Severe wt loss in 8mo old

[momtomav]

Hi There,

I'm sorry for all you're going through, but you are certainly not alone!

I have an almost 10 month old boxer who we believe has collitis. The runny bright orange diarrhea, blood in the stool and cramping to the point of vomitting drove us into the vet about a month ago and that was their best guess.

We were told to put her on 4-6 small meals a day that were soaked in water. The justification for the water being that it makes the food easier to absorb in the intestines.

We had already discovered that she may be sensitive to chicken and grain (diarrhea with both), so we kept her on her Evo Salmon and Herring and are now feeding her 4 times a day (although we started with 6 very small meals every couple of hours). She is also taking 1-2 tablespoons of plain yoghurt every day - probiotic.

It has helped tremendously and cleared up the blood and loose stools within several days. She has also regained the weight that she lost, which was about 4 pounds in as many days.

Good luck with this, I know it is scary!

WOW, I'm so sorry to hear how bad things got. I'm glad to hear that things are on the up for your baby. We have not have any vomitting at this point, thankfully. Thanks for the information. I have been taking everyones suggestions to the vet. I think it has helped us narrow things down! Just need to get some weight on him now.

 

[momtomav]

Vet update on Mav and question about Gava Calm?

So I talked with the vet yesterday and he's open to my colitis theory with intolerance (allergy) to chicken and his stress also being a contributing factor to his weight loss. As the vet stated, the steroids should have addressed the "allergy" to chicken, however, if we continued to give him the irritant and the medication for it, they may have been canceling out, which is why there has been no change in weight gain.

I also brought up the HUC, apparently we did discuss this already... he just called it something else. The hard thing is Baytril can decrease cartilage growth in dogs under 1yr/o. Being that we don't have any true diagnosis yet, I just don't know how comfortable we feel continuing to add medications (such as the steroids he is already on) that can have such a detrimental side effect, until I know for sure this is what we NEED to do. However, HUC is still on the back burner. Not completely ruled out at this point. If we do not get anywhere by working chicken out of his diet, increasing his probiotics while we decrease the steroids, we are going to biopsy. At that point, the vet said he would take a piece of the large intestine to check for colitis, HUC and a piece of the small intestine for check for IBD.

I am praying that we don't have to get to that point. Oh, and we discussed the possibility of a partial blockage as well (gmacleod). He said that was a good suggestion as well, however that was already ruled out with the x-ray. He said that Maverick is soooo thin, it would have shown up in the x-ray and the physical exam. Thanx for the suggestion though.

I will be leaving for 1 week on top of all of this. I will be able to talk to my in-laws regularly while we are gone. I don't know how I'm going to enjoy this vacation to be honest. However, I did pick up some Gava Calm. It was suggested to me by a patient to help his anxiety levels, especially while we are gone. My husband is going to try some with him before we leave, just to make sure he's okay on it. My vet said it was worth a try.

Does anyone know anything about Gava Calm??

We leave at 3:00AM, so I will check back before we leave. Otherwise, thank you again for everyone's information and support. I will update when we get back... hopefully with some good news!

 

[Caney Creek]

I will be leaving for 1 week on top of all of this. I will be able to talk to my in-laws regularly while we are gone. I don't know how I'm going to enjoy this vacation to be honest. However, I did pick up some Gava Calm. It was suggested to me by a patient to help his anxiety levels, especially while we are gone. My husband is going to try some with him before we leave, just to make sure he's okay on it. My vet said it was worth a try.

Does anyone know anything about Gava Calm??

Never heard of it before but just looked it up (my search returned no results for Gava Calm, search suggested GABA Calm). If your vet said it's OK to give him I don't see any reason not to try it. Like you said try it out before you leave to make sure there are no reactions or side effects.

Sending lots of healing (((vibes))) to Mav. Hope that he does OK with your in-laws and that you are able to relax and enjoy your vacation.

If Mav has separation issues, I'd suggest that instead of driving him over to your in-laws house, leave him at home and have them come and pick him up after you leave. I used to pet-sit a Weimeraner that I would have to do this for, because every time his family brought him to my home he would always be very upset when they walked out the door and left him there. But if I came into his home after his family was gone, he was always happy to see me and excited to go for a car ride. Try it if you think your boy might be stressed by you leaving him somewhere that's not home.