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I am very sorry to hear about Maya's illness. I too have a girlie that has low protein. Her name is Lady and she was diagnosed six months ago at age 8.5. The low protein was found during routine blood work for a dental, since we thought that that was the reason that she was eating so poorly. We did numerous blood tests, and were referred to the animal specialty hospital here. The internal medicine specialist started with an abdominal ultrasound and then did an endoscopy. They took lots of samples from her intestinal tract during the endoscopy, and sent them off for pathology. The results showed that what she has is called Protein Losing Enteropathy and Lymphangiectasia. We are treating these conditions with an extremely low fat diet of prescription kibble, and with prednisone. After six months, she has now gained back all the weight she lost, and her blood protein levels are in the low normal range. We have been able to reduce her pred to 10mg every other day. I hope and pray that you find the answers for your girl, and that she too can be treated. Lady's condition will never 'get better' - it will be a chronic lifelong condition that we manage. If Maya ends up with the same condition, please feel free to contact me if you need any support. Carol Ann.

Check where ever you throw your poop bags after walks.

Specky Mekker - ZMS Ugo Jo Speck 4/1/2003 - 10/21/2013 It is with great sadness, and broken hearts, that we share that Specky had to leave us to start her journey across the Rainbow Bridge. She was 10.5 years old. A large tumor on her spleen, and nodules on her liver were found while doing a splenectomy. She passed peacefully. Specky has always been a whirlwind of fun and games! Never before had we seen a dog spin in a circle, on top of an ottoman, while tossing a toy in the air - and catching it. Her zest for life was shared with everyone who met her. She was our 'party hardy' girlie - always ready to chase a squirrel or throw a toy or give your face a thorough washing. She was the very best kisser! Whether we were gone five minutes or five hours Specky met us with joy on her face and kisses galore. Our home will be so quiet now without our noisy, loving, special girl. Thank you Specky for giving us eight years of being a part of your crazy, wild and fun life. We will miss you always. Until we meet again. Carol Ann & Dan. Specky's famous You Tube video of her 'surfing' on the living room area rug! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zviQY3WGC4

We had to let Specky go on Monday. She had a large tumor on her spleen, and while doing a splenectomy numerous liver tumors were found. Thank you for all the help and suggestions. I just wish we could have saved our special girl. Carol Ann.

Here is an alternate recipe that I am using.

Thank you! I am going to go and get the wheat germ and molasses for this next batch. Specky has an appointment with the vet tomorrow, and we will see where we go from here, but likely an abdominal ultrasound. Carol Ann.

Our 10.5 year old girl Specky is having issues with lack of appetite and weight loss. She is currently being treated for an Entercoccus Faecalis UTI infection after having her urine cultured. We have done every blood test we can think of and urinalysis, and abdominal x-rays. She is currently on Mertazipine - an appetite stimulant. I have bought numerous kibbles for her to try all to no avail. I have bought six different canned dog foods. She will eat them once or twice and then walks away from the bowl. Yesterday I made up a batch of Satin Balls. I did not have any wheat germ or molasses on hand, but included the beef, Total cereal, oatmeal, egg, gelatin. The batch I made worked out to 70 calories per ball, so approximately 5 balls equals the calorie content of one cup of dog food. Right now, this is pretty much all she will eat, along with Milkbones and peanut butter. My question is, can satin balls be used as a main food source for the short term? I just need to get her to eat something, and to maintain her weight until we figure out what the medical issues are. Thanks.

Joe T. Reporter will never be forgotten. Run free Buddy. There are no dastardly bushes in Heaven! Hugs, Carol Ann & Riley Roo.

Good news for Lady! Her blood chemistry test this week showed an albumin level of 2.8 and globulin of 2.5 for a total blood protein level of 5.3!! Internal Medicine specialist was thrilled, and reduced Lady's prednisone dose from 10mg daily to 10mg every OTHER day!! YEAH! Only not so good news was that she has a sore on her leg in a very awkward spot that is concerning. We are changing her bandage twice a day, and hopefully it will heal on its own.

I am so very sorry Pam. Run free Buddy.

We call EMT Gel 'scab in a tube' at our house!

Lady Update: Blood chemistry tests this week were good - still maintaining a 2.8 albumin level, with a 5.0 protein over all. So we reduced her prednisone to 10mg once a day - a 50% reduction. That was on Tuesday. Today is Saturday, and Lady does not want to eat - pretty much at all. I am shoving two kibbles at a time into her mouth and she will eat that. She gets 1000 kibbles per meal. (Yes - I counted! Well, actually I counted out what was in half a cup and extrapolated!) This morning I have given in and am cooking up some chicken and rice, since she has to eat something. She had done so well on just plain kibble the past month or so. She is pretty much maintaining her weight of 64 pounds - five pounds below where she should be. I am so worried that she is not tolerating the reduction in prednisone. She is also very thunder phobic, so this weekend has not been fun for her. Chardea - Lady has also been diagnosed with Lymphangiectasia in addition to the Protein Losing Enteropathy. I am so sorry about your Merrie.

At this point no one knows. Not even the specialist. She says that she has had some IBD/PLE dogs who do beautifully over time and others that cannot go without at least a small dose of pred on going. As for the food, I sure hope that she is able to transition back to a regular OTC kibble at some point. I am not sure if it is just the fat content that we need to be concerned about or the overall contents as well. I found the Kirkland Weight Management kibble that has the correct amount of fat content, and I bet it tastes a whole lot better then the prescription stuff she is on now. Food changes are still WAY down the road to even be thinking about.

Thought that I would update everyone on Lady's progress. She had another blood test last week to see how her protein levels were on the 30 mg of pred per day. Yeah!! They were still in the normal range! So now we have reduced the morning pred by half as well, taking her to 20mg per day (10mg AM & 10mg PM). We will try her on this dose for three to four weeks then retest. She also gained back one pound. Overall, she is acting pretty much normal - occasional bouts of panting, but that is pretty short duration, pee accidents are few and far between. Now we just need to get her to eat better. She is on mertazapine - in humans an anti-depressant and in dogs it stimulates appetite - but she is still very picky. She is now allowed rice as well as chicken and kibble, so that is helping. The main problem with food is that the low fat choices she is allowed are all very low in energy density, so even though she is eating about 5 cups of kibble, 2.5 cups of rice, 1.5 cups of boiled chicken each day, the total calories are still low and make for a very slow weight gain. The kibble she is allowed only has 256 calories compared to her normal kibble that had 380. So we will just continue on with what we are doing and hope and pray that at the end of this Lady has a healed gut and an improved appetite!

Deb I am so glad that Daisy finally got to learn what a forever home truly was at your house. You and John are a blessing to each and every dog that comes through your life. Run free sweet Daisy, run free. Hugs, Carol Ann.

I just started having to give Lady Tylan powder antibiotic. Since she is dealing with severe GI issues and not eating well there was no way I was going to sprinkle nasty tasting powder over her food! I am not able to give her anything like lunch meat or other smelly foods, so I am using capsules. I bought size 00 at Chamberlin's Food - 100 for about $5. I use a large size syringe that has no needle in the end. I use a 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon and load the dose in the needle with my finger over the open end. Then I let the powder trickle into the large and then the small half of the capsules. The 1/4 teaspoon dose just barely fits into the 00 size capsules. Bring the two halves together and 'voila' you have an easy to administer dose of nasty meds!

Yesterday was her first day with the half dose in the evening and still the full in the morning. So she went from 40mg daily to 30 mg daily. Not sure yet is this will make a difference. All I want right now is for her to eat. Last night I resorted to grinding kibble in the blender, and baking it into kibble cookies. Those she will eat! The kibble on its own - no way. So I really think that this is a stubbornness issue we are dealing with - not an inability to eat. She will also eat the boiled chicken without issues. Problem is that she is already so skinny I cannot afford the time to 'wait her out' like I would if she was healthy. I guess we will have another day of 'creative' eating again today. One thing I am doing is reducing her slowing off the tramadol. I did some research and found that tramadol can be a big appetite suppressant. She is only on a total of two 50mg tablets per day (one morning and one evening), but I reduced the evening dose last night to 25mg and will see if that helps with the eating. Thank you for asking. P.S. The baked Royal Canin Low Fat kibble smells WAY better then the Hills ID. When we baked the ID into kibble cookies last month my husband thought that he was going to vomit from the smell! Last nights batch actually smelled almost like real cookies!

NORMAL protein levels today!!! The evening pred has been cut in half, and we will recheck in three weeks!! We are so thankful. Now let's just get her eating and we will be thrilled!

Unfortunately we are only allowed to feed Lady the ultra low fat kibble and boiled white meat chicken. She has lost four pounds in the last two weeks. They gave her a shot of B12, and took blood to run a full chemistry panel. I should hear later tonight what her protein levels are now. Please let them have increased!! We are now allowed to either give all the pred in the morning or to split it but give it with breakfast and dinner, so that should make life easier. We are also going to try her on the Hills Low Fat ID kibble and see if she likes that better then the Royal Canin. I did ask about why we were using pred rather then budesonide. There are very specific reasons why she is using pred, and they certainly made sense to me. She said that perhaps down the road that drug might be an option, but right now it is not. Since she is the board certified internal medicine specialist I think that she knows best!

I thought that I would update this thread on Lady's progress on the pred. So far, and we are on day twelve, so I am guessing that things are what they are - Lady has had periods of pretty heavy panting. She is drinking slightly more, but has been able to hold it without problems except for one time early in the morning. Since I am at home all day I have been letting her out every three hours instead of our usual four and she is fine with that. Still waiting for this big appetite to kick in. Getting her to eat is a big challenge - especially in the morning. But she eats enough so that I can get her pred into her, then finishes up the rest at lunch. Dinner is much better and she eats the entire bowl at one sitting. The only issue is that for her evening pred, 12 hours after breakfast is 7:30 pm and it is difficult to get her to eat less then two hours after dinner so that I can give her the evening dose. I think that I will ask her Internist on Tuesday if we can possibly give her the pred with her dinner around 6:00pm even though it is not quite twelve hours apart. The only major issue I am seeing is that Lady has gotten skinny. Really skinny. I am feeding her as much as she will eat, but it looks like this extremely low fat kibble is not providing enough calories. I am hoping and praying that her protein levels will have increased when she has her next blood test on Tuesday. It hit me a couple of days ago that I have been counting down the days and assuming that things will have improved after 14 days on the pred, and that maybe that might not happen. I am so stressed lately I feel like I could break in half.

I am so sorry that Beanie had such a difficult time. That must have been every bit as hard on you as it was on her. Watching these precious dogs when they are ill is just so gosh darn hard.

Thank you for the link - I will hang on to that for future possible use. I did call them, and they are unable to make a standard commercial dose, so they would have to adjust for that. The cost with shipping from them for the budesonide would be $80 per month. Are there no others who have experience with dealing with pred side effects? We are on day three now, and so far all we are seeing is a slightly increased appetite - especially at dinner, and some panting. No excessive drinking or peeing so far. I so hope that Lady can catch a break on this and maybe get the results she needs without the side effects. Eleven more days until her recheck blood work!!

I am really not sure. There was no discussion about which steroid to use. Lady has more then just IBD, there are other issues as well, so maybe the pred addresses those additional issues better? Perhaps she also choose the pred since a one month loading dose of pred (20mg/bid) cost me $10.07 at Costco, and a one month loading dose of budesonide (3mg/bid) would have been $810?? Since this is a drug that my dog will potentially be on for a long time, maybe the vet took that into account?

Yes, we saw an Internal Medicine Specialist at a large vet specialty practice.

My eight year old female Greyhound was started on 20mg. of Prednisone twice a day yesterday. (40mg/day total dosage) She is taking this for her Protein Losing Enteropathy and some other GI issues. I am holding my breathe waiting for the side effects to kick in. How long does that usually take? The internal medicine specialist has warned me about excessive thirst and urination. I know not to limit her water - she needs that to maintain her hydration level. So far so good .... just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Second question for those who are familiar with prednisone. Is this a large dose? Lady is about 70 pounds in weight. She is scheduled to be on this dose for two weeks, along with special super low fat prescription kibble. After the two weeks we will retest her blood protein levels and see if we can taper the pred down a little. Thanks for anyone who can share their experience with this. It is the first time we have had a dog on pred.