Orange, Muscous-Y Poop

[Guest RMarie]

His TLI is higher than the normal range, so he has too much enzymatic activity, not a deficiency.

 

I found the chart on page 2 helpful: http://www.bearscampnewfs.com/health/Antech%20News/Antech%205-99.pdf

 

James' results would fall in row 3, with Increased, decreased, and decreased, indicating pancreatitis and/or small intestine disease.

Edited December 6, 2013 by RMarie

[Burpdog]

Did they test it once or twice? Did they do a PLI test?

 

Sending prayers!

[Guest RMarie]

Thanks!

 

It was tested once. And no, no PLI test, yet. Since he has to fast again for the ultrasound, I'll call and inquire about doing a PLI test (might as well take advantage of no food (and boy does he hate missing breakfast!)). They may want to see if the ultrasound shows any inflammation.

 

Given his recent weight loss, I was prepared for the mal-absorption...but not the high enzymes. That threw me for a loop.

[Guest RMarie]

James' ultrasound was normal. Since he's been having soft poops these last few days, despite still being on sulfasalazine, the vet gave us Tylan powder. She also gave him a B12 shot. I guess the effects are supposed to last several weeks.

 

Anyone have any experience with a B12 shot?

[Guest AngelPup]

Good news that the ultrasound was normal, but not very helpful in determing what's causing the soft poops. Hopefully the Tylan powder will do the trick! Brady is still on Flagyl--still haven't been able to completely wean him off it. Right now we're at 1/2 pill daily. When we adopted our second grey a month go, she started having soft stools, so I took her to the vet with a stool sample. Everything looked good so the vet gave us a new pro/prebiotoc called Protegrity GI for her. It got her quickly back on track so I dediced to try it with Brady even though he didn't seem to improve when I gave him the FortiFlora a while back. After a few days, his poops looked the best that I've seen. I'm hoping that it will help me wean him off the Flagyl and then I can cut back on the Protegrity (it's VERY expensive).

[Guest OPointyDog]

Our guy Mika gets B12 shots. He also had horrible, horrible diarrhea for months and was losing weight. We tried so many kinds of food, including the hypoallergenic hydrolized food. High end, grain free, organic, Iams, novel proteins - we tried it all! Everything just ran through him. He was also negative for SIBO but showed B12 deficiencies. Flagyl and Tylan powder had no effect. What FINALLY worked was to put him on a high fiber prescription food (Purina DCO in this case). It was a miracle - the poop firmed up immediately. It bounces!! It took a few months, but his coat improved and he clearly felt better and put the weight back on.

 

He's been on B12 shots for awhile. We gave him a shot (1mL) once a month for 3 months, and then re-tested. His levels improved, but were still a bit low, so then we did a shot once a month for 6 months. He's due to be retested in January. They are pretty easy to give.

 

My guess is that our guy needs the fiber balanced food to slow the movement of food through his intestines. The slower movement means he's absorbing more nutrients and water, and thus the poop is firm and his nutrition has improved. I was completely dubious when our vet suggested the high fiber food, but was pleasantly surprised at how well it works!!

[Guest RMarie]

Thanks, OPointyDog. We haven't gone through as many foods as you have, but a while back I had a hunch James needed more fiber from his food so I switched him to Blue Basics grain-free turkey and potato. I never would have thought a grain-free food would have higher fiber than grain-full...non-grain-free...whatever...food, but it has 7% fiber, which is on the high end of most non-Rx foods I've researched. I also liked that it's limited ingredient. DH has jinxed us now, though, as he recently bought the large bag of Blue Basics. This is the ultimate curse. EVERY time we buy the large bag of whatever we're feeding him, James' gut decides 'nope, this food is no good now.' One of the other non-Rx, high fiber foods I found is Wellness Core grain-free reduced fat formula. It has 8.5% fiber. But, it's for weight loss, which is the opposite of what we're trying to achieve, but I'm not sure if that really matters as long as he is able to digest and absorb the nutrients.

 

Right now, I just want him to gain some weight. He's a very petite boy. Being underweight really shows on him.

[Guest OPointyDog]

Purina DCO is 10% fiber - and balanced between soluble and insoluble. It's worked very well for Mika. We were astonished after all the months of runny poop! I do give him a few spoonfuls of wet dog food (Newman's Own Beef Organic food that is just beef!) to up the protein a bit. Our other dog has little flare-ups of diarrhea sometimes, and I sometimes just toss a handful of the DCO in with her Iams, and it seems to firm her right up. So you could see about getting a small bag of some Rx food and just tossing some in with his other food to increase the fiber and see if that helps.

[greyhead]

RMarie, Spencer got B-12 shots for intestinal malabsorption (indicated by normal folate, low cobalamin). We gave the shots at home, after the first one at the vet's office, since they're just sub-q and easy to give. IIRC he got 2 per week the first week or two, then once a week for a month, then twice a month for two months, then monthly. A bottle of B-12 is really inexpensive, he got 1cc per shot, and you just need to be sure you have a skinny needle -- we used 25gauge -- because the network of nerves that you need to miss across the back and shoulders is actually much more intricate than that of a cat! (By comparison, we used a larger 20g needle to give sub-q fluids to our CRF cat.)

 

Maybe with the folate also being low in your case, giving B-complex shots would be better than just B-12 for the longer term. Sorry, it has been several years since we dealt with this, and I frankly can't remember all the issues clearly.

Edited December 22, 2013 by greyhead