greyhead

I'm sorry, Robin.

Sometimes I hate how long weekends can be. We'll wait for news with you, and our prayers are with your family and Buddy.

Heartbreaking. I'm so very sorry.

Praying hard here for you, Judy.

It may be premature to mention this, but Spencer had intermittent mucus and consistently horrible smell, and it is Clostridium bacteria, not giardia. But since Clostridium is normally present anyway, it can take a while to get a big enough colony that the lab would recognize as a problem. So there's a second step to the testing that can sort it out. Here's a link to a good article. http://www.petshealth.com/dr_library/clost.html I hope it's giardia. Easier to diagnose! But I agree that loose poop and diarrhea isn't something to take casually. If you ever want to look back through my threads about Spencer, you'll see why! ETA: This link helps discriminate various problems by poop color, condition, smell, etc. Hope it helps. http://onibasu.com/archives/kn/165334.html

As far as I know, the most common & practical way to test for SIBO is the cobalamin/folate test, a fasting blood test, sent to Texas A & M's GI Lab. It's generally done along with the TLI (EPI test). Didn't you already do that one? Here's a link to interpreting the results of the cobalamin/folate test http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/gilab/assays/b12folate.shtml You're right, we did test for cobalamin/folate and TLI at Texas A&M. He was positive for the former and negative for the latter. The TA&M interpretation said this was consistent with some unspecified disease of both the proximal and distal small intestine or with SIBO. Unfortunately, my vet interpreted Spencer's non-response to Tylan as meaning it was "probably not SIBO." I guess what really happened is we didn't treat long enough with Tylan at a high enough dose, and/or the overgrowth was too strong for that particular medication. I wonder how often this happens, since Tylan seems to be the drug of choice when SIBO is suspected.

THAT is an interesting article. I'll give it to my vet along with the Clostridium article she asked for. Thank you SO much!

Thanks so much! He starts his med this a.m. How DO you test for SIBO? The vet seemed to think that since the tylosin didn't appear to have much effect, that was a vote against SIBO. But he has a severe overgrowth of clostridium bacteria, and there's good reason from his bloodwork to suspect it's in the small bowel, so it would seem he does have Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth! The microbiologist is the one that recommended he take one of three antibiotics, none of which was tylosin, but maybe that's because tylosin too mild. It may yet be that he'll have a long-term tendency toward Clostridium that tylosin will keep under control after the Simplicef knocks out the acute overgrowth. What's really interesting is that neither the vet nor the internist suggested doing a fecal culture, although the internist agreed when I suggested it. I wouldn't have known to do that if not for that article. And if we hadn't done it, we'd still be talking about doing a surgical biopsy! Which brings me back to: How do you test for SIBO if not with fecal culture? Oh, I just noticed you posted a link on SIBO, so I'll go read it!

It's so much better to know what the problems are, so congratulations for that! Hope you get some rest when the UTI clears up. Will acupuncture continue to help?

This is dreadful! I am SO sorry!

After 8 months of diarrhea, weight loss and loss of appetite, Spencer finally has a diagnosis of Clostridial enteritis. His poop smells so absolutely vile that I thought analyzing it should tell us something! After reading an article on this Clostridium bacterium, I asked the vet to have the lab include it in the culture, which they don't normally do. It's normally present in the intestines but the microbiologist that did the interpretation said Spencer's number of them was "way, way, way, way beyond what's expected." Here's the link to the article: http://www.petshealt...rary/clost.html ETA: the above link used to be a good article; now it's a hard-to-access site with lots of ads! (3/13/10) Some of you may remember that six weeks ago or so, I was asking whether GTers thought we should give in and get endoscopy or surgical biopsy. turns out the endoscopy can't even get to the small intestine, which is where his trouble is, and even the internist wasn't advising getting out the scalpel quite yet! I don't know if we're totally out of the woods. He may have more than one problem. Like, we know he has malabsorption and a supposedly permanent inability to make B12 in his gut. But this is the closest we've come to a cause of his problems, and I could not possibly be more thrilled!!! He'll take Simplicef, a cephalosporin antibiotic, for three weeks and then we'll see where we are. Woo-hoo!

I haven't dealt with it in a dog but I have it myself. It used to be quite severe. This was back in the early '80s and there wasn't much to do for it. Drops and ointments didn't help much if at all. One day the opthalmologist asked if I took vitamins, to which I replied "Sometimes." That got me thinking, and I started taking 350 mg/day of panthothenic acid, aka B5. The incidents got progressively less frequent and less severe. I lowered the dose to 250/day. Finally I got to where I didn't need to take it at all. B5 is a precursor to a healing substance that the body uses it to make for itself. I doubt it could hurt to try, in addition to the corneal scraping or instead of it. BTW, I later asked the ophthalmologist if he had known something about vitamins affecting corneal ulcers when he asked me if I took them. He said yes, that there was research then underway using B5, C, and A. He hadn't said more earlier because there was no "hard data" yet. The thing about hard data is that sometimes there is an effect or benefit for a subset of the population, but the effect doesn't show up if that population isn't analyzed separately from the rest of the people/critters. So I don't know how the research turned out, but it gave me my life back. (I was unable to work for five years because of it.) And there is no known toxic dose of B5 in humans. Don't know about dogs. Wishing you and your grey the very best of luck, whatever course you take!

Oh no, I'm so sorry. and I hope they're wrong!

I'm so very, very sorry.

Spencer has done this too in the recent past. We know he has a problem in his small intestine and malabsorption, but we don't yet know why. We're checking his fecal sample now for bacteria. He lost weight really quickly (8 lbs. in 2 wks) on prednisone despite eating a lot. So the internist took him off the prednisone, saying that's why he lost the weight. (Not everyone seems to agree on that, and maybe it depends on the underlying condition, but Spencer has regained 6 lbs. in the last two weeks since discontinuing it.) When you say Luke's bloodwork was terrible, which things were bad? Good luck, hang in there, and keep us posted. Several GTers have had pups with similar symptoms and may be able to offer good suggestions. And if nothing else, we're always there for support.

I never saw any indication of pain in Spencer. But almost from the time we got him, he grumbled when he laid down or changed positions. And he just got grumblier over time. And I saw him lose his balance and have to sit down so as not to fall down, and I saw him take a really long time to lower himself all the way when trying to lie down. All this, and no other complaints. But after he was diagnosed with LS last summer and started acupuncture and chiropractic, the grumbling stopped entirely, which is the only reason I know it was pain related. Even another greyhound owner and former vet tech who would come over and hear this grumbling thought it was just his personality. My point? We know they're very stoic animals -- well, except for the drama queens! So just cuz we can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. That's why we just go ahead and treat him every two weeks. We pay $65 per treatment, but he doesn't require any drugs that way either.

I think you're supposed to make sure that there are no onions in the formula too.

That's harsh, that insurance won't pay for these things. Is there any way to appeal that? With people's insurance they sometimes say no first, hoping you'll go away and not pursue it; and then when you call them on it, they say yes. But I'm sure you have your hands full just focusing on your dear boy and the vets. Prayers and hugs to all of you.

Spencer got relief the first day and kept improving. We started with weekly treatments, quickly went to every two weeks. But when we tried setting the appointments every three weeks, he'd start doing the stumbling, etc. again in the third week before the appointment. Since he's a big dog and the vet says he's going down hard when he goes down, I just take him in every two weeks. On this schedule he has very little trouble.

I'm so sorry for your loss of this beautiful and fabulous girl. She had a wonderful life with you.

Hoping for a quick recovery and good outcome.

Good thoughts and prayers for you, your husband, and Carrie.

Lots of prayers and hugs for you and Lewis.