“Why is this okay for your patients but not for your son?”
I think all of us have had a version of that moment.
The appointment where something didn’t sit right. The prescription that felt like it was covering something up rather than fixing it. The quiet voice in the back of your mind asking — is this really the only way?
For those of us on the integrative journey, that moment tends to be the one that started everything.
When I spoke with Sanjit Basak-Smith this week, his version of that moment stopped me cold.
Sanjit grew up inside a veterinary practice — his father opened their family clinic in 1997 and Sanjit has been part of it ever since, starting with kennel work at age five. When Sanjit was about twelve, a doctor recommended steroids for his psoriasis. His father — the veterinarian — said absolutely not. Found a natural alternative instead. Within a couple of months, it had cleared.
That moment stuck with Sanjit.
Years later, working closely alongside his dad in the exam room, he noticed something he couldn’t shake. The same steroid his father had refused for his own son was being prescribed to their patients. Every single day. Not out of carelessness — out of habit. Out of training. Out of not yet knowing there was another way.
So Sanjit asked the question out loud.
“Why is this okay for your patients but not for your son?”
And something shifted.
His father paused. Really paused. And that one question changed the entire trajectory of their practice — from a traditional western clinic to one of the local leaders in integrative care, built around microbiome medicine, regenerative therapies, and root-cause thinking.
Sanjit told me his father was at the point of considering selling the practice before this shift happened. Now he says he probably wouldn’t still be practicing at all if it weren’t for integrative medicine.
I keep coming back to that.
Before you listen — a few things from our conversation I don’t want you to miss.
If your pet doesn’t have diarrhea, it doesn’t mean the gut is fine. Skin issues, chronic allergies, inflammation that keeps coming back — so often it’s rooted in a microbiome that’s out of balance. The gut is a command center for the immune system. When it’s off, it shows up everywhere.
Probiotics are not the same as restoring the microbiome. Probiotics can support a healthy gut. But when there’s dysbiosis — when native bacteria are depleted or missing — a probiotic is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. You need to reintroduce the species that actually belong there. That’s where microbiome testing and fecal transplant come in.
You are allowed to ask questions. If your vet visits feel rushed, if you’re not getting the why behind the treatment plan, if your pet has been on the same medication for years and nobody is talking about what’s underneath — it’s okay to slow down and ask for more. A good practitioner will welcome that conversation.
And if something in this is making you wonder about your own pet — we’d love to hear from you.
Email us at info@integrativepet.com to ask about microbiome testing. Sometimes that one question is the thing that finally changes everything.
We’re here. 💜
— Dr. Lily
Sanjit’s family practice is Monroe Town and Country Veterinary Hospital in Monroe, Connecticut. Microbiome testing is also available directly through Animal Biome at https://www.animalbiome.com/ — they have a vet finder tool to connect you with a practitioner who understands this work.
