MunasG
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- May 13, 2016
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Hello all,
I haven't posted for months on here, probably October was the last time. It has been a rough several months and i thought i should give you all an update on how Nellie is doing. The last time i posted she had just had a bunch of surgeries and a biopsy to get to the bottom of her chronic vomiting/regurgitation issues. After a palate surgery, widened nares; sacculaes removed; a gastropexy, getting spayed and an intestinal biopsy, the daily vomiting continued. The biopsy finally showed that she has severe eosinophillic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Since then, she was put on budesonide (steroid for the inflammation); metoclopramide for motility and was also dewormed (panacur). The specialist asked that i stop feeding her raw and she went on a prescription diet of Hills ZD hydrolyzed protein food. She refused to eat for a few days but once the steroids kicked in she was so hungry she started to eat it. She was on this for two months with no change. The vomiting continued daily granted not 10 times a day anymore but more like 2-3 times.On the prescribed food and steroids, she was extremely famished all the time no matter how much i fed her. She started loosing weight fast. Right after her surgery in October she weighed close to 18lbs at 8 months (small for a frenchie but healthy looking). On the ZD she lost 4lbs and was scavenging for food and started eating her own poop. I couldn't watch her do this to herself as she was becoming a shell of the dog that she was. Her poo was now loose, a lot and very very smelly. Her coat and hair started looking bad and she overall looked miserable. We want back into the specialist and i told him this. I also joined an IBD support group and was getting tips on there. I spoke to our specialist and talked about my interest in doing the nutriscan test by Dr Jean Dodds as eosinophillic IBD was more linked to food intolerances. He said it would be a waste of money as these tests are unreliable. During this time, i had gone to see a holistic vet and they mentioned nutriscan too. I wasn't sure about it but read up on it. The holistic vet in Toronto Dr McCutcheon suggested a semi raw diet of salmon and that was a disaster. She vomited for two days. The nutriscan results came back saying she was fine with most proteins and carbs except beef, pork and barley. That was a waste because i knew for a fact that chicken, beef, lamb, turkey, duck, salmon, whitefish, sweet potato and pumpkins all gave her massive flare ups. SO i guess the specialist was right. I even reached out to Dr Jean Dodds and she was nice and chatted with me but even she couldn't shed a light on the discrepancies in the results. Her explanation was that sometimes some proteins that the dog is reactive to can show as non-reactive because she hasn't eaten them in a while. Anyway that was the end of my expo to holistic vets.
So then on my own i started to look into home cooking and novel proteins. For a month we were on cooked rabbit and tried a few carbs/fiber sources with it. First was quinoa. She did great on that for a week, but then i started to notice undigested quinoa in her poo. So then i tried sweet potatoes and instant vomit within hours. So i went back to quinoa and i pureed it instead but the minute i pureed the quinoa she started having watery soupy diarrhea. I gave her half a pill of tylosin for 2 days and her poo firmed up a bit but still pretty loose. I then went on to winter squash and cooked rabbit and we were good for 4 days but then i gave her slippery elm bark one day and we dealt with a flare up for two weeks. She has major reflux and vomits at least once a day mostly in the mornings after her breakfast. sometimes undigested food and sometime white foamy bile. She started having bad diarrhea from December 14th 2016. We went back into the specialist and he put her on metronizadole, and it made the diarrhea worst and cause massive vomiting so we stopped it after 4 days. The vomiting got so bad that one the 4th dayi had to rush into the regular vet up the street as he was the only one open over the holiday. This was on boxing day. At this point her poo was loose with a lot of mucus and black with blood. The vet gave her a shot of cerenia and i fasted her for 24 hrs. He also was put on tylosin and sulcrate to coat her stomach. And on top of this we found a tumour wart like thing on her hind leg which the vet thought was either a benign tumour or mass cell tumor! At this point i just broke down crying. At the height of this she was on 6 different meds a day. She was depressed, no energy and has now become the most anxious dog i know. I cannot even go to the bathroom without her following me. Leaving her for work is a chore and her anxiety causes her to vomit more and more.
After the first bout of diarrhea, and the crazy vomiting that took us to the regular vet on boxing day, the regular vet recommended that i feed her only the cooked rabbit with no added carbs to see if that helps. He also took a fecal test. While i kept feeding her the rabbit only, her poo wasn't getting any better. So i started to mix in a bit of the canned ZD that i had left in with the rabbit and it was helping a bit. The vet called on the 28th to let me know that she tested positive for giardia!! If you all remember, she had parvo and giardia at 9 weeks which almost killed her and had her in the ER for two weeks. After that episode i had cleaned everything she owned and always picked up her poop. But what i did not know was that she had to be tested a few more times to be sure that it was gone. Neither vet told me (specialist or regular vet). They basically dropped the ball and on top of everything this dog has giardia as well and might have had it this whole time. So she was put on panacur again first dose for 5 days, 7- 10 day break then another 5 days. On the panacur guess what happened, explosive diarrhea and more vomit. Fresh bloody stools for days. During this time, the specialist was still away for the holidays so i was just dealing with the regular vet. The regular vet suggested we stop the panacur until the specialist came back. We were on day 4 at that point, so i just went ahead and completed the last dose.
When the specialist came back, we went to see him and she had lost another 1lb. He looked at the wart and put a needle in it to send a sample but it was healing at this time and he said it is benign and nothing to worry about. Regarding the diarrhea his take was that since the metronidazole nor the panacur worked, he thinks she has hystiocytic ulcerative colitis (common in frenchies and boxers) on top of the IBD and giardia and this explains the fresh blood in her poop. So yet another med (baytril which she has to be on for 6 weeks) - we are on week 3 on it. The specialist also suggested that the rabbit was not working and to get a nutritionist to help with diet planning. He also wanted me to continue the 2 nd round of panacur to treat the giardia. The nutritionist Dr Susan Lauten is very nice but wants us to tackle the giardia before designing a diet plan. SO she recommended that we try Royal Canin hydrolyzed protein canned food. I do not want to feed her any of these RX foods, but nothing is working for us. SO for the last 2.5 weeks we have been on the RC HP food and the baytril on top of her other two meds (budesonide and metoclopramide). The RC HP started to firm up her poop but it was still loose but much better than what we dealt with over the holidays. The nutritionist also told us to get proviable which i ordered and it came in last week. SO this past tuesday we went on the 2nd dose of the panacur and after one dose, she started vomiting blood! coffee grinds and all. I panicked and stopped the panacur. She also refused to eat. I called the specialist and he said to stop the panacur and bring her in on friday for some blood tests and tests of her levels. We went in on friday and and she hasn't lost anymore weight and is holding steady at 15lbs at 11 months. We were also switched to cisapride instead of metroclopramide for motility. We also have on had some cerenia in case the vomiting gets crazy. We are still on the RC HP and on the proviable probiotics which is firming up her poo well. The vomiting is still happening, but at this point we cannot tell if its the food or meds causing it. She also has really bad gas.
In all this nightmare over the last 9 months, my life is entirely around her schedule because of the meds. We have been through a lot and continue to but she is still the best dog out there and i love her to death. Our vet bills are close to $20,000 and she is not even a year old yet. I don't know what i would have done without pet insurance but i have still spent about $7500 out of pocket after insurance! I have been in touch with the breeder since the holidays when i thought i was going to loose her. He is not much help. He has been promising to help with her meds but i have yet to see anything. He offered me another puppy, this time one that has all three of their shots, but i turned it down. I am neck deep with this one and can barely afford her daily care so taking on another puppy will be highly irresponsible. Sorry for the very long rant, but that's what we have been up to since October. I am waiting to hear back from the specialist about the blood test results. SHe may end up going on B12 injections as a supplement if her levels are low. I feel so terrible for putting her through all of this but I am trying to do the best i can for her. SHe is absolutely terrified of going to vet now. She shakes like a leaf and has become a very anxious dog. Its so sad, but she's such a fighter. I am hoping we will eventually find the perfect combo of diet and meds and she can have a shot at a healthy life. The giardia test results will be back in a few days, i am hoping beyond hope that has cleared up, because if not i don't know what our next step is. Keep praying for my Nellie and sorry for the long novel again.
I haven't posted for months on here, probably October was the last time. It has been a rough several months and i thought i should give you all an update on how Nellie is doing. The last time i posted she had just had a bunch of surgeries and a biopsy to get to the bottom of her chronic vomiting/regurgitation issues. After a palate surgery, widened nares; sacculaes removed; a gastropexy, getting spayed and an intestinal biopsy, the daily vomiting continued. The biopsy finally showed that she has severe eosinophillic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Since then, she was put on budesonide (steroid for the inflammation); metoclopramide for motility and was also dewormed (panacur). The specialist asked that i stop feeding her raw and she went on a prescription diet of Hills ZD hydrolyzed protein food. She refused to eat for a few days but once the steroids kicked in she was so hungry she started to eat it. She was on this for two months with no change. The vomiting continued daily granted not 10 times a day anymore but more like 2-3 times.On the prescribed food and steroids, she was extremely famished all the time no matter how much i fed her. She started loosing weight fast. Right after her surgery in October she weighed close to 18lbs at 8 months (small for a frenchie but healthy looking). On the ZD she lost 4lbs and was scavenging for food and started eating her own poop. I couldn't watch her do this to herself as she was becoming a shell of the dog that she was. Her poo was now loose, a lot and very very smelly. Her coat and hair started looking bad and she overall looked miserable. We want back into the specialist and i told him this. I also joined an IBD support group and was getting tips on there. I spoke to our specialist and talked about my interest in doing the nutriscan test by Dr Jean Dodds as eosinophillic IBD was more linked to food intolerances. He said it would be a waste of money as these tests are unreliable. During this time, i had gone to see a holistic vet and they mentioned nutriscan too. I wasn't sure about it but read up on it. The holistic vet in Toronto Dr McCutcheon suggested a semi raw diet of salmon and that was a disaster. She vomited for two days. The nutriscan results came back saying she was fine with most proteins and carbs except beef, pork and barley. That was a waste because i knew for a fact that chicken, beef, lamb, turkey, duck, salmon, whitefish, sweet potato and pumpkins all gave her massive flare ups. SO i guess the specialist was right. I even reached out to Dr Jean Dodds and she was nice and chatted with me but even she couldn't shed a light on the discrepancies in the results. Her explanation was that sometimes some proteins that the dog is reactive to can show as non-reactive because she hasn't eaten them in a while. Anyway that was the end of my expo to holistic vets.
So then on my own i started to look into home cooking and novel proteins. For a month we were on cooked rabbit and tried a few carbs/fiber sources with it. First was quinoa. She did great on that for a week, but then i started to notice undigested quinoa in her poo. So then i tried sweet potatoes and instant vomit within hours. So i went back to quinoa and i pureed it instead but the minute i pureed the quinoa she started having watery soupy diarrhea. I gave her half a pill of tylosin for 2 days and her poo firmed up a bit but still pretty loose. I then went on to winter squash and cooked rabbit and we were good for 4 days but then i gave her slippery elm bark one day and we dealt with a flare up for two weeks. She has major reflux and vomits at least once a day mostly in the mornings after her breakfast. sometimes undigested food and sometime white foamy bile. She started having bad diarrhea from December 14th 2016. We went back into the specialist and he put her on metronizadole, and it made the diarrhea worst and cause massive vomiting so we stopped it after 4 days. The vomiting got so bad that one the 4th dayi had to rush into the regular vet up the street as he was the only one open over the holiday. This was on boxing day. At this point her poo was loose with a lot of mucus and black with blood. The vet gave her a shot of cerenia and i fasted her for 24 hrs. He also was put on tylosin and sulcrate to coat her stomach. And on top of this we found a tumour wart like thing on her hind leg which the vet thought was either a benign tumour or mass cell tumor! At this point i just broke down crying. At the height of this she was on 6 different meds a day. She was depressed, no energy and has now become the most anxious dog i know. I cannot even go to the bathroom without her following me. Leaving her for work is a chore and her anxiety causes her to vomit more and more.
After the first bout of diarrhea, and the crazy vomiting that took us to the regular vet on boxing day, the regular vet recommended that i feed her only the cooked rabbit with no added carbs to see if that helps. He also took a fecal test. While i kept feeding her the rabbit only, her poo wasn't getting any better. So i started to mix in a bit of the canned ZD that i had left in with the rabbit and it was helping a bit. The vet called on the 28th to let me know that she tested positive for giardia!! If you all remember, she had parvo and giardia at 9 weeks which almost killed her and had her in the ER for two weeks. After that episode i had cleaned everything she owned and always picked up her poop. But what i did not know was that she had to be tested a few more times to be sure that it was gone. Neither vet told me (specialist or regular vet). They basically dropped the ball and on top of everything this dog has giardia as well and might have had it this whole time. So she was put on panacur again first dose for 5 days, 7- 10 day break then another 5 days. On the panacur guess what happened, explosive diarrhea and more vomit. Fresh bloody stools for days. During this time, the specialist was still away for the holidays so i was just dealing with the regular vet. The regular vet suggested we stop the panacur until the specialist came back. We were on day 4 at that point, so i just went ahead and completed the last dose.
When the specialist came back, we went to see him and she had lost another 1lb. He looked at the wart and put a needle in it to send a sample but it was healing at this time and he said it is benign and nothing to worry about. Regarding the diarrhea his take was that since the metronidazole nor the panacur worked, he thinks she has hystiocytic ulcerative colitis (common in frenchies and boxers) on top of the IBD and giardia and this explains the fresh blood in her poop. So yet another med (baytril which she has to be on for 6 weeks) - we are on week 3 on it. The specialist also suggested that the rabbit was not working and to get a nutritionist to help with diet planning. He also wanted me to continue the 2 nd round of panacur to treat the giardia. The nutritionist Dr Susan Lauten is very nice but wants us to tackle the giardia before designing a diet plan. SO she recommended that we try Royal Canin hydrolyzed protein canned food. I do not want to feed her any of these RX foods, but nothing is working for us. SO for the last 2.5 weeks we have been on the RC HP food and the baytril on top of her other two meds (budesonide and metoclopramide). The RC HP started to firm up her poop but it was still loose but much better than what we dealt with over the holidays. The nutritionist also told us to get proviable which i ordered and it came in last week. SO this past tuesday we went on the 2nd dose of the panacur and after one dose, she started vomiting blood! coffee grinds and all. I panicked and stopped the panacur. She also refused to eat. I called the specialist and he said to stop the panacur and bring her in on friday for some blood tests and tests of her levels. We went in on friday and and she hasn't lost anymore weight and is holding steady at 15lbs at 11 months. We were also switched to cisapride instead of metroclopramide for motility. We also have on had some cerenia in case the vomiting gets crazy. We are still on the RC HP and on the proviable probiotics which is firming up her poo well. The vomiting is still happening, but at this point we cannot tell if its the food or meds causing it. She also has really bad gas.
In all this nightmare over the last 9 months, my life is entirely around her schedule because of the meds. We have been through a lot and continue to but she is still the best dog out there and i love her to death. Our vet bills are close to $20,000 and she is not even a year old yet. I don't know what i would have done without pet insurance but i have still spent about $7500 out of pocket after insurance! I have been in touch with the breeder since the holidays when i thought i was going to loose her. He is not much help. He has been promising to help with her meds but i have yet to see anything. He offered me another puppy, this time one that has all three of their shots, but i turned it down. I am neck deep with this one and can barely afford her daily care so taking on another puppy will be highly irresponsible. Sorry for the very long rant, but that's what we have been up to since October. I am waiting to hear back from the specialist about the blood test results. SHe may end up going on B12 injections as a supplement if her levels are low. I feel so terrible for putting her through all of this but I am trying to do the best i can for her. SHe is absolutely terrified of going to vet now. She shakes like a leaf and has become a very anxious dog. Its so sad, but she's such a fighter. I am hoping we will eventually find the perfect combo of diet and meds and she can have a shot at a healthy life. The giardia test results will be back in a few days, i am hoping beyond hope that has cleared up, because if not i don't know what our next step is. Keep praying for my Nellie and sorry for the long novel again.
