It bears repeating that I am not a health or veterinary professional and am not dispensing medical advice in this blog. I am only sharing my own usage experiences and relaying information about herbs and nutrition according to my own understanding.
Neem is an evergreen tree native to India and the surrounding region. It can thrive despite difficult and dry conditions, and resists pests, which begins to hint at its uses. One source of confusion about neem is that the three most commonly used parts are used differently.
Neem oil comes from the fruits and seeds of the tree. It is used agriculturally as a natural pesticide and on people (and animals) usually as a topical (not usually orally ingested) treatment for healing irritated skin and also repelling and killing pests, like lice and mosquitoes. It is also, like the other parts of the tree, antifungal and antibacterial. For these reasons, it is included in soaps and lotions for lice, acne, eczema and other skin irritations. It smells absolutely awful in its pure form, but I have found it very useful for cats who have irritable skin in the summer from fleas or have bad skin reactions to the pharmaceutical flea drops that are usually applied between the shoulders. I put a few drops of neem oil in the same place on two of my cats about once a week, with good results.
Neem leaf also has pest repelling properties, and the dry ground leaves can be sprinkled in the garden to inhibit pests and fungus. It is also used for stomach upsets and to calm hypertension and racing heartbeats. Neem leaf is available in capsule and gelcap form and I personally discovered that it was as effective as omeprazole (generic Prilosec) without side effects and is less expensive to boot, for my acid reflux. Whole dried leave are available, which can be boiled for a tea, which can be used internally or externally. The tea is bitter tasting, but I've used it as an eye wash for cats and as a way to administer it orally to cats, for example Mungo (who cannot be pilled in the same way that Houdini could not be held by chains. I would give him the miniscule gelcaps and rub his throat and chase it with dropperfuls of water and still I would find the thing an hour or so later by the food dish or on the floor, all earning him an additional nickname of "McMurphy".). Neem leaf extract is also available in an alcohol tincture but these are, I learned the hard way, not a good idea for animals More on this as I describe Mungo's experiences below. Acording to the literature, an additional benefit of neem leaf is stabilization of glucose levels, which makes it a benefit to diabetics-however none of my human or feline family members suffer from this problem, so I cannot attest personally to its effects in this area.
Neem bark can be used internally the way neem leaf can, but has properties more specific to digestive disorders (with research demonstrating benefits to ulcers) and also has shown , in lab rats, the ability to inhibit thyroid function, which does not heal the cause of hyperthyroidism but can help treat the symptoms. Neem bark is also useful in dental hygeine, specifically for gum disease. Neem bark is harder to come by than the leaf and oil, but it is possible to order the powder in bulk and make tea or capsules from it. I have been giving it to Mungo lately instead of the neem leaf tea as it is more helpful for the stomach while being less objectionable in taste. I hope that neem bark will soon become more widely available in capsule form, like neem leaf.
When Mungo was having "Freakout Times" during his hyperthyroidism, I found that neem leaf invariably helped him calm down and reduced his vomiting. Trial and error taught me that making a tea of neem leaf and giving it by dropper was the easiest and safest way to get it into his system. He was never able to tolerate the thyroid pills (methimazole) Dr. M prescribed, fighting them violently and often choking them back up. The neem leaf alcohol tinctures also helped the hyperactive attacks but caused him to salivate horribly, and of course the alcohol was terrible for the latent kidney disease. The best treatment was the tiny gelcaps of 'supercritical' neem leaf extract, which did not need to be given as often as teas or tinctures. I didn't discover neem bark until later, after his thyroidectomy.
When Mungo's kidney problems resulted in a GI bleed recently, with dark vomiting and dark stools and constipation, I started giving him neem tea again, first neem leaf but then switching to the bark after a little more reading. It quickly reduced his stomach acids and his stools were back to normal in about four days. Neem bark seems to work very well for feline GI support and, though I didn't know it, is more suited to hyperthyroid problems as well. If I had it to do over again I would have used neem bark tea from the beginning with Mungo, instead of neem leaf. I certainly don't know that it would have made the thyroidectomy unnecessary but there's a chance it might have delayed the need for it, and been more tolerable for him to take flavor-wise.
For the last few weeks, Mungo gets about a 1-ml dropper of neem bark tea a day, and his eyes are washed once or twice a day with neem leaf tea warmed in the microwave for five seconds on a well-dampened tissue. The severe weight loss that accompanies thyroid and kidney disease can make a cat's eyes to get sunken and not drain properly, causing irritation and mucous buildup. The eye cleaning helps keep him comfortable, and since it no doubt reminds him of a maternal kitty tongue-cleaning he also seems to find it comforting.
Mungo also gets slippery elm these days, which will be part of another post. And he also took some proprietary herbal blends for cancer and hyperthyroidism early on, which I will discuss in yet another post. I wanted to talk about neem's various forms and properties in this particular post, as I have found it so useful and cost-effective for myself and for our cats, especially Mungo.
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