Ongoing Hookworms Or Something Else?

[Guest laura150]

OK, I need people's opinions here!

 

Here is the story:

April 2014, Ernie has bloody diarrhea, the dreaded raspberry jam and is lethargic, not eating and has the stomach gurgles. We take him to the vet, they run a fecal sample and find he's filled with hookworms and whipworms. We do the three rounds of panacur with bland diet and some flagyl and he's good as new.

 

Fast forward to Easter a few weeks ago-Ernie throws up yellow bile, is having bloody diarrhea and the stomach gurgles and won't eat. I realize that he has worms again so I take in a fecal sample. It comes back negative. Still, the vet gives me the panacur and flagyl and we do some fluids for him because he's dehydrated. Again, he seems great after the first round.

He's due for his second round of panacur starting on Tuesday. However, he's had soft stools ever since. There hasn't been blood in them (except for a little the other day) but he's been having the stomach gurgles. This time however, he's ravenous and can't seem to get enough to eat. We've been keeping him on the bland diet after trying to transition but seeing he had loose stools. His poop has been orang-y with mucuous. He's super perky and bouncy. He's definitely also lost weight.

So I take a fecal sample yesterday morning and it comes back negative.

 

Is it possible this is something else or do hookworm tests sometimes come back with a false negative?

 

I've also read that some of his symptoms look like diabetes. Thanks to the internet, I've diagnosed him with lots of stuff.

 

Have parents of greys with hookworms experienced this?

 

He has a vet appointment this afternoon but want to have an idea of what might be going on.

[MandysMom]

The orangey-mucousy poop makes me think Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency. I had a dog with it. They become ravenous, lose weight, and have horrible diarrhea. There is a test for it. If that is the cause, food must be monitored carefully and digestive supplements must be given. Here is a good website about it.

 

To answer one of your other questions, YES, false negatives are not uncommon with worms. I remember the holistic vet telling me years ago that one of the vet manuals has this ridiculously complex deworming schedule, but at the end of the section, reads, "in any case, you can just go ahead and treat the worms." Hooks are especially tough to treat because of larval leak. I fought them for 9 months when I adopted Sammy. Thankfully, he seems to finally be free of them, thanks to multiple rounds of Panacur (Drontal doesn't agree with him) and Olewo carrots.

 

I hope you can get some answers and relief for Ernie.

[tbhounds]

You never have a negative fecal result-what you can have is "no ova or parasites seen"--meaning there's never a true negative sample- either they don't carry a parasite burden or the parasites were not shedding eggs (ova) at the time of the sample collection.

Often one needs to de-worm for longer than 3 days at a time. There are a lot of accepted protocols and every vet has there fav. Personally I like to de-worm with strongid T with known hooks however, it won't cover whips so you in your case I would continue with panacur but, just at a longer protocol. Also, don't forget you will need to de-worm 3 months from now to rid of the whips (that's one of the known protocols).

Clean your yard as soon as your dog defecates to avoid re-infection. Whips are a real pita to rid of once they get into the soil. Also, I would use heartworm prevention year around as that will also help to keep the gut bugs away.

You may want to prophylactically de-worm for tapes too--99.99% of the time they will not show up on a fecal.

Keep an eye on the stool formation and color-as mentioned above there could be other medical reasons resulting in his symptoms.

Edited April 24, 2015 by tbhounds

[cmc333]

From your description of symptoms, certainly sounds like EPI. We had a dog with EPI for several years. I never did manage to get her perfectly "normal" with the supplements, and she was always starving to death. If your vet determines it is EPI, I have some pancreatabs - the med the dr. prescribed I would be glad to send you. I tried the enzyme with the food, but even tho Kelli was starved, whe wouldn't eat her food with the enzyme in it. I have an almost full bottle of pancreatabs left over.