RobinM

negative, but im feeling the urge to start..... I know what you mean, with this thing going on with Beau, I thought about numbng myself. I would never do it, but it scared me that I thought about it. it's all very very stressful. Much hugs to you Tom. She will be OK.

How wonderful. He is precious and brought a huge smile to my face. Congrats and best of luck.

Hard to believe it's a year, on the otherhand it feels like forever. It must feel that way for you too.

OHHHH Normal! What a wonderful word. Normal is greyt!

Hoping that Monty has an easy time of it. Always thinking of you both.

Well the Drontal Plus is good! That will get tapes, rounds, hooks, and whips. When did he get that? Was there any improvement then? We gave that Sat eve and no change. He was worse Sundany, Monday and Tuesday. We eally need to keep him on ONE, food. I have said that for the past 3 weeks and then he stops eating. He won't eat the exiotics like duck, rabbit, venson, all those things (I DON'T BLAME HIM!) He is much like his mother Polli- the PITA eater. Chicken. Period. Unreal.

Vet will not give Panacur. We've done 6 fecals in total. 1 round of Drontal Plus and Flagyl for weeks.

Spoke to vet again. She explained the whole bx thing to me and Dh so we have a much better understanding of it. We will not start the pred, if until after we bx as if it is lymphona we won't be able to do chemo and it's very treatable with chemo. She said give him whatever he will eat. We have literally 40++ cans of ne foods, Raw packaged, and almpost every royal canin, Hills SD brand in addition to EVO, Wellness, PP Senstive, PP chicken Purina one and I'm sure there are a few I missed and the only thing I felt he would eat is chicken. Vet said give him whatever he wants. Sure enough, gave him chicken and he eats it. She said if he gets explosive D, call her. He is off everything but prilisec and carafate for now. Test results could be in as early as tomorrow. CBC was normal. it's not the weight per say, it's really the spine so prominint, his face looks sunken and his whole shape looks like he has lost more than he has. So many people have said, Wow, he's lost a lot of weight. Up til 15 minutes ago, he was only licking whatever I put out maybe 3 times and would walk away, never to return. Vet said I should give him what he will eat- he ate chicken. We shall see if it irritates him again. I hope no, it's the only thing he likes. He also has had D for a while and this has gotten progressively worse since Thanksgiving.

Agreed. Once you get some food into them they usually begin eating on their own again. And Nutri-Cal paste always does wonders for Teagan when he tries to go on a hunger strike. If they think it is still an inflammatory issue or IBS, I would put him on prednisone. Before doing the biopsy, please try some Panacur. We did Drontal Plus, vet is done with that. Does this mean you are leaving food out for the dogs? How do you know Beau is not eating when you aren't looking? ~Lindsay~ Nope, never. I was standing right there.

He is currently below 62. (he was 62 yesterday) His ideal weight is 65 although he has never really gotten there. He's topped out at 64.5 but somehow he looks emaciated. Vet was surprised he weighed as much as he did. His racing weight is 63.5 Sigh. Beau won't drink anything other than water. If it has lumps in it, he won't drink it.

Yes, they do use that as an appeite stim for cats and I found out during the 4th of July when I needed to sedate Polli- she ate like a FIEND. So, yes that worked for Polli but when we gave the other 3 valium, other than mellowing them out, it did nothing for them.

Yesterday he was 62. He hasn't eaten. So, I am sure he is less now. Today he woke up with gurgly stomach- even though he is still on prilesec. e gave him one prilesec today, one carafate and one 250 mg flagyl. Tests for pancreatic enzymes, B12 and SIBO take 7 - 10 days, they were done yesterday. Just put out food for Beau and Polli and they both took off in opposite directions. (I'm not concerned about Polli- she will eat later) but Beau won't.

No pred. one shot yesterday.

Beau has not eaten a meal since Friday. He ate a small amount on Saturday. Basically had nothing but the "wrong" foods Sunday (chicken, we think) and was sick yesterday. He took a lick of lamb, a lick of venson, turned away from beef yesterday and then ate 1/4 cup of lamb. Today one of the foods OSU said to try was royal canin Duck so we added that to our store of foods we have. He ate about 1/4 cup and that is it. THIS IS NOT WORKING AND I AM FLIPPING OUT. TOTALLY FLIPPING. Even if we schedule the biopsy, we still don't have a dog that will eat and I know from experience after Beau has surgery, he definitely won't eat. I am afraid I am going to lose him. How long can this go on and what are my options?

Please, Tom- don't panic. Polli coughs when she drinks as he espogus is sensitive sometimes. If Polli holds her nose up to in the air and I gently scratch her under her chin, she coughs. Could be sensitivity. Please update as soon as you speak to your vet. Why don't you call today?

We did not do tick.

If your dog has repsonded to pred for IBD WITHOUT biopsy, scope, etc., what was the turnaround time that he/she started feeling better. Eating is the main thing for us. Our only concern about this method of treatment for Beau is what the vet explained to me " We spoke briefly about a potential trial of low dose pred. If you absolutely refused to biopsy, I would be ok trying it, with the understanding that it may not work and you still may have to biopsy. The risk in trying this first is that, if you do end up taking biopsies, and they return positive for lymphoma, the chance of chemotherapy working is decreased as a result of starting the animal on pred before the first dose of chemo. This is very well documented in the veterinary oncology literature. " it's time for me to make some decisions, I just want to make the right ones.

Beau has been off the flagyl 250 bid for about 5 days and his eating has decreased. It had deceased when he was ON the flagyl 500 bid. There is no rhyme or reason. Yesterday trying to decide on which protein to stick with we offered him venson- 1 lick, beef tripe 1/4 cup lamp 1/4 cup and he took a lick or 3 out of DHs cottage cheese (fat free) when he left it on the bed to answer the phone. Beau licked it. Interestingly enough, this was the 1st morning in WEEKS that he had a gurgly stomach enough that we could hear it. (he has been on prilesec EVERY day) but he also had the firmest poops in weeks. No where near normal, but heading that way. So, like I said, there appears to be no rhyme or reason. Possibly a lactose intolerance. We plan on keeping him on the beef since the beef we can offer in different ways. There are also some beef canned such as BG so there are more than one option for beef.

Just checking in. Hugs to you both.

We are hoping something "benign" shows up, just enough to treat, but I am not overly optimistic. As far as his eating goes, I am a bit confused too at this point. We were orginally told to stop the Pro Plan Senstive stomach when this started becasue of a possible food allergy. At this point Beau was not wanting to eat. We did the beef and rice mix. That lasted 4-5 days and he turned his nose up at it. We added beef tripe and that worked for another 3- 5days and then he stopped. In the meantime, he never resumed near to normal poops and he was still running from breakfast in the morning which meant the first tme he could be fed was 3-4PM. he never made up at dinner for the amount not eaten earlier. At this point, the vet felt that since nothing changed, it wasn't the kibble or chicken so we added in ID. Then chicken. Yesterday was the day he really didn't do well so we offered him ANYTHING for him to eat. He ate chicken and today he has not had a thing except 1 lick of veneson- walked away- 1/4 cup of tripe -walked away 1/2 cup of lamb. So we don't know which one of these things to make his "protein" as there is no rhyme or reason. If the reason he is not eating because he feels yucky, things that he would have done cartwheels for, could be right in front of his face and he is not responding at all. He feels yucky. We had offered different options in the hope that one thing he would feel really good eating. To see him like this, is heartbreaking. He was always picky, but there was always something I could get him very interested in without having to go to any sort of extremes. Believe me, I know what that is like with his mom. The biggest problem is that after the bx, other than being able to medicate him and know what we are treating, we are still going to be looking for something for him to eat that he likes and that likes him.

We have te fortiflora by purina. I read somewhere in my many readings that many of the probiotics do not have all the live cultures they claim to, but this one does. It was not written up at a Purina site! It was from a journal somewhere. You can get it online or from your vet. It's under a $1.00/day. info: http://www.purinaveterinarydiets.com/Canin...l.aspx?prod=244 buy it: http://www.petfooddirect.com/store/product...p;zmap=20153432 Hope it works for you.

I can't begin to tell you how it warms my heart to see a positive update. Keep it up beautiful boy.

What beautiful, sweet girl. I am sorry for your pain.

Isn't the toast going against all the grain avoiding thing? all the bread we have is all grain/wheat etc. We are starting from a clean slate as of now, he has not eaten toda except for one bite literaly of lamb. he's done. He likes a lot of things, right now he likes nothing, He is feeling crappy. Tube feeding is not an option.

They will biopsy the intestine for a definite diagnosis of IBD or GOD FORBID cancer. IF they treat with pred prior to the bx, and then later they have to bx anway, if it is cancer, the pred will decrease the effectiveness of the chemo. Since this cancer is very treatable lessening the odds doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense to me. Prob is that once bx and not cancer, we are where we are now, still trying to figure out what will work BUT we can safely use the pred or is necessary the budesonide.