Greyson is in the hospital

I am happy Grayson is doing better. I hope he is home with you now.

Reading this thread has encouraged me too look into pet health care myself. I am going to call my vet right now and see if they have a recommended company.

Please give the little guy a kiss on the snout from me!
 
I wanted to say thank you to everyone that suggested CareCredit. Because we were able to take Greyson home 2 days earlier, the cost didn't end up being an issue. The bill came out to be around $450, though we will have more bills in the near future as we monitor his liver.

So I picked Greyson up from the vet this morning! The nausea and vomiting has resolved, but he hasn't yet had a bowel movement since Tuesday before he was admitted. They aren't concerned about that though, as his diet changed suddenly.

They sent him home with instructions to call ASAP if he vomits again, and an appointment to have his bloodwork redrawn again in 12 days. He will be on a prescription diet (Hill's canned Prescription I/D GI health) until the next lab draw, and we will then decide what his diet will be for the long term. The vet said he will probably have to be maintained on a liver diet. I was also told that he can't eat anything other than this prescription food until our next appointment, which means NO treats for Greyson! :( so he is getting lots of scratches instead!

We were sent home with amoxacillin and metronidazole to take for 2 weeks (which he was taking during his hospitalization) to treat the GI upset and a possible infection related to the liver necrosis. He will also be taking S-Adenosyl tabs (the tabs are 225mg, he will take 1/2 per day) which contain milk thistle. Along with that he will be taking Pet Tabs multivitamin. Unfortunately, he refuses to take pills now and I am forced to "pill him" (the vet called it that) by forcing them down his throat and massaging it. Poor baby :(



And if anyone was curious about his lab results:
First results 10/11 (these are just the high values, I am leaving out the rest)
ALKP 1272
ALT >1000
CHOL >520
GGT 50
TIBL 1.7

Today's results:
ALKP 1566
ALT 845
CHOL >520
GGT 78
TIBL 1.1

Some of the results increased, some went down...according to the vet it takes 30 days or more for most lab values to return to a normal range. Since the time between the two lab draws was less than 48 hours, we expect to see more significant improvement at the next appointment.

I am just happy that he is home! We spoke to another vet at the office who said that it is very possible that the Doxycycline and the Temaril-P (which has Prednisolone) caused this liver failure, since he was on them for 2 weeks. I was very hesitant to have him go home on any antibiotics now, but the vet assured me that he will not have the same side effects from the amoxicillin or metronidazole.

Again, thank you all for the well wishes, advice and support! I am so thankful that I found this forum!
 
Glad he is home and feeling better. Have you consider testing for MDR1? You may want to do this just so you know if he does have any problems.

My Hamish, when he had pancreatitis, had an Alkaline phosphate level of over 5000. The vet said he had never seen a value that high and the dog survive. It does take a while for values to come down.

Hug your baby close.
 
<http://www.ashgi.org/articles/mdr1.htm>
info on the mdr1 gene if you want to look into it.

I had gavin tested when he was a pup, its pretty cheap and easy to order a kit from WSU.

So glad your boy is home :D

I know lots of people here have had dogs in chronic liver failure and know tons on special diets, treatments, etc.
 
So glad that Greyson is home and feeling better. Hoping that everything continues to improve by the next tests.
 
insideout said:
Today was the 3rd time we have taken Greyson to the vet since we got him September 10th. The first trip was for his routine exam right after we adopted him. The second vet visit was because he was breathing very fast even at rest and having activity intolerance (which ended up being acute bronchitis and 2 weeks of medications, Doxycycline and Temaril-P). And now to the 3rd vet visit today....

Greyson hasn't been able to keep food down since Sunday. On Sunday morning he ate his regular breakfast of TOTW, green beans and a little pumpkin. Then we went to the dog park for about an hour. About an hour after we got home, he vomited 3 times. It was mostly his food and some liquid. At this point we had stopped his bronchitis medications, as it had been just about 2 weeks anyways.

Monday morning he ate a few bites of his regular kibble, and then wouldn't eat any more. At this point I was already at work, and Derek was feeding him. Derek then left for work at 8am and came back around 4pm. Greyson had thrown up 3 times (all on the carpet unfortunately, if only he could learn to puke on the tile! :lol:).

I did not feed him dinner last night as I wanted to give his stomach a rest. He did steal a few banana slices from my plate though, which he loved and managed to keep down.

This morning I tried feeding him breakfast again, hoping it was just a stomach ache and had resolved. At this point I realized that he wasn't drinking very much water, so I tried putting a small amount of low sodium chicken broth in it to make it more enticing, which worked. About 45 minutes later he vomited up all of the food and water. I then called the vet, who asked me to bring him in ASAP.


So basically they drew bloodwork and Greyson is in acute liver failure. We were sent home and told to wait for a phonecall about the results, and when the vet called me he told me Greyson had to be hospitalized. They don't know the cause and they think it might be something that he ate in the last 3-4 days, but I also think he may have had it before we got him and was made worse by the medications we gave him for bronchitis. The vet thinks he possibly ate a mushroom outside, but we live in a townhouse and don't have a yard, Greyson is never off leash unless he is at the dog park. So I guess the dog park is the only place he could have eaten one. Greyson has been acting normal except for the vomiting, if I hadn't brought him to the vet I wouldn't have known something was wrong.

So now my baby is with the vet, getting IV fluids and treatment. The vet wants to keep him until Saturday, and their "low end" estimate is that it's going to cost $1300. The last two vet visits cost around $300 each. I am very distraught right now, and I'm running out of money so I'm worried that he will need more treatment that I can't afford. I'm sorry if this isn't making any sense, I'm very distraught right now :cry:
Click to expand...

We had the same situation with Cassie recently. She also had to stay in the hospital due to vomiting. Between 10 pm one evening and 12 pm the next afternoon she threw up 6-7 times in different places on the carpet. Her appetite hugely decreased and she did not touch her fav. food. I took her to vet. She said Cassie had to stay in the hospital because she was dehydrated from too much vomiting. They put an IV into her leg and hydrated all these days but not giving any solid food. Cassie was diagnosed Azotemia. It's kidney's condition but NOT kidney failure. She took 4 different kinds of medication when we took her home from the hospital. Now she is on 2.
 
Wow so sorry what you two went through such a situation. Sounds like your boy is going to be fine. Yep we have had mushrooms in the yard, because of some damp weather we had, so its possible he ate mushrooms.

Hopefully this is the end of the road with this, horrible for you both to go through.
 
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