Questions About Ibd

[jshell]

Betty Joan, now 11 and a half years old, has had some new health issues since late October: every 2-3 weeks, she'll have a single round of bad poop. It's not an all day diarrhea event, but it's one wet/runny/soft mix usually. Previous poops will be fine, and then suddenly: blam! (Sometimes in the house).

 

The year Betty turned 8, she did have some major digestive issues but has been fairly good since then except for the usual suspects. And in August, she did go through a round of Giardia. We did blood tests (blood panel?) at the time and her results were good. Kidneys slightly elevated, liver slightly below average, everything else in the middle-range.

 

She's on a fair amount of blood pressure meds and has been since she was 8, and this year has seen an increase in pain meds (a low dose of gabapentin since summer; 500 mg of Tramadol every 12 hours as of about 2-3 weeks ago).

 

Anyways, we've seen the vet about this new odd stool issue, since it was happening often enough to be weird (ie, not likely to be just a bad thing eaten off the floor) and he's talked about inflammation in her bowels. I can't remember if she's been fully diagnosed with IBD, but is this random runny poop a part of that?

 

Since late November, the second most recent flare-up, her diet has been a mix of Prescription Diet I/D dry and canned food. Her normal canned food is Pedigree Plus "Healthy Digestion", but when the flare-ups happen I switch it to I/D canned. On her last flare-up a little over two weeks ago, the vet gave us two weeks worth of Metronidazole: one for that flare-up, one for when it happened again.

 

Seems to have happened again this morning so I started the metro and all-i/d diet. Even though she had to hurry outside before our normal walk time and had that wet/slushy stool mix this morning, her appetite was normal and she ate breakfast and pills and treats.

 

Before I ramble too much, back to the root question: is this I.B.D.? Is this something that I should just expect to happen every few weeks from now on? Or is this just some other kind of inflammation? Or just old age?

[Guest FordRacingRon]

My girl is 11 1/2. She does have very mild IBD which was diagnosed by an ultra sound. We were doing basically nothing about it because she was fine. About 2 months ago she got sick one day, vomiting and diarrhea. Vet trip and the vomiting was cured by the pudding poops has never really stopped. She doesn't "go" any more then she used to, it's just not solid. I tried everything I could think of from the old standbys like pumpkin, oatmeal etc. She actually won't even eat dog food anymore so her diet is either ground beef, ground turkey, baked chicken thighs or canned salmon. Any day it could be one of those while the other 3 are basically poison. Right now it's been ground turkey.

 

One thing I tried was this paste from Vetri-Science which was supposed to help dogs with the runs. It worked for like a day then stopped again. According to the label it really is mostly a high does of probiotics. Problem is the label says it is a once in a a while, only to be used for no more then 2 days kind of a fix. So we went home form the armed with daily probiotics to see if that will help, along with a prescription for Meronidazole which is for IBS.

 

It's only been 3 days. So far all I notice is the pudding is thicker now but who knows what that will lead to so we shall see if that works for her.

[tbhounds]

I think I would just feed the I/D to see if that resolves the diarrhea or switching to W/D will actually be more beneficial. Some dogs diarrhea can be resolved with just a diet change. W/D is a very high fiber diet-some diarrhea is fiber responsive (this is why the Iams "green bag" works for some)-other times it's low residue responsive (raw). If she truly has IBD (dogs do not get Ibs -however, they do get stress colitis) a novel food may need to be offered along with various other medications and treatments.

So, without running further diagnostics it's impossible to say for any certainty if she has the beginnings of IBD. I would try her on the W/D-making that her soul diet (does come in can and dry) and see how she does with that.

IBD is a very complicated disease.

[jshell]

IBD is a very complicated disease.

 

 

That's why I was unsure, since the vet has said the word "inflammation" or "minor inflammation" in regards to her bowels/intestines a few times over the last couple of months. Betty's recent things seem very mild and sporadic. Her diet is fairly limited (we suspect food allergies may have led to many of the problems she had 3-4 years ago), she gets the pro-biotics and all that. And it's the vet that been most insistent on the I/D.

 

It's so weird that it's not like diarrhea. Today, again, she's been fine and napping since we went out this morning. We're about to go out again now and will see how she's pooping. This lone bad poop, that appears with semi-regularity, generally surrounded by normal stool, is just very odd.

[jshell]

My girl is 11 1/2. She does have very mild IBD which was diagnosed by an ultra sound. We were doing basically nothing about it because she was fine. About 2 months ago she got sick one day, vomiting and diarrhea. Vet trip and the vomiting was cured by the pudding poops has never really stopped. She doesn't "go" any more then she used to, it's just not solid. I tried everything I could think of from the old standbys like pumpkin, oatmeal etc. She actually won't even eat dog food anymore so her diet is either ground beef, ground turkey, baked chicken thighs or canned salmon. Any day it could be one of those while the other 3 are basically poison. Right now it's been ground turkey.

 

That sounds like a scary situation. Betty is so food motivated that it really worries me when she doesn't eat. How's your girl's weight doing? When Betty went through her long period of loose stools, she lost a lot of weight (from 55 pounds down to 42!) and then got really susceptible to other problems Fortunately we fixed all or most of them.

 

I suspect Betty had food allergies as even though I had some really high quality food, I was staying in the beef and lamb group for her food and she would just stop eating or wanting it after a while. Now we stay in the fowl group and she's generally been fine until this batch of sporadic soft stools. But the oddest thing is: they basically only occur once and then it's back to normal pretty quickly.

[greysmom]

My Lilly is the same way - about a 2 to 2 1/2 week cycle of good poops and then gradually getting worse to bad diarrhea for a day or two. Then it will get better. An xray did show her intestines were very inflamed and swollen. Vet diagnosed *possible* IBD. Though the very first thing we did was see if she had a food intolerance. Sure enough, after completely stopping all chicken products, she got better.

 

She's now eating Blue Basics Salmon and Potato for sensitive stomachs and it's working very well. We did try feeding her Science Diet Rx food, but it had chicken in it and she really can't have ANY at all. We even had to eliminate all treats that list processed chicken fat or other tiny amounts of chicken. She now gets her Blue food, salmon jerky, and very little else, and she's doing good now.

 

Our vet said that a food intolerance can come up suddenly, and change as they age. It might be a place to begin.

[Guest FordRacingRon]

 

That sounds like a scary situation. Betty is so food motivated that it really worries me when she doesn't eat. How's your girl's weight doing? When Betty went through her long period of loose stools, she lost a lot of weight (from 55 pounds down to 42!) and then got really susceptible to other problems Fortunately we fixed all or most of them.

 

I suspect Betty had food allergies as even though I had some really high quality food, I was staying in the beef and lamb group for her food and she would just stop eating or wanting it after a while. Now we stay in the fowl group and she's generally been fine until this batch of sporadic soft stools. But the oddest thing is: they basically only occur once and then it's back to normal pretty quickly.

We were actually shocked to see she had only lost 1/4 pound in 2 months. She sort of binge eats. Eats terribel for 2 days, then binges on the 3rd. She binge ate for 3 days now though so I suspect tonight she wont eat a thing.