Diets Of Greys With Osteo

[Guest HeatherStrubler]

Hello all

my greyhound was just diagnosed with Osteo and had her front right leg and shoulder blade amputated on Wednesday. She is doing well and will start chemo in 2 weeks. I have been doing a lot of research on cancer killing diets herbs and supplements. Have any of you tried a new diet for your dog with osteo that has helped fight the cancer? I have read about switching to wet food that is high in protein low in carb since carbs feed the cancer cells. However, I hear that greys cant have only wet food because of gum disease. I also hear that raw diets are good but not for dogs undergoing chemo. So I am reaching out to you for help, with your experience. My Daisy is 2 years old and deserves a long happy life. Thank you in advance for your help

[Guest IrskasMom]

Wowwww just 2 Years old . I am so sorry you are going through this . I have no Advice to give just lots of Prayers and Hugs .

 

One Suggestion I have ,is to Contact OSU and just state your Concern to Dr. Couto .

[mom2four]

Heather I'm so sorry that your young girl has been diagnosed with osteo, but I'm happy that she is doing well. I have no real ideas for a change in diet, we kept our angel Jamey on the same food he was on. He was diagnosed at age 9 and lived for 27 months post diagnosis.

My suggestion for you would be to also join Circle of Grey if you have not done so, it's a board for Greyhounds with cancer. There is lots of experience there also.

Linky

 

Tin

 

ETA typing error

Edited January 6, 2013 by mom2four

[Guest snakes]

You will find just about a million suggestions for diet recommendations for cancer in both humans and dogs.

Personally with our experience with FedX I tried a few things, i'll never know if any of it helped, but you do what you think is best at the time. He ahd a very sensistive system and a lot of food with give him awful diarrhea. We couldn't do wet food for this reason and by my research it wasn't that much higher in protien unless you got the really expensive kind and and he as an 80lb grey ate A LOT.

For awhile i did his old kibble mixed with a veggie mixture, but over time he just wouldn't eat the veggie part. I did give him raw at times but he never did chemo and others will chime in about that.

After a lot of research I settled on this dry dog food which agreed with him very well. It had a higher protein content than most and didn't as much as some of the other brands. I ordered it onlien from one fo the websites, I can't remember which one.

http://www.premiumedgepetfood.com/products/dogs/dry_food/healthy_weight_i_weight_reduction_formula

 

Personally I think the supplements, pain meds, and pamidronate are what kept him going for so long.

[TwiggysMom]

Wow, 2 is just so young for osteo. I am so sorry to hear this.

 

As mentioned, there isn't any specific go-to diet for osteo. While we have all heard that cancer feeds on carbs, I know someone on here posted last year a link to a study that showed when carbs weren't available, the cancer cells just adapted and used protein/fat instead. I don't know how much validity there was to that study, and I don't have the link to it myself, so I'm probably giving you useless information here.

 

I did change Twiggy's diet to a low-glycemic index food. She has been eating Nutrisca for over a year now (she is 16.5 months post amp). Nutrisca has several protein choices - chicken, salmon, or lamb. The rest of the food is primarily pea and chickpea based. No potato or rice.

 

Whether it will make any difference over a rice or potato-based food, I don't know, but I figure it can't hurt, and it agrees with her system (good stool, no gas, she's maintained great muscle tone, and holds her weight well).

 

I also supplement with stewed beef and sometimes add veggies to make sort of a beef stew - this is more to spoil her than for health benefits, though!

 

If you haven't already, join us over in the Osteo Threads These have been going for several years now, and you can read extensively about people's experiences going through osteo with their dogs. Tons of great information in there!

 

Again, I am so sorry to hear about Daisy.

[RedHead]

As far as I know Dr. Ogilvie is one of the most experienced in terms of homemade cancer diets. You can google him and find a ton of articles. His cancer diet is cooked and pretty simple:

http://www.vetoncologyconsults.com/Ogilvie%20Homemade%20Cancer%20Diet.pdf

 

Also, I really like Monica Segal...she formulated diets for many of the vet clinics here during the big petfood recall and really knows her stuff. She has several books, but also sells cheaper little mini books on specialized diets (scroll down for her cancer booklet)

http://www.monicasegal.com/cancer.html

 

I noticed a big push in omega 3 supplementation in both of these diets, as well as restricting simple sugars.

 

Good luck! How tragic your dog is so young

 

[GeorgeofNE]

I'm so sorry. I don't happen to believe diet has any effect on cancer (aside from eating food contaminated with cancer causing things!) but your best bet would be to ask OSU what they think.

[iluvgreys]

Unfortunately, current research does not appear to support low carb diets for cancers like osteo. Suggest you give your precious girlie a well balanced diet, and spoil her rotten! Hopefully you'll have many healthy years with her.

[fourofem]

When Lewis was diagnosed with OS, I made the decision not to amputate. He wasn't a spook but was pretty fearful of strangers and absolutely hated going to the vet. I did a lot of research on diet and got lots of advice from greyhound people more experienced than me. I switched him to Evo and started the crockpot combo of chicken and vegetables....sweet potatos, carrots, celery, green beans, spinach, just about anything. I also started him on a combination of chinese herbs but I don't remember now what they were. I don't know if any of it made a difference....he made it almost three months before he developed mets to his lungs. He was on quite a bit of pain medication but his limp never got any worse that it was when I first noticed it.

 

Your girl is young and should adapt pretty quickly. Hopefully, she will have a good, long life and never know the difference.

[greysmom]

There is a lot of information and links in the first post of the Osteo Thread in the Health & Medical section here. I'm not sure if it's there but you shoudl look for one from GTer Charlies_Dad. He and his wife did amazing things for their Charlie in terms of diet and supplements.

[Charlies_Dad]

I am sorry to hear of your Daisy's diagnosis, that is far too young. I am glad she is doing well after amputation and hope the chemo goes well. For our angel Charlie who also went the amp and chemo route, we did change his diet to be 'carb free' and also went the holistic approach (herbs, mushrooms, teas, etc.) along with a number of supplements. We don't know whether it helped but he loved his food and lived for another 21mths which we feel lucky to have gotten and wished for more. I have posted the complete info in one of the Osteo threads however I can also provide a link to DW's blog where she noted it all: http://pinneyandpnut.blogspot.ca/p/charlies-cancer-diet.html. As others have stated already, there is no evidence a carb free diet has any impact on longevity however being in the same position you are now, we were willing to try anything and everything.

 

I agree with others, if you wish to join the Osteo thread in H&M, please do as we are all there to support each other and answer the very same questions so many people ask. Also COG (Circle of Grey) is another great place with good people for support. Give Daisy a hug from me.

[NancyB]

If you give me your email address I can send you a PDF file of Dr. Dressler's The dog Cancer Survival guide.

[Guest HeatherStrubler]

Thank you so much for the info!! I am definitely going to be checking out the blog! This is exactly what I have been looking for!! May I ask how old Charlie was when he was diagnosed?

If you give me your email address I can send you a PDF file of Dr. Dressler's The dog Cancer Survival guide.

heatherstrubler@gmail.com

 

thank you

[Guest HeatherStrubler]

Here is a pic of Daisy one week post amp.

she looks amazing and is healing beautifully!

 

[NeylasMom]

My feeling is overall immune health will be higher when you feed a biologically appropriate diet (consider health issues in humans that result from a diet of processed foods high in sugar) so I stuck with feeding Neyla what I felt was the closest to a natural diet for her in the hopes that it would continue to promote good health and help her fight hte cancer. For us, that was a raw diet. I had been feeding it for many years and saw no need to change. I just doubled her amount of fish oil. We did also use holistic supplements like artemisinin and maitake mushroom, but those fall into a separate category. We did not amputate so I didn't need to consider the potential risk with chemo although I suspect that wouldn't have made me alter her diet either.

[Charlies_Dad]

Thank you so much for the info!! I am definitely going to be checking out the blog! This is exactly what I have been looking for!! May I ask how old Charlie was when he was diagnosed?

 

 

thank you

Charlie was just 7yrs old when he was diagnosed. He was a rear leg amputee. Daisy is beautiful, what a sweet picture of her. It really tears me up that she has Osteo at such a young age. I know that another pup named Lucy was 4 when she was diagnosed and is now 23mths post amp & chemo and doing well. There is also another pup who is almost 5 years post amp and I am forgetting her name right now. Good thoughts that Daisy has the same success and is with you for a long long time.

[krissn333]

The pup that is almost 5 years out now is Maggie Mae I can't remember what Susie's username is!

 

Daisy is a beautiful girl and looks like she's doing wonderful!! Please do join us over in the osteo thread...it's a place of unbelievable support.

[RaineysMom]

The pup that is almost 5 years out now is Maggie Mae I can't remember what Susie's username is!

 

Daisy is a beautiful girl and looks like she's doing wonderful!! Please do join us over in the osteo thread...it's a place of unbelievable support.

 

"Greytdecals", I think.

 

I switched Nube to a very low-carb cooked homemade diet when he was DX'd in July. The veggies I used were cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, greens, celery and always a couple tomatoes in there too. For the meat, I varied from ground beef to chicken to turkey to pork and added cooked eggs (and the shells for calcium) and chicken livers, gizzards, beef liver, etc. The ratio was 3 cups meat to 1 cup veggie. He also got a vitamin supplement so I was sure he was getting what he needed, as well as egg shell calcium too. I also added ground flax and olive oil in there too, and sometimes tofu as well. Keep in mind the veggies have to either be pulverized (I used my food processor) if raw, or mashed up really good if cooked (or they won't get the nutrition).

 

finding low carb dry food is tough, even if there's no grains most have starches in them like potato.

 

There's a good book by Lew Olson that has cancer diet suggestions (as well as others), it's call Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs.

 

I'm so sorry your pretty girl is going through this. She is much too young. But hopefully that will be to her advantage.