Diarhhea

[Guest sueh2o]

I have had Moe for over 2 years and has had 4 bouts with hook worms.

With his latest bout he has had diarhhea & custard stools (nothing firm) for 1 month. He has been on Tylan powder, metronidazole, pyrantal. I feed him Imes Intestinal Low Residue with a heaping tablespoon of beneful wet & white rice. I had switched him from the Interceptor to Heartguard Plus. I now have him back on Interceptor. All fecal test come back negative. Could he have colitis? If so is there a way to test? He is otherwise healthy, plays, looks forward to his walks. I have 2 other greys & have no problems with them. FYI Moe was extremely shy when I first got him. He is also on thyroid medication. Still standoffish with men but loves the ladies. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Guest Energy11]

Hummm..... Could be food allergies, too!

 

Might want to switch from what you are feeding to grain-free. I know Canidae makes a good grain-free, but it is pretty pricey. I hear you can get a VERY good grain-free at Costco (**Boy, I wish I had one around here!!!!!!!!!*).

 

Maybe that is your problem??? I am VERY lucky, not to have any "poop problems" here.

 

Maybe someone else with your same problem will chime in, but, the first thing that came to mind with me, was the food, and maybe food allergies.

 

Sending good luck your way!

[SAVED2]

IMOUDIUM AD a pill a day , you could use two the first day.

[greyhead]

Oh dear. Same thing happened here. Also history of hookworm (bigtime). The drugs your pup is on didn't work for Spencer either, until we diagnosed his SIBO by doing a culture-and-sensitivity test on his poop. It took so long to come to terms with all this that he ended up with IBD. It took three rounds of three different antibiotics to kill the two strains of anaerobic bacteria that he had.

 

I recently saw pictures of hookworm damage in a parasitology text in my vet's office. They dig channels in the intestinal walls. Very impressive channels. That's probably what makes these dogs more susceptible to bacterial overgrowth.

 

I kept mentioning to my vet that the poop smelled truly vile (well, yeah, after 5 months of this kind of thing) and could surely reveal something! But they just kept doing fecals for worms! I finally calmly insisted that they run the C&S. I suggest you do the same. (I wasted lots of time on beet pulp, sweet potato, changing foods, and antibiotics that were too weak to work on a bacterium that could have led to gangrene and death.)

 

Btw, on the hookwormsl, since they're systematized and never entirely going to leave, we use Interceptor monthly but still have to do an annual treatment using Drontal. Interceptor keeps them under reasonable control most of the time, but we still find Spencer has flares where the hooks are obviously having a convention in his lungs. We find the Drontal easier to administer than the Panacur for this purpose.

 

Let me know if you have any questions for us. Especially about SIBO and C&S.

 

Edited to add: The one thing Spencer couldn't handle after hookworms was white rice. Later he couldn't handle Iams either.

Edited May 12, 2010 by greyhead

[Guest gryhnd3]

Let me know if you have any questions for us. Especially about SIBO and C&S.

 

Don't mean to butt in on this thread, but could you state what SIBO and C&S are?

 

Our guy was diagnosed w/ hookworms when we got him last August. Gets Interceptor monthly. Rechecked fecal several months later and vet said negative. Although he will have firm/firmer poops sometimes, he is also often pretty loose. Awful gas most of the time also. We have tried several different proteins (same brand though) and are about to try a different brand (tried pumpkin and yogurt and probiotic as well).

[Guest sueh2o]

Oh dear. Same thing happened here. Also history of hookworm (bigtime). The drugs your pup is on didn't work for Spencer either, until we diagnosed his SIBO by doing a culture-and-sensitivity test on his poop. It took so long to come to terms with all this that he ended up with IBD. It took three rounds of three different antibiotics to kill the two strains of anaerobic bacteria that he had.

 

I recently saw pictures of hookworm damage in a parasitology text in my vet's office. They dig channels in the intestinal walls. Very impressive channels. That's probably what makes these dogs more susceptible to bacterial overgrowth.

 

I kept mentioning to my vet that the poop smelled truly vile (well, yeah, after 5 months of this kind of thing) and could surely reveal something! But they just kept doing fecals for worms! I finally calmly insisted that they run the C&S. I suggest you do the same. (I wasted lots of time on beet pulp, sweet potato, changing foods, and antibiotics that were too weak to work on a bacterium that could have led to gangrene and death.)

 

Btw, on the hookwormsl, since they're systematized and never entirely going to leave, we use Interceptor monthly but still have to do an annual treatment using Drontal. Interceptor keeps them under reasonable control most of the time, but we still find Spencer has flares where the hooks are obviously having a convention in his lungs. We find the Drontal easier to administer than the Panacur for this purpose.

 

Let me know if you have any questions for us. Especially about SIBO and C&S.

 

Edited to add: The one thing Spencer couldn't handle after hookworms was white rice. Later he couldn't handle Iams either.

 

Thank you for all the information. I will be taking a stool sample to the vet & have him do the culture & sensitivity test. I was suprised to hear about the Iams & white rice. I am going to try the grain-free as suggested (from Costco's). Will let you know how the test comes back. Thanks again!

[greyhead]

Don't mean to butt in on this thread, but could you state what SIBO and C&S are?

 

Our guy was diagnosed w/ hookworms when we got him last August. Gets Interceptor monthly. Rechecked fecal several months later and vet said negative. Although he will have firm/firmer poops sometimes, he is also often pretty loose. Awful gas most of the time also. We have tried several different proteins (same brand though) and are about to try a different brand (tried pumpkin and yogurt and probiotic as well).

Sorry to be unclear. A C&S test is a Culture and Sensitivity test. In this case the poop is cultured over a few days just as urine would be, to see if anything bad is growing. Maybe the main thing it reveals is bad bacteria, which cause SIBO, Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth. (I think it can also find fungus and other nasty things.) Vets may argue that the germs you find are the ones that are supposed to be growing in the intestinal tract anyway. Yes, but the size of the population is key; a vast overgrowth of them lead them to produce toxins, which lead to damage and even death.

 

A couple other things. A negative fecal does not mean that there are no worms! Here's a link to a recent Greytalk thread that includes a spectacular explanation by LindsaySF: http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/254289-quick-question-about-poops-etc/ (Somebody please tell me how to reduce these links to a one-word thingy!)

 

If your dog has developed an inflammatory response to what it eats, changing the food may only work briefly. Until the cause of the inflammation is discovered and addressed, the dog will keep having that response to each new protein you introduce. If it turns into IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), you'll curse every protein you previously tried because then none of them will be "novel" or useful again. You'll be hunting for kangaroo meat, only to find that the provider mixes the formula with white rice, which doesn't agree at all with most of the dogs we're discussing at the moment. That's why I'm always jumping up and encouraging people to not just change foods, but to do some testing to investigate the underlying cause. Especially when hooks have been involved already. They are nasty, destructive, and persistent despite treatment.

[Guest gryhnd3]

Thanks very much for the informative post.

 

I note Sueh20 is going to bring Moe's sample to the vet. Is that okay or does this test work better if they take the sample directly from the dog in the office? (I can call them tomorrow to doublecheck of course).

[greyhead]

I held a margarine container under my dog and got the sample, so it did come directly from the dog. Good luck.