Colitis
Dennis and Mary:
I work at a veterinary office with 5 different vets, and we have been through a multitude of things with Carli, my 10 month old rescue that has had persistent diarrhea, with fresh blood dripping from her bottom at times, but always mushy stool with blood in it. We first started antibiotics along with Metronidazole (flagyl) which would temporarily help, but never provided long-term relief. We finally did endoscopic biopsies of her intestine, which showed severe ulcers in her colon. The biopsies came back inconclusive other than that. Through my vets, I have learned that the best way to treat these guys is through trial and error. First, its important to pick a diet that is hypoallergenic to rule out any allergies. That's what we did. However, you mentioned a high protein diet that is allergy free. This is somewhat correct, to my knowledge. However, it seems contradictory. From what I know, the key to finding a food allergy is toying with the protein source: beef, chicken, venison, or no protein. Carli is on IVD (innovative veterinary diets) venison and potato, dried and canned. It's important, though, that when you try a diet with a different protein source, such as this venison diet, that you do not give your pet anything else to eat besides that diet. NO TREATS! NO tablefood! This is to make sure we isolate the diet to that one protein. If the dogs get anything else besides the food, there is no way of distinguishing what is causing the upset. We did try Science Diet I/D, but it did not help. Carli has only had relief from the venison and potato. There is another hypoallergenic diet called Science Diet Z/D in which the protein molecule is modified so the body does not recognize it, but this diet is known to maybe cause diarrhea, so we didn't try this. Carli also gets added fiber every day - 2 teaspoons of Metamucil in the morning and night on her food. We have also treated her with sulfasalazine. My biggest mistake was taking her off the Venison food when she got better. We did this to see if she really had a food allergy, or if she just had some ulcerative colitis that she had grown out of. She was on Eukanuba Adult, and was fine and was actually gaining weight for about a month, then the colitis returned. So now we are on the sulfasalazine, Metamucil, and venison and potato diet. We intermittenly use Metronidazole to help calm things down inside, so that she may be able to heal. My next plan of attack is to try yogurt and acupuncture. There is an veterinarian that does acupuncture and I have seen awesome results in neurological cases as well as allergy and incontinence cases. So, that is our next step. Please let me know if I can tell you anything else. Oh - on the steroids. Those are always an alternative, and my vet has thought about using Prednisone with Carli. However, because of her age, steroids will be the very last ditch effort to control this. They can interfere with some growing. So - we are going to ride it out from here. Let me know if I can be of any more help. Oh - and for Brutus and Amaya's mom, from what I have heard, the I/D and Sensitive stomach are almost identical.
Jamie
PS - Let me know periodically how these guys are doing. I will pass the suggestions on to my vets! It has been a learning experience for all of us.!
. Hopefully, we will be able to wean her off the medication and just continue with the hypo-allergenic food. It's a bit pricey, but not prohibitively so (and I'd pay twice what I'm paying to make sure it doesn't re-occur).