Ibd - Happy Starving!

[RobinM]

She may now be intolerant of the venison, which could be the reason she is refusing it and not doing well.

 

Once formed, IBD intolerances are generally permanent and the dog cannot go

back and eat previously eaten foods to which he/she has developed an IBD

intolerance w/o triggering a flare of IBD related inflammation.

 

IBD intolerances can develop to both proteins and carbs.

 

Exampe: Fat (eg chicken or poultry fat) corresponding to an untolerated protein (eg

chicken) should generally be avoided despite manufacturer's claims to the

contrary since quite a few IBD dogs react to even the smallest amount of

trace/residual protein in the fat or react to the fat itself.

 

Even meds and supps need to be carefully scrutinized for possible sources of

intolerance such as flavorings or inactive fillers such as cornstarch in

dogs not tolerating corn.

 

In a rescue dog with unknown dietary history, it may be prudent to avoid

ingredients commonly found in high volume supermarket or pet store dog foods

which in the US typically include beef, chicken, wheat and corn and to a

lesser extent lamb and rice.

 

Now is the time to up the meds/ and or add them as well (with the docs ok!) and start with a sacrifical novel protein and nothing else.

 

A sacrificial protein diet is used during the healing process with the expectation that the patient may become allergic to the treatment diet and will be switched to another hypoallergenic diet at the end of the diet trial. Food allergy is definitely a cause of inflammatory bowel disease.

 

I sent you a ton of reading. I know it's a lot to read and absorb but it's all good and important reading.

 

You have my info, if you have any questions.

 

[greyhead]

My vet's researches for our IBD dog led her to the conclusion that everyone ends up on Budesonide, so we started with that. (Spencer just lost a lot of weight fast on pred.) It's side-effects are very limited since it targets the gut. It's working very well for us.

 

Spencer also had intestinal malaborption. There's a special test for that. The treatment is B-12 injections under the skin, for life. Helps with appetite, mood, muscle issues -- everything! And it helps a lot.

 

Good luck!

[Xan]

Good stuff, people. I read something somewhere about budesonide. Have to look that up again.

 

Tylan is NASTY bitter, and I'd thought of that, too (ick factor). Capsules may be the way to go.

[Batmom]

Just a quick comment about fish, to confuse you more . It's really low in calories, so you need to feed a LOT to make up a day's calories, and then some more to put the lost weight back on.

 

The other thing is, no guarantee an IBD dog will do better on fish than on anything else. Every dog's sensitivities are different. A dog can be sensitive to something new, and not sensitive to something he/she has been eating for years.

 

Hugs and best luck to your sweet girl.

[tbhounds]

Good stuff, people. I read something somewhere about budesonide. Have to look that up again.

 

Tylan is NASTY bitter, and I'd thought of that, too (ick factor). Capsules may be the way to go.

 

I need to add that Budesonide was a lifesaver for my boy--pred just didn't work for him as he did have severe IBD (almost lost him the first week). He was started on 3mgs once daily and was able to wean down to every other day. Without Budesonide I would have lost him.

You need to have the Tylan encapsulated. It is beyond bitter and I don't know of any dog willing to eat it mixed with food. Do you have a local compounding pharmacy near you--they will do it for you rather reasonably.

Oh, and pepcid is traditionally given once a day unless your vet prescribes otherwise.

[Xan]

DH and I are talking about our plan of attack. She got through the night with only one need to pee, and ate a decent breakfast (tuna, mushed potato), and is now resting with her IV fluids. I put her Tylan in a capsule so she didn't have to taste it, but I'm sure she's as tired as I am of me stuffing pills down her throat!

 

Hopefully we can get her through the weekend without losing too much ground while the antibiotics kick the UTI out, and we can move forward on Monday with whatever next steps.

 

I will look into the budesonide, and ask about frequency on the pepcid.

 

Fish is low in calories. Got it. Hm. Did I say, she turned her nose up most definitively on the white snapper (my local grocery didn't have tilapia); raw, pan-seared, or baked. She ate what was glopped in with the tuna, but wouln't eat any that was by itself. So, she prefers the tuna for now. At least she's eating it!

[CaliforniaGreys]

Keeping you all in my thoughts. Just don't bang your head against the wall Xan, that gets really old.

 

Batmom is so right about the fish not being enough to sustain weight

[Xan]

Update!

I think we're making some progress. I believe she's feeling a little better, between getting fluids in her, and the antibiotics knocking down the UTI.

 

I went to my local very well-informed pet supply place (one of the staff is an Iggy owner/breeder) to talk about what we can safely tempt her with, and maybe help to boost her health. One of the owners also has an IB dog she has been feeding raw to with great success, though I think her situation differs from ours quite a bit. Anyway, I left with 4 bags of samples, a can of lamb green tripett (I didn't want to risk the beef tripe), and some supplements.

 

I offered her a piece of the salmon kibble from the same company that makes her venison kibble, and she ate it, so I put some in a bowl for her with warm water. Nope, though there was some interest. Added some of the tuna she'd been eating. Well, alright, she ate a tiny bit. Opened the tripett (pew) and stirred that in. Awright! Now we're talking. When she finished that, I asked her if she wanted more, and she wagged a little, so I decided to try her venison kibble (I know, I know. I'm throwing a lot at her, but I just need her to EAT, and I'm hoping to get her back onto her venison if she can tolerate it.)

 

She sucked up maybe 1/2 cup of that, licked the bowl, and started sniffing around for more! :clap2

 

So, I gave her another 1/2 cup, with tripett, and she ate about half. All in all, a decent lunch! She's been more animated this afternoon, too. Even looked like she might want to go on a walk with the boys (didn't take her, though). So far, no obvious tummy upsets, either. We'll be watching that carefully. I haven't ever fed her lamb anything, so it MAY be new to her, if she didn't have it in her track or farm life, or in her brief stay in foster home. *crossing fingers*

 

Hopefully, we're on the mend!

[Remolacha]

I am chiming in here a little late You've gotten a lot of good advice, and it should be clear by now, every case is different

 

Fletcher's my IBD dog, he's been on raw for the last 5 yrs. I found out what he could tolerate and what set him off by trial and error. Once her UTI clears up, you'll really be able to tell what works for her. Keep it to one or two things, that makes it easier to see if something is causing a problem. The main problem with kibble is that most of them just have too many ingredients.

 

I wouldn't scope except as a last resort. Raw, cooked, commercial, home-made, fish, beef, chicken, lamb, grain, veggies, any or all of these could be the culprit . Among other things, Fletcher can't have molasses, who would have thought?

 

It seems to take forever, but you can figure it out!

[3DogNite]

I just want to add,,, I saw tilapia at my Costco! call them, or see if you can get it on order.. just a thought

 

good luck!

 

 

[Xan]

Tilapia at costco! I'll check, thanks.

 

Last night, not so good. She vomited for the first time. Her poop has deteriorated to the tell-tale mucusy reddish goop. Why do things always seem to go from bad to worse on the weekend??

 

I did throw a lot of stuff at her over the last few days, trying to find something she'd eat. I'm at a loss where to go from here. Like, for breakfast. What to offer her, whether to try giving her a series of things if one doesn't work ... Augh!

[Remolacha]

OK, I know how it feels trying to find SOMETHING they will eat (btdt), but really, its the worst thing you can do to an IBD dog. You've got her on Pepcid now, right? Pick one thing that she ate before and seemed ok with, and offer her small amounts every few hours.

 

Hoping this will get you through the rest of the weekend

[Xan]

I do have her on pepcid. What I ended up doing this morning was offering her a bowl in which were the things she's chosen to eat over the last few days, all in separate blobs: cooked potato, lamb tripe, and tuna. She chose the tripe and potatoes, and kept them down. YEAY. Of course, she's still all bones, and she's barely moved since, even though I've dripped a whole bag of saline into her.

 

I'm just about to offer her more tripe and potatoes. *crossing fingers*

[tbhounds]

Really think you need to work on getting a definitive diagnosis. Honestly, you could be barking up the wrong tree. I would hate to see that your hanging your hat thinking she has IBD when in fact she may have another ailment such as a maldigestive problem or heaven forbid cancer lurking about. Granted, I don't know how much testing you have done in the past but, perhaps it's time for a second opinion with an internal medicine Dr.

[RobinM]

, perhaps it's time for a second opinion with an internal medicine Dr.

 

I so agree.

[Xan]

You could well be right. Tomorrow should bring us more test results on the senior blood panel they started last week. I have lots to talk to him about, and we'll see where we need to go. He's a really great guy, and I don't see him being too proud to hand us off to a specialist if he thinks it's the right thing to do. I'd appreciate his referral, rather than try to figure it out from the Yellow Pages! He does lots of work with cancer in dogs, so I think he may be pretty up on things on that front.

 

You'd like him. He comes in, shakes my hand, and sits right down on the floor to observe and be with the dogs. Very gentle, takes plenty of time with us, will call with info or to check in during off hours. I feel lucky to have him on my side.

 

Oh, and she just decided that a bite or two of the tripe was really all she wanted.

[krissn333]

I don't know much about feeding an IBD dog, so, disregard this if it totally goes against what you're trying to do.

 

When Sutra was so skinny, I needed to get weight on him without giving him too much fat (he had pancreatitis and fatty foods would aggravate it).

 

I fed him mashed potatoes, turkey baby food, elbow macaroni, oatmeal, low fat cottage cheese, low fat yogurt, rice, raw ground turkey, chicken necks, raw ground beef. I also would sometimes (if I couldn't get REALLY low fat ground beef) boil the ground beef and drain off the fat. Most of those things are mooshy foods and are really easy to digest. Add to that the fact that they're carbs, but not high in fat. It was all I could do to get some weight back on him.

 

It was a slow process, but he went from 47 lbs to 65 lbs in a few months.

 

Now he eats Solid Gold Wolf King (low in fat but good amount of protein, etc. - I believe it's bison though) with beef broth drizzled over it.

[DaisyDoodle]

Oy.

I've just been reading that pred can be dangerous, even in small doses, if there's a lymphoma. After a few years, though, I'd think that would have become apparent. Right?

I had Cosmo on prednisone for a couple of years to control her lymphoma and her degenerative myelopathy. (She lived to 14y, 4m and 28 m after I first noted enlarged nodes.) Unfortunately, I didn't understand the mechanism of how pred worked, and CoCo couldn't walk if she didn't get it every day (due to the DM), so I created a situation of iatrogenic Cushings in her. In the end, I believed this is what caused her demise.

 

My bad for that (I've been paranoid about pred ever since), but I've never heard that you shouldn't give pred to a lymphoma dog. There used to be a belief that you shouldn't start chemo treatment w pred for lymphoma or it would keep the other chemo agents from working, but Dr. Couto has since done a study showing this not to be the case.

 

Pred is actually used in place of a complete chemotherapy regimen if cost or other factors prevent chemo from being used.

 

BTW, do you think Happy has lymphoma? You can easily check the nodes if you are worried. Check under the lower jaw, in the chest near what would be our collar bone, under the "armpits" behind the front legs, in the groin/tuck inboard of the back legs, and in the back of the "knees" in the back legs. I'm sure there are others, but those are the major ones you can feel readily if they are enlarged.

 

All that meat and fish must be really hard for a vegan to deal with--you are a really loving dog-mom.

 

DD

[Xan]

Just back from the vet. They took more blood and urine to screen again. Apparently, the 2 bacteria we're talking about are NASTY. Very resistant. He said, "We might have to report these to the CDC, that's how nasty." Even being more hydrated, she'd lost nearly 2 pounds since Friday. He says, "Xan, it can't go on like this." That's exactly what I was thinking!

 

I talked to him about budesonide, and he thought we should maybe wean off the pred towards switching to bud. And up her thyroid, in hopes of making her feel a little better. He said her blood showed her in the low middle range, that's with supplementation.

 

He also said not to use pepcid at this time, nor the sucrafate he thought of next, but to watch and wait a bit. (Not sure why. We talked about so much, I didn't get back to that point.) He agreed about encapsulating the Tylan.

 

I bought some ground lamb on the way home (my second meat purchase in my whole life!) to see what she thought of that. First I offered her the tripett she's been eating (small amounts), but that didn't interest her. Then a tiny blob of raw lamb. Nope, but she sniffed it over pretty well. I took that and warmed it to overall grayness in a pan, and that was enticing enough to eat, so I did some more, and she ate it all, though I had to add some nutritional yeast at the end (a risk: sometimes she likes it, sometimes not). So, a qualified success is happening with lamb at the moment.

 

Donna, as I said on FB this morning, my vegan self has her fingers in her ears and is chanting "la la la la la!"

That's interesting about the pred. What I read was that it can mask lymphoma, then (for some reason) make it harder to treat. This was in a statement warning against treating for IBD based on a diagnosis based on symptoms, as opposed to biopsy. I noticed the vet checking her jaw line today. I'll check her other spots. Thanks for that.

 

Kristin, I'm dealing with trying to put weight on her, and having to be careful of fat, but starches (at least grains) can cause their own sets of issues with an IBD dog. My goal is to feed her one thing at a time, as she will take it, then once we're more stable, add things to round out her nutritional needs. That said, I'm already thinking of stirring some boiled potatoes into the ground lamb next meal. She did eat some a couple days ago.....

 

 

[krissn333]

I see, Xan...well, it was worth a try...though the potatoes and the macaroni might be okay I found those were the two things that helped the most as far as weight gain. Also the cottage cheese - good protein but low in fat. Not sure about dairyish stuff for an IBD dog either.

 

I hope you get her eating something consistently!

 

I'm interested to see how she does with lamb...none of my dogs can eat it - they get diarrhea within like 10 minutes

[PrairieProf]

Is there a reason for not trying a prescription food with hydrolyzed protein designed for IBD and related conditions, like Hills z/d or Purina H/A?

[Batmom]

Ditto PrairieProf's question.

 

Assume she is on antibiotics?

 

If she's on pred, she NEEDS something to protect her stomach -- at the very least pepcid. I would consult another vet.

[Xan]

I had Happy on the Hill's for several weeks, but it didn't work for her. She ate it, mostly, but her poops were always mucusy and green and/or red: her innards were not happy with it. I know that stuff is designed to help, but it just doesn't work for Happy.

 

Batmom, she is on antibiotics, and he agreed they might be making her tummy uncomfortable. I really don't know why he said no pepcid or other stuff. I think I'll call him today to ask, since I lost it in the shuffle yesterday. I do know that you're not supposed to take antacids when you (human) are taking antibiotics, because they interfere with absorption of the antibiotics, right? Maybe that's why? I'll ask.

 

As for talking to another vet, I do like and trust this guy a lot, but another consideration is that they give me not only as many discounts as they can (senior pet, blood donor, and the eh-we-just-didn't-charge-for-that discount) because Brilly and Pogo are blood donors. And, and this is major, they let us pay on time. Our bill is approaching $2k, not just for Happy, and the economy has hit us pretty hard (knock on wood, we still have our home), so .......

Hence the Portrait Marathon!

[Batmom]

Pepcid is different from other antacid-type medications and can be used with *almost* anything; certainly with prednisone and antibiotics.

[Xan]

I did just remember he said he wanted to avoid anything with salicylates. Off to look at the pepcid label more carefully ...