Sadie has loose bowels again

I do hope that you, your vet, or another vet can get to the bottom of this.

My mixed breed female, Capers, had recurrent diarrhea 3 - 4 years ago. I was finally referred to a vet specialist that did a lower and upper GI scope on her and diagnosed her with stress induced Irritable Bowel Disease. She was successfully treated with a one year regime of metronidazole, prednisone, and famotadine.

Capers has had a recurrence of diarrhea this summer. Parasites were ruled out, but her (clostridium) bacteria counts were out of whack. We found that one week courses of metronidazole did nothing for her; so she is back on a longer course of metro, pred, and famotadine. We're 4 weeks into 6 weeks of meds, with no recurrence of diarrhea. Her bacteria counts will be re-checked in two more weeks.

All the best with yours. Unpredictable GI issues are not fun !

Katherine
 
Best wishes from our house and pups, Ontario. We've been down that road as well with gastro issues and as you know, isn't easy to diagnose or treat. The new food is a good plan. In looking at your new food, remember that the fewer ingredients it contains, the better for Sadie. Your holistic doc may be able to give you some help too. There are a number of natural routes you can take for both parasites and gastro problems. If not, there are a number of excellent holistic canine vets that will even consult by phone from a distance using your test results.

I don't mean to be pushy here, but from the sound of it you really do need to consult another vet. Sadie's issue may just be beyond your current vet's capability and knowledge base. Good luck and give that sweet girl a pat for us.
 
Ann said:
Best wishes from our house and pups, Ontario. We've been down that road as well with gastro issues and as you know, isn't easy to diagnose or treat. The new food is a good plan. In looking at your new food, remember that the fewer ingredients it contains, the better for Sadie. Your holistic doc may be able to give you some help too. There are a number of natural routes you can take for both parasites and gastro problems. If not, there are a number of excellent holistic canine vets that will even consult by phone from a distance using your test results.

I don't mean to be pushy here, but from the sound of it you really do need to consult another vet. Sadie's issue may just be beyond your current vet's capability and knowledge base. Good luck and give that sweet girl a pat for us.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about being pushy, if I were giving someone else advice about this issue I would suggest another vet too. But I'm stubborn, tired of stool samples and talking back and forth with the vets office and getting no where. If changing her food and treating her for parasites doesn't work I'll take her somewhere else.

The vet did recommend trying a more digestible food before doing further testing, which I'm in the process of doing. I've picked one that is fairly high quality. Its called Performatrin Ultra, has human grade ingredients and has no hard to digest fillers. I chose the Lamb and Brown Rice formula since lamb and rice are both easily digestible and she's never had lamb before, just in case she's allergic to chicken. It has a fairly short list of ingredients, apart from the added vitamins and probiotics and no harmful fillers
 
It Still Hasn't Stopped

Sadie has been on a high quality, low allergen food for 3 weeks now and her diarrhea has returned, proving that its not her food causing the problem.

I've been really happy with the improvement I've seen in her, her coat is beautiful, sleek and shiny, her movements have been smaller, well formed and not too hard and she seems to love the food. I was actually just starting to think that I was wrong and that her old food was the cause of all of her problems when she had another attack of loose bowels. She did have a very mild attack right before starting her new food, this time it is also fairly mild but definitely worse than last time. She's been burping a lot which leads me to believe her tummy is upset, she usually doesn't burp except when she drinks water too fast. No vomiting so far.

I've started her on another 3-day round of Panacur, I'm then going to wait a week and then give her another round of it. If this doesn't do it then its back to the vet for blood work :(
 
I have been down that road too with my dog,s and have never been able to come up with what the cause was.
It could be something as simple as eating something unknown in your yard or elsewhere. i.e. bunny poop, mushrooms, or drinking water out of a puddle,
When my sheltie shows signs of being unwell with loose stools I have a product that I got from the vet called FortiFlora which is a supplement that contains live active cultures to promote intestinal health and balance in the management of dogs with diarrhea. I found that it works putting the good bacteria back in the dog's system.
I am "anal" about treats, they only get home cooked chicken or beef (or raw vegetables) they love them. and I know what exactly they are getting. Especially as two of my boys are on a special diet for kidney disease.
Hope little Sadie gets better soon, its very worrisome when you don't know the cause of their illness.
Sylvia and
our 4 shelties.
 
sylvia said:
I have been down that road too with my dog,s and have never been able to come up with what the cause was.
It could be something as simple as eating something unknown in your yard or elsewhere. i.e. bunny poop, mushrooms, or drinking water out of a puddle,
When my sheltie shows signs of being unwell with loose stools I have a product that I got from the vet called FortiFlora which is a supplement that contains live active cultures to promote intestinal health and balance in the management of dogs with diarrhea. I found that it works putting the good bacteria back in the dog's system.
I am "anal" about treats, they only get home cooked chicken or beef (or raw vegetables) they love them. and I know what exactly they are getting. Especially as two of my boys are on a special diet for kidney disease.
Hope little Sadie gets better soon, its very worrisome when you don't know the cause of their illness.
Sylvia and
our 4 shelties.
Click to expand...

This isn't a case of her just getting into things, this has been happening regularly every 2-3 weeks since the spring, there is definitely something up with her. Since changing her food we've been watching her like a hawk. When I changed her food I changed everything. I got rid of all of the treats in the house and started only giving her carrots and liver treats (homemade using GeeRome's receipe). Her new food is fortified with a number of probiotics and I've also been giving her yogurt to help the growth of the good bacteria in her tummy. I still swear she has a parasite!
 
Sorry if it has been mentioned but has she been tested for giardia? I know someone with a dog showing similar problems who is currently being tested for this, its been going on for about the same amount of time too.

http://www.thepetcenter.com/exa/gia.html

Its a parasite as you may of thought? Symptoms sound similar too.
 
jodie said:
Sorry if it has been mentioned but has she been tested for giardia? I know someone with a dog showing similar problems who is currently being tested for this, its been going on for about the same amount of time too.

http://www.thepetcenter.com/exa/gia.html

Its a parasite as you may of thought? Symptoms sound similar too.
Click to expand...

I'm sure I mentioned it somewhere in this thread but Giardia is exactly what I think it is. Sadie has ALL of the symptoms of Giardia and responded well to Panacur, a medication for treating Giardia. I read though that often it needs to be administered at least twice, a week apart in order for the medication to be effective but I couldn't get the vet to prescribe it twice in a row, she went almost two months in between treatments. Each time she showed improvement after the treatment but the symptoms gradually returned and progressivley got worse.

Since Panacur is a prescription in Canada and not in the US, I've ordered some online and am administering it myself before I start looking into blood work.
 
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