Frustrated - Diarrhea, Vomiting, Gurgling Tummy

[Guest psdirector]

Hutch came to us in March with hookworms. He was really sick with them. Since he was at the prison, he has had four rounds of Panacur. He has only had normal poos one or two days since we got him. Most days we get soft serve, but most days he has a good appetite and seems happy.

 

About ten days ago he had an episode of gurgling tummy, diarrhea and after eating a lot of grass, he vomited. After that he was fine. Same thing about five days later. We brought a stool sample to the vet - no sign of any kind of parasites. She suggested changing his food from the Iams green bag to Science Diet Sensitive Stomach since he could have a food allergy. I am slowly trying to change him over, but we've barely started with that.

 

So this morning about 4 AM he woke us up whining, DH took him out. Five AM, same thing, I took him out and he started eating grass, gurgling tummy, diarrhea. He's laying near me right now with a gurgling tummy. He has been eating grass on and off this morning, but has not vomited yet.

 

What the heck? I feel so bad. Most of the time he seems so happy and healthy (except for the soft-serve poo), with a good appetite. Then we get a day like today. By evening he's always hungry and fine.

 

Any idea what this could be? I'm going to get him in to the vet tomorrow or Tuesday. His brother Tibbs has no issues whatsoever, so whatever it is doesn't seem to be catching.

 

When I let Hutch out a few minutes ago, he felt well enough to chase a bird, then he went back to grass eating.

[cleptogrey]

it's a pain to get them not to eat grass, but do your very best. in situations like this i always change over to over cooked white rice and some boiled beef. as you mentioned a trip to the vet is scheduled- i would go monday if at all possible. do ask your vet for something besides the sensitive diet food to calm his irritated gut-it's not doing the trick and he can offer other solutions. do bring in a new stool sample. good luck! remember no cookies, treats or anything besides the rice/beef combo.(i hate to mention drugs but this sounds like a need for flagyl or tylan powder or maybe he still has worms- your vet will know the answer).

[Walliered]

This helps with my greys: Cerenia. They take the 160mg. It is made by Pfizer I had to switch Lady over to ZD from the vets because of allergies. DaVid also eats it, but only because he wants what Lady has. LOL Anyway, no more stomach troubles right now. I use the kibble mixed with a little of the can. I only give Prescription Diet Hypoallergenic Treats and lamb lung. In my opinion this food is very expensive crap, but I am not a food snob anymore and it does seem to work. I know how frustrating the stomach gurgling can be so hope you find a solution soon.

[Guest iconsmum]

have you tried Pepcid?

Ever since we had a surprise bout of HGE a year ago I have developed a

hunch that lots of dogs have untreated reflux and their discomfort comes from the burn of the acid rising up the esophagus. You might give a 10mg tab (or half a 20mg one) in the

morning and another one at dinner. This fixes the problem here. I make it a point to give a piece of bread soaked in half a cup of almond milk as a

buffer just before bed.

If I'm a bit late with the pepcid, I can see the difference in his comfort level.

[Guest OPointyDog]

One of our dogs, Zoe, gets the grass-eating-gurgling-tummy-vomiting routine sometimes. I try not to let her eat grass, but she does it anyway. She is sneaky. Here's what seems to help: I give her a small snack at bedtime, which helps keep her tummy settled overnight. When she does eat grass and vomit, I give her 1.5 tablets of pepsid (15mg of famotidine) and then wait about 30-45 minutes and then give her breakfast. I continue to give her pepsid for a few days, and it usually goes away.

 

Our other dog, Mika, has had chronic diarrhea so we have a lot of experience - it could be just about anything. Here are some possibilities (bear in mind you may be dealing with more than one!):

 

1) worms of various sorts - a stool sample to the vet might help, but many of the worms can actually be in the dog and not show up in the stool sample. Aggressive treatment is needed of hookworms, in particular. They're uncommon in the environment around here, so vets are not used to dealing with them, so I had to really educate my vet about this to get rid of Zoe's hookworms.

 

2) food intolerance - some dogs don't do well with certain proteins, which could be animal (chicken, beef, fish, etc) or vegetable (corn, soy, wheat, etc.). Elimination diets and trying novel proteins/carbs gradually can really help with this. The advice of boiled beef or chicken with mushy rice is good advice in my opinion.

 

3) bacterial overgrowth in the intestines - some dogs seem to be prone to this, either because they eat something they shouldn't or just because their system is imbalanced. The good bacteria die off and the bad bacteria take over. Meds like flagyl or tylan powder can help with this. Some dogs do well with probiotics, too.

 

4) Giardia or other intestinal parasites - again, you vet should pick up on this in the stool sample, and it's treatable with drugs

 

5) balance of protein/fat/carbs/fiber in the diet - many greys seem to have trouble with a lot of fatty food, and some do well with lots of carbs and others can't handle them at all (grain free vs. not, for example). Some need low fiber, some need high fiber. It may take some trial and error, but you can figure out a combination that works for your dog.

 

6) There are possibilities - IBD/IBS or compromised pancreatic function, for example. My guess is that 1-5 are the majority of diarrhea cases, though.

 

Turns out for our Mika, we had a combination of a lot of these things. He had tapeworms, but even after we got rid of them, he still had chronic diarrhea for months and was losing weight, and we were really at a loss for what to do. He did well on hamburger and rice for awhile, but then things would get bad again. Finally, what's working now is hamburger and rice mixed with Purina DCO (prescription high fiber food) and tylan powder. So I think his problem is a combo of #3 and #5. They're probably intertwined - I suspect if he doesn't get the right mix of protein/fat/carbs/fiber, then his bacteria gets imbalanced and that causes the problem. But each dog is different and your vet can help you figure it out.

 

A good first pass is deworming, a bland diet, and a course of flagyl, I think, since that hits a number of the possibilites. Hope that helps!!

[Time4ANap]

Sounds like the tummy might be really torn up / sensitive. If the vet hasn't put him on Flagyl (Metronidazole), it may be time for a couple of weeks of it to try and heal the stomach.

 

In addition, the bland diet is also a good idea while using the Flagyl. We have actually started using canned food instead of the cooked bland diet with great results when Rocket has stomach issues. We feed Evanger's canned Organic Chicken. It is ground very fine and digests easily. Nothing but chicken and water in it, and for us, it works better than the prescription canned food from the vet. Evanger's is available from Wag.com and Petflow.com if you can't find it locally. When we need to feed the bland diet, we feed 4 small meals a day instead of the usual 2 larger meals to make things easier on the tummy.

 

Also - be sure that any Panacur treatments are between 2 and 3 weeks apart depending on the Vet's instructions. Giving Panacur once, then waiting til there's another instance of worms won't get them. You may need 2 or even 3 follow up treatments at regular intervals to get them all.

 

Hope Hutch is feeling better soon.

[Guest psdirector]

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

We did give the Panacur at 3-week intervals. A stool sample three days ago showed nothing - no parasites of any kind. I am concerned that they are there are just not showing up in the sample. After such a long time with the hookworms, I'm skeptical of their being gone when he still feels so bad. In between days of feeling bad he seems fine - good appetite, active, etc. Just those really loose pudding poos. Today we've gone from pudding to liquid. When his hooks were at their worst right after we got him, he had bloody poos and his vomit was tinged with blood. It made my stomach hurt just to think about how torn up his insides must have been.

 

We are definitely going to the vet tomorrow. Several more incidents of liquid poo and he isn't hungry at all and just doesn't seem himself. Fortunately he's had a bit of water to drink or I would be worried about dehydration. Tummy is still gurgling.

 

We are going to try the bland diet - again. I usually boil ground beef and white rice when he gets like this and give it to him for a couple of days. That's assuming that he even wants to eat anything tonight.

 

I will definitely try some Pepcid this evening. Poor Hutchie!

[TheFullHouse]

Have you tried a probiotic? My vet introduced me to Proviable-DC. It has worked great for a couple of mine who have funny tummy's. I can either get it from my vet or order it on line. Amazon even sells it.

[cleptogrey]

personally i would hold off on giving him pecid or anything else. let your vet see the quality and smell the odor of the feces. those clues may help give him an answer. it's only over night. you don't want any meds interfearing w/ the analysis of the fecal matter.then discuss or try probiotics. they do work wonders, but as you have read there is a long list of things which can cause his upset(including eating animal feces).

[Guest psdirector]

So we got Hutch to the vet - no parasites of any kind, no giardia. It's probably diet. The vet suggested trying him on a limited ingredient food with a meat that he's likely not encountered before (venison, bison, etc.) and, while we are switching slowly over to that, to cut out everything else - no peanut butter on his Kong, no Mother Hubbard biscuits, nothing else unless it's the same brand of limited ingredient treat. We bought a bag of Natural Balance Venison and Sweet Potato and we are going to try that. I stopped putting a dollop of yogurt on his breakfast last weekend when he was sick, and we've noticed that the gas situation, while not gone completely, is MUCH better. It's likely that he's lactose intolerant, so we will stop the yogurt for good.

 

Hopefully we're on the right track with this change of food, but I know that it might take some trial and error. He seems to like everything, so liking the food will not be an issue.

[greyhead]

After a long time with hookworms, he may never be rid of them. You may need to treat periodically with Drontal. (For one thing, the hooks can develop resistance to Panacur if they weren't all killed by the treatment.)

 

You might also be on the lookout for a new vet, IMHO, just in case things don't improve. I could be wrong, but I don't think it's likely to get symptoms as severe as Hutch's from diet. You probably weren't around for my family's protracted battle with our Spencer's GI woes in late '08 and all of '09, with meds required forever after. But he started with hookworm, which wasn't diagnosed for 9 months after he came to us, then developed SIBO with C. perfringens after post-dental antibiotics unbalanced the intestinal flora (which went undiagnosed for 6 months), then intestinal malabsorption, then IBD. All of these were made more severe by vets who for long periods didn't take the symptoms seriously enough to pursue an accurate diagnosis. Meanwhile, they offered such explanations as "it's probably emotional" and "try sweet potato."

 

Does his poop smell notably bad, or does it have a strange color? It's hard to get vets to do a culture and sensitivity on poop, but if there's bacterial overgrowth it's the only way to find out which bacterium is the culprit and what antibiotic it will respond to.

[a_daerr]

So we got Hutch to the vet - no parasites of any kind, no giardia. It's probably diet. The vet suggested trying him on a limited ingredient food with a meat that he's likely not encountered before (venison, bison, etc.)

 

I'm interested as to how this will all play out... My Henry started with a sensitive stomach and did ten times worse on venison/buffalo based foods (he actually developed an allergic reaction with swelling and itchy paws). Not knocking your vet, but I'm not sure another food switch is going to be the answer unless it's a prescription food. Did they at least give him Flagyl or sulfasalzine or something to combat the inflammation in his gut?

[a_daerr]

You might also be on the lookout for a new vet, IMHO, just in case things don't improve. I could be wrong, but I don't think it's likely to get symptoms as severe as Hutch's from diet.

 

Unfortunately, I agree.

Vets seem so quick to jump on the "food allergy" bandwagon. Dr. Donna Spector just did an article on the over-diagnosing of food allergies in dogs.

[Guest OPointyDog]

Each hound is different, but what has worked for us is to calm down the gut with a bland food (boiled hamburger and rice) in combination with tylan powder. Flagyl might work just as well, depending on the dog. THEN once his system calmed down, we started trying novel proteins. That does seem to work well for some dogs. In our case the novel proteins didn't pan out, but a prescription food did.

 

In our case, we needed a very slow transition onto a prescription food (Purina DCO) combined with Tylan powder. Mika has had nice poops for over a month now and has put all the weight back on. Whew!

Edited June 11, 2013 by OPointyDog

[XTRAWLD]

I agree that every hound is different, and some have better tummies than others.

 

Make sure Hutch is staying hydrated. With a lot of D, you can run into hydration issues. If you can lead a dog to water, but he won't drink, try some chicken or beef broth to ensure he's intaking some sort of fluid. Keep your diet as bland as possible, with little feedings throughout the day instead of one or two big meals. Sounds like his tummy is really upset. I would go with some rice and broth, and work up from that.

 

We've tried Cerenia for Ryder, and a full pill was too much for him, so we halved it and it seemed to break the cycle, it was used to control nausea, so if Hutch has a flippant tummy, that might be a good idea. He might turn into a space cadet like mine did though, but it did break the cycle for Ryder who would vomit like clockwork, but you need a prescrip.

 

I also use chewable Pepto for a quick solution for times when you just have to wait for it to pass because they ate something they shouldn't have, etc. but I don't think that's something you should try right now. It would just be masking the problem.

 

We use Pepcid to control Kasey's acid reflux, it really and truly calms the stomach. I have heard a gurgling tummy stop within 15 minutes of dosing.

 

If you try anything, do so for at least a week, so that their body can have a better reaction and recovery before trying new food or weaning off another drug.

 

I have dosed Kasey with colloidal silver before, and it really did help his system get back on track rather quickly. I wouldn't believe how well it works if I didn't try it. It might surprise you - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_uses_of_silver - Edit to add the page that I used - http://awesomepaws.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=discussion&action=display&thread=25 and the dosing info - http://awesomepaws.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=discussion&action=display&thread=62

 

You might also consider feeding raw, instead of kibble. I can't tell you the wonders of a difference it made with both my boys.

Edited June 11, 2013 by XTRAWLD

[Guest psdirector]

Knock on wood, but Hutch may be the poster child for "sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution." The vet suggested that we switch him to a limited ingredient food but that we also stop any add-ins (yogurt on his breakfast, peanut butter to plug the holes of his Kong). Hutch's tummy has been perfect this past week and he has formed poos for the first time ever. We honestly think it was the yogurt we were putting on his breakfast. The gas in both dogs has gone from "peel the paint off the walls" bad to almost non-existent.

 

We are in the process of switching over to Natural Balance Venison and Sweet Potato and they love it. They are still getting some of the Iams, so we'll see when the switch is complete.

 

Is lactose intolerance common in greyhounds?

[Guest OPointyDog]

Is lactose intolerance common in greyhounds?

 

I would suspect so. Both of ours are. We had similar issues with Zoe - stopped the yogurt in favor of FortiFlora, and things got much better!

 

Glad you found a solution that's helping - it is a big relief when everything moves through the digestive system as it should. Keep us posted on how the new diet works out for him!

[a_daerr]

Yogurt!! I'm glad the culprit was something simple!