greyhead Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 (edited) 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! Edited October 6, 2013 by greyhead Quote Mary with Jumper Jack (2/17/11) and angels Shane (PA's Busta Rime, 12/10/02 - 10/14/16) and Spencer (Dutch Laser, 11/25/00 - 3/29/13). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Scouts_mom Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 Wonderful that you finally have a diagnosis for sweet Spencer! I hope he heals right up. It is interesting that they suggest azulfadine for some cases. I have ulcerative colitis and use azulfadine to keep it under control. (I use a coated version as the plain version makes me sick to my stomach.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Winterwish Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 That is so important that the bug was found and I hope this leads to Spencer getting completely better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudge Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 How exciting Hope the diagnosis puts an end to the big nasty "D" word for Spencer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spencers_Greyt Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 I'm glad you finally have a diagnosis! Give the sweet boy a hug for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest houndlover Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 Wonderful news that you finally have an answer (or at least most of one). I hope that Spencer will be well on his way to recovery with the antibiotics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetdogs Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 That's a great article. Interesting the possible link to HGE. Also the use of tylosin powder for management. Has Spencer been tested for SIBO? I hope he feels better soon. Quote Deirdre with Conor (Daring Pocobueno), Keeva (Kiowa Mimi Mona), & kittehs Gemma & robthomas. Our beloved angels Faolin & Liath, & kittehs Mona & Caesar. Remembering Bobby, Doc McCoy, & Chip McGrath. "He feeds you, pets you, adores you, collects your poop in a bag. There's only one explanation: you are a hairy little god." Nick Galifinakis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greyhead Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 That's a great article. Interesting the possible link to HGE. Also the use of tylosin powder for management. Has Spencer been tested for SIBO? I hope he feels better soon. 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! Quote Mary with Jumper Jack (2/17/11) and angels Shane (PA's Busta Rime, 12/10/02 - 10/14/16) and Spencer (Dutch Laser, 11/25/00 - 3/29/13). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greyhead Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 Has Spencer been tested for SIBO? THAT is an interesting article. I'll give it to my vet along with the Clostridium article she asked for. Thank you SO much! Quote Mary with Jumper Jack (2/17/11) and angels Shane (PA's Busta Rime, 12/10/02 - 10/14/16) and Spencer (Dutch Laser, 11/25/00 - 3/29/13). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetdogs Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 Thank you SO much! You're so welcome - I'll be looking for good updates from Spencer. Quote Deirdre with Conor (Daring Pocobueno), Keeva (Kiowa Mimi Mona), & kittehs Gemma & robthomas. Our beloved angels Faolin & Liath, & kittehs Mona & Caesar. Remembering Bobby, Doc McCoy, & Chip McGrath. "He feeds you, pets you, adores you, collects your poop in a bag. There's only one explanation: you are a hairy little god." Nick Galifinakis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mandm Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 How do you test for SIBO if not with fecal culture? 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greyhead Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 How do you test for SIBO if not with fecal culture? 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. Quote Mary with Jumper Jack (2/17/11) and angels Shane (PA's Busta Rime, 12/10/02 - 10/14/16) and Spencer (Dutch Laser, 11/25/00 - 3/29/13). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zoolaine Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 I am so glad you finally have an answer to what is going on with poor Spencer. Hope he flourishes with the new treatment. Please keep us posted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mandm Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 My greyhound also did not seem to respond much to Tylan. But since it did not seem to negatively affect him, I kept him on it, for over one year. I suspected that it helped, in small, subtle ways. Could be that he would have gotten much worse without the Tylan. Who knows? It was radical diet change that really made the difference for my greyhound. The diet change was made while he had already been on Tylan over 6 months. Perhaps the diet change would not have been as dramatically effective had I not set the stage with Tylan. I'll never know exactly what it was that fixed him. I suspect it was correct alignment of the stars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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