months or a year, you should not worry about the repeated suffering you’ve caused your dog by not doing the right thing last time.  DNM sure isn’t worried about that.  It seems their only goal is to sell their kinder, gentler suppressive products.

Well, at least we can be grateful that they gave Colloidal Silver the treatment it deserved.   🙂