Lexie Still Mushy

[Guest MZH]

I believe I've mentioned tylosin powder in gel caps in your other threads asking for help. I've mentioned it in many diarrhea thread because it's one of the few things that's inexpensive and works quite well, most of the time, anyway! Yes, I've had dogs on it.

 

Putting straight tylosin in gel caps is the simplest way to give it. I would give it at least 3 days. If you quit too early you won't know if it's gonna work or not. IIRC, at the start we gave it twice a day and were able to taper it to one pill every three days. Cullen would get D again if we went 4 days. Putting it in food means your dog may not eat; it's nasty tasting and acrid-smelling stuff. Cullen refused to eat when we put it in his food.

 

Entocort EC is another thing others have mentioned as well as I. Yes, it's expensive and it may need to be compounded into smaller doses. I take the stuff when everything else quits working for me. When nothing else works, this does. Cullen never needed the Entocort b/c the tyolsin worked just fine for him.

 

To sum it up, listen to mandym, LynnM, tbhounds, and me, MZH. We know bowel issues first hand!

 

Marcia

[Guest mandm]

It all comes back to -- the problem started right after boarding. So you, the vet, and everyone here used logic to conclude that the problem was probably intestinal parasites. You wormed her with Panacur, but please refresh our memories -- how many treatments, how many days each treatment, and how much time between treatments?

 

I also wanted to add another caution about using steriods to treat supected IBD without full dignosis. If she has a TBD lurking in her system, Pred or other steroids might cause bad problems. Has she had a full tick panel?

[rschultz]

2 rounds of panacour. i dont think a full tick panel i will have to ask vet. i know he did a lot of blood work and stool work

 

i am tired so going to bed now. will probably have nightmares of worms coming out of poop or something...lol see ya manana

[Guest mandm]

2 rounds of panacour.

 

will probably have nightmares of worms coming out of poop or something...l

I am more inclined to wish & hope for worms when a greyhound has stomach troubles. They are so easy to fix.

 

Worms are always my first, last, & middle thought when I have a greyhound with gut problems. Positive fecals or visual id of the worms in the poop are great to confirm that yes, indeed, the dog has worms. I don't put much confidence in negative fecals. To me, they don't mean that I dog doesn't have worms, only that none were found.

 

Did you notice any improvement after the Panacur? Maybe you were trying other things at the same time, which makes it hard to sort out what is working & what is not working.

 

How many days did you treat and how long between treatments? A few years back, my vet said that the vet school in our state had recently come out with a new recommendation that greyhounds be treated with 7 days of Panacur, rather than the traditional 3 or 5. I thought that was overkill, that 5 was enough, especially considering that the standard was 3 days at that time. I changed my opinion after my greyhound still seemed wormy after full (5 day) Pancur wormings. I wormed him again, despite many clear fecals, with three 7-day courses of Panacur timed for Whipworms. It made a big difference. But I didn't really see a big improvement until after the second treatment, and then again after the third. Then I put him on year round Interceptor, even though winter H/W prevention is not necessary in my area. I figured he had Whipworm, even thought none were ever found on a fecal, and that our environment was probably loaded with Whip eggs.

 

You say that Lexie's folate was a little high. That is usually the indicator for SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/gilab/assays/b12folate.shtml My greyhound had/has it bad. It is well controlled with diet and Vitamin B supplements.

Tylan(Tylosin) is one of the treatments for SIBO. It didn't work much for my greyhound, although others have good success with it. What worked best for my dog was figuring out what irritated his SIBO. For my dog, and most others with SIBO, that was fat and carbs. So I eliminated all carbs and much fat (can't totally eliminate fat from a dog's diet). I had such good success with diet change that I didn't need to do Vit B12 injections, but I would gladly do them if needed. They are an easy fix, much better than meds IMO.