'Kathy's Experience Using Homeopathy For Arthritis'

 
If this helps someone else's dog I'll be very pleased.  
 
The reason I first tried homoeopathy was I had a 4yr old Bernese Mountain Dog, Ty, with severely arthritic hips. He was the love of my life and I didn't know if it was fair to let him suffer.
He was on high doses of painkillers and steroids and getting acupuncture every 2 weeks and swimming 3 times a week. Despite all this I dreaded winter coming as he got so much worse and the previous winter he needed to be helped up because he was so stiff- and he wasn't even fully matured yet!  
 
A Bernese breeder, Marie Steele, kept telling me to try homoeopathy and I kept thinking 'what's the point, if all these strong drugs don't work why would homoeopathy?'  
 
I moved house and there was a homoeopathic chemist amongst the local shops.  It was September and I was beginning to get very frightened about what was going to happen to my beloved boy, so I spoke to her and she told me that homoeopathy could definitely help.  She said that she would suggest I give him Hecla Lava 30c.
 
I've checked back and she told me to give him 1 a day for one week every month for the first 3 months, then 2 days every month for the next three months, unless he didn't need them any more - i.e. he wasn't at all stiff when he got up from lying down.
 
She said that Hecla Lava would, over time, break down the calcification in the joints which was causing the pain and stiffness. She asked whether he was stiff getting up, then loosened off after he'd been walking about or whether he was better when he got up and stiffened up after he's been walking.  I asked why and she said she was going to recommend one of 2 remedies to manage the pain and stiffness until the Hecla Lava had done it's job which would probably take several months.
 
The remedies were Rhus Tox 6c if he was stiff getting up then improved with moving around, or Bryonia 6c if he was OK when he got up but got worse for movement.  Ty was very stiff getting up but got better with movement so the chemist gave me Rhus Tox 6c and said to give him one every day that he was stiff and sore but if I saw improvement stop.  If he got worse give the Rhus Tox that day, so every day I watched him get up.  If he was better than yesterday he didn't get Rhus Tox, if he was worse he got it.  
 
By the end of December he was off all his steroids and painkillers and was so improved I was flabbergasted!  And overjoyed!!
He was even off the RhusTox!
 
In January the weather was bad and he was a bit stiff a couple of mornings so I gave him the Rhus Tox.
 
In February I went to Crufts and spoke to George McLeod MRCVS (who was at that time the leading homoeopathic vet in the UK) and asked him if I could get him to where he didn't even need the Rhus Tox 6c.  He said give Rhus Tox 30c instead and sure enough I only gave that 3 or 4 more times over a period of months.  
 
By April Ty was playing and running in the park with my other dogs. He lived until he was 10 when he got stomach cancer and sadly had to be pts - but he lived a good life almost completely pain/stiffness free!