In this section:

* Disclaimer- Please click here or scroll down to the bottom of this page to read this important message before proceeding onto the site. It is critical that the reader understand the limitations of receiving medical advice from Internet sites. Although this advice can be accurate, life-altering, and even life-saving, it should never be treated as a replacement for an accurate diagnosis and never be looked upon as a total substitute for proper medical care.

* Welcome Message by Dogtor J. - This is my way of welcoming you to my site. This message should give you a good idea of what you are in for here at DogtorJ.com. The mission statement should be clear: to give you much needed information about critical food issues and how they relate to the conditions that are affecting people and their pets. In addition, I hope to have you see how "cool" the body is and how it never makes a mistake (that's right..never) and only produces symptoms and suffers from dysfunction when there has been a very good reason. Unfortunately, that reason has been what we have done to it. Sound like a holistic approach? Well, if the elimination of wheat and dairy means that you can come off of four different medications that you have been on for 5-10 years and feel better than you have in 30 years, and that is "HOLISTIC" medicine, then so be it. I call it medicine at its best!!!

* Site Map- (New as of 3/07) Here it is, the long-awaited site map with click on links to all of the contents of DogtorJ.com. I hope this makes it easier to find your favorite articles.                 

Welcome

Welcome to DogtorJ.com. This site was established on August 14, 2001 and will be undergoing major reconstruction in the near future. This the second of my two self-made Websites, both created to simply share my story, research, and thoughts with clients, friends, and family. I didn't know that within a few short years, I would be doing Internet consultations for a wide variety of illnesses...and species.      

If this is your first trip to this site, it won't take long for you to see that it is a bit different from most medical sites. Not many that I have come across try to tackle the whole of health care- that of pets and their owners. But, once the reader spends a little time reading the pages and essays placed here, they will see why such an undertaking of almost epic proportion was a natural and rewarding thing to attempt.

But let me say this right up front. I am well aware that the readers of my work fall into two main categories: those that love my style of writing and those that find it hard to take. I am the first to admit that I love to hear myself talk as much as anyone on the planet. My Mom explains that, as a baby, my tongue was tied down and after it was "released", I never shut up. My fourth grade teacher who gave me the "D" in conduct will attest to that. But even that part of my personality ties right into this site. I use the word "passion". Some readers use other descriptive terms.

My style of writing is meant to be conversational to a great extent. If you don't care for it, then I am truly sorry but I hope that you can still glean something useful from the site. Much of how I express myself arose from the constant comments from my veterinary clients over the years. Most were very positive when I launched into an explanation of the body and how it related to the condition at hand. They were shocked to have a doctor who actually talked to them. They seemed to genuinely appreciate it.

But, talk about pouring gas on a fire. Whoa! This gave me free reign to ramble on and forced me into a thirty minute (or longer...."How much time do you have???") office calls. Little did I know that I was being prepared for the biggest lecture- the most important teaching engagement- of my life: You guys...the readers! Each lecture I gave was carefully filed away in this brain of mine to be built upon and reorganized into the essays that now fill these pages. Long? Yes. Boring? Perhaps, but they certainly weren't meant to be, not any more than a novel that is filled with lengthy descriptions in order to set the reader up for the next important event.

I promise to add page and article summaries in the near future, but I do have mixed emotions about that. In this day of fast-food mentality, much of the wonder and wisdom that life has to offer is missed. Our bodies suffer from the convenience foods and our minds suffer right along with it. I will not editorialize too much right here because most of you know the powerful truth behind this simple statement.

Again, I apologize for the homemade nature of this site when it comes to some scrolling and reading the text of these pages. The fact is that this is exactly what the Website is...a homemade site. It started out as a place where I could put my first food handout and a few of the exam room lectures so that my clients could go here and recover from the barrage of information shot at them in the exam room. They could log on, enter the site, regroup, and actually assimilate some of the facts and ideas that I bombarded them with in that 30 minute dissertation. "Humble beginnings" is the term to apply to this site, I believe. I was pleasantly surprised at the initial response and I am now pleasantly shocked at what it has turned into, with the site now getting over 35,000 page views per month.

And, I am very encouraged by the degree of positive feedback and will do all that I can to improve this site, making it more accessible and readable. It will at some point require a total overhaul but I have been able to upgrade it recently to include more pages, which has allowed the use of click-on links to most of the papers. I also added a Site Map in 3/07 that permits the reader to see all of the different papers and sections on one page.

So for now, please try to put up with the centered text and the love affair that you've been forced into with your mouse. I also suggest that you consider copying and pasting the selected text to a word processing program and printing it out if you would like a hard copy. People have asked whether that violates my copyrights. My answer is "Only if you claim that you wrote it...and who would want to do that? LOL"  Plus, you can then give it to someone else who needs it (and they are everywhere) when you're finished with it. 

So, who is "DogtorJ"?  My name is John B. Symes, D.V.M. and I am a veterinarian with over 28 years of clinical experience. I graduated from the Auburn University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1979 and followed that with an internship at Boston's Angell Memorial Animal Hospital. I am licensed in four states in the U.S. I do have a small but quite busy one-man practice that I happily go to at least five days a week. I have one wonderful wife of 26 years of marriage, two teenagers, and 6 pets, all adopted from the hospital. I am a real person with a real degree and a real life, just like all of you. I have had major medical problems in the past, all of which now make perfectly good sense and most of which are now completely gone. I am prescription drug-free for the first time in my adult life and have been since 2001. The papers on this site explain how this could be.

It is my hope that this Website will offer the reader the opportunity to learn about the newest approach to both veterinary and human medical care: The elimination of things rather than the addition of more drugs and expensive supplements. This will be accomplished through its emphasis on the role of nutrition in the prevention and treatment of the diseases and conditions that afflict our pets and us. What you don't know can hurt you and blissful ignorance of the detrimental effects of the ingredients in our and the pet's diet is a prime example.

So, as an added "bonus" to the focus on veterinary care, you will gain much needed information concerning the origins of many of the conditions that threaten human health. This is especially true in my main paper, The Answer. Your pets will teach you some surprisingly vital lessons in the origins, pathophysiology, and management of many of the conditions that they have in common with their owners.

Most of the diseases that people suffer from also occur in our beloved pets. Diabetes, arthritis, thyroid problems, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel diseases, and cancer are just a small sampling of such conditions. The similarities are startling and much can be learned from examining these correlations.

Through the essays, FAQs, summaries, and links provided, I will try to cover this vast topic in such a way that you will be able to better understand the serious illnesses that plague both man and animals. The ideas, facts, and conclusions may surprise you at first, but the most common response to this information has been how much sense it makes. It is logical. It will make sense, even to those who are not medically inclined. Sure, there is a fair amount of "medspeak" involved, but I will be more than willing to explain anything that requires clarification. Please write to me anytime.

So, get ready for the ride of a lifetime. The research I have done on the subject of food allergies, intolerances, and additives has uncovered some amazing things that will change your life and the way you look at your refrigerator and your pet's food bowl. I have studied everything from Alzheimer's to Zinc deficiency with an intensity that eclipses all efforts in my previous years of academia. Added to that were a number of trips into our medical history in an attempt to unravel the mystery of how we ended up as a technologically advanced super-power with such severe medical problems.

For now, I would direct the reader to the papers found on this site. First, I would have you read Gluten Intolerance and Your Pet, found in the Food Intolerance in Animals and Man section. It is approximately four pages long. This article was recently published in the newsletter of www.celiac.com in response to questions concerning celiac disease in pets. It has also been reprinted in a few magazines and periodicals. The answer I gave to this question may surprise you. This paper also serves as a prelude to my main paper, The Answer, by exposing the reader to many of the basic concepts of food intolerance that play such a vital role in the downward spiral of our health.

Next, I would direct you to The G.A.R.D. Made Simple found in the The G.A.R.D. section. This paper is about 5 pages long and is a summary style article that describes the cascade of events that follows the damage done to the intestinal tract by the "big 4" (gluten, casein, soy, ands corn). It also lists many of the secondary factors that dove-tail with these food issues to produce syndromes like epilepsy, autism, fibromylgia, ADHD, insomnia, and even neurodegenerative diseases such as MS, ALS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. You will see the vital role that serotonin, viruses, and lectins play in the development of these all too common conditions that are now reaching epidemic proportions.

One of my favorite aspects of this work has been the response of epileptics to "The G.A.R.D.". In my paper Idiopathic Epilepsy- The Dietary Solution, I chronicle the discovery of the glutamate-aspartate restricted diet and describe how it's application yielded absolutely amazing results, completely halting seizures in the vast majority of my idiopathic epileptic patients. The responses have continued to be as dramatic, while being nearly instantaneous and permanent in most cases. The paper explores the likely pathomechanism behind this otherwise "idiopathic" condition. I describe the thought processes behind this discovery while offering a valid medical explanation for nearly all aspects of this serious and often times debilitating medical condition. The proof has been in the results, with close to 100% of my patients either becoming quickly seizure-free or at least showing marked improvement, even in cases when the pet was brought in to be put to sleep for refractory seizures. This condition is actually a "done deal" as far as I'm concerned, but it will be on the rise in the near future without this knowledge due to recent changes in the food industry. This paper explains how that could be so but at the same time how it should be easily prevented.

The third in the original trilogy is Pain, Pain, Go Away. It deals with the physiology of pain and hits many of the dietary high points found in The Answer. It will give the reader some real ammo in their battle against this often-debilitating symptom and can be found in the Pain Management section described below. I just wrote it on Sunday January 13th from 7 AM to 7 PM. I read through it once and published it to the site. This is how I do things, love it or hate it. The fact is that I did not pursue academy because I dreaded writing. I never wanted to get into the "publish or perish" world of the scribes of this world. However, as these essays will show, I was "Shang Hai'd". Suddenly I had a message that had to be shared. It had to be done. I look back on the past two years and ask, "What just happened here?"

So, I don't claim to be a writer. I am one by default (or something like that). I now really enjoy writing, but I hate to proof read. So, I'm halfway there. Ha, ha. I will eventually get to all of the typos and syntax errors, but please do not let them distract you to the point that you miss the message. Hey, have you tried to read the King James Bible, the Torah, or the Koran recently? Takes a little time if you want to dig out what they really have to offer, doesn't it?

One of the newest section is the one dedicated to the raw diet, an up and coming concept (no pun intended) in the feeding of our pets. This section was conceived after I received a number of Emails from breeders either asking me for advice in this area or telling me that I needed to provide this information on my site. I can take a hint, so I decided to dedicate a section to this concept, but with a twist. I am going to have the readers write this section. I hope to have those who are well versed in this idea contribute their knowledge to this part of DogtorJ.com. I will also provide links to those sites that have pertinent information on the raw diet, including www.barfworld.com, the site of Dr. Billinghurst, the founder of the B.A.R.F. diet (biologically appropriate raw foods). I am also hoping to have him write a few comments personally.

The next section under development is Pain and Diet. In this area, I will cover what I have found to be one of the most rewarding aspects of human and veterinary health to treat, that of chronic pain. It has never ceased to amaze me to find what people (and pets) will endure in their travels through time and in the illnesses that they experience. People seem to be able to exist with depression, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disturbances, and even life threatening illnesses. But, what seems to drag them down most is chronic pain. No one wants to cope with that for very long without some kind of therapy or hope for help. Well, I am here to tell you that there is a tremendous amount that one can do to improve pain tolerance. Once the reader understands the forces behind epilepsy, the glutamate and aspartate (the neurostimulants), then they will also understand just what it is that is affecting the pain center of the brain, making it overly sensitive. Pain relief may be as easy as dropping that soy supplement or those diet drinks. It has happened many times in my practice. This section will explain these "phenomena" in great detail. As previously mentioned, I have just added Pain, Pain Go Away. This paper is another "How this happened to me and how and why I recovered" type of story. It also serves as a synopsis of The Answer but with about 30 less pages. You can stop clapping now. Ha ha.

Finally, I have now published my 40-plus page paper entitled The Answer- to "Why is the Plane of Our Nation's Health in a Death Spiral?" to this site. It is a work in progress, but is in a stage of completeness worthy of being on the site. It is the culmination of nearly two years of research on the subject of food-related disorders and contains an amazing amount of facts that have been hidden from public view concerning this subject. How certain foods came into being and common usage and how they directly relate to such conditions as epilepsy, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, ADHD, pain syndromes, depression, allergies. Severe immune-mediated diseases like diabetes, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis are also covered. It is getting to be quite long, but there is truly no way to shorten this vital information. Like I tell my clients, "There is no law that you have to read it all in one sitting. Think of it as a free, short book rather than a long research paper. It's all how you look at it, right?" This information WILL change your life...guaranteed!!!

One of the newest sections to be added is Appetizers. Although I am philosophically against the continution of the "fast food" mentality that has possessed us all, I offer this section as a compromise. I do realize that many people think they don't have the time to read a lengthy paper like the ones above. Again, I do try to get those with limited time to view these papers as free, short books rather than long research papers. But when surfing the net, many of us naturally allot only a certain amount of time per site before moving on. For those, I offer these tidbits of information concerning the more serious conditions afflicting man and his pets in an attempt to stimulate their appetite for more... thus, the name "appetizers". These few paragraphs on the topics ranging from ADHD to Sickle cell disease are not meant to be full explanations of the subject but rather a stimulating introduction into that condition in hopes of driving the reader into a more in-depth look at these critical issues. The points made in this section represent many of the highlights of the exam room lectures I have given over the years to illustrate both the perfection of our body and the short-sightedness of man in dealing with his afflictions. Believe it or not, this medical dilemma that we face does all make sense.

Just know this: I am attempting to share this vital information with all mankind. It is intended to help every person and animal that it possibly can. I have no ulterior motive and no desire for fame or fortune to come from this. It is simply my God-given mission. You will note that there are no sponsors and nothing to buy here. The information is free for the taking.

I sincerely hope that you will get something very valuable from your time spent here and that you will return frequently for the regularly scheduled updates. The site is in a dynamic state as I attempt to add information as I acquire it and try to improve accessibiiity. This is in great part due to your feedback.

Please do take try to your time here. I know that this is a lot to digest but I do believe that you will be rewarded by attempting to understand the material rather than simply grasping for a quick fix. And please write to me with any questions or comments that you may have, especially concerning the epilepsy work. This is my passion as I have now seen miracles happen and I know that these are just the beginning. It may take a little while to get back to you, but I will try my best.  

"Be not ignorant of this one thing": Your health is much more in your hands than you have ever believed, certainly more than most of you have ever had explained to you. That is the mission of DogtorJ.com. I hope this Website carries out that mission to your greatest benefit. If not, then I haven't done my job........yet! :)

Dogtor J.
Read "Food Intolerance- Man and Animals versus Gluten, Casein, Soy and Corn OR How We Won the Battle of Helm's Deep"