Runny Poo/pancreatis Issues...

[sadiesamie]

We are currently dealing with Pancreatitis issues. no vomiting but- loose stools. the first stool is ok though- then towards the end it has been a bit runny and now again this afternoon it was all runny. Not squirts, but just a big plop of very mushy poo.

The specialist says we need to feed low fat and high fiber. The only thing she is eating is Wellness wgt mgt - it has 6-10% fat and 8 % fiber. I also started last week adding fiber to her food 2 x's a day- 1/4 teas of Konsyl fiber supp. vet said it was ok.

She is getting a retest for her upc in 2 wks then we are off to see a nutritionist/holistic vet because this diarrhea and high lipase/amylase values have been going on long enough and I am tired of the runny poo. i don't mind cleaning it up at all- that's not what I mean- I am just tired of seeing her not poo normal. That means it's a problem and I want her to start pooing normal! She is not vomiting but I am having such a hard time with trying to figure out "what to feed" in the mean time before getting in to see the vet about nutrition. SHe has high lipase and amylase values-

her last labs from a week ago were:
Amylase: 1346 (normal range is 290-1125)
Lipase: 1236 (normal range is 77-695)

I don't know if I should start feeding raw or what to feed her. The wellness is great food but it is not great for her with the issues she has. we are currenty dealing with protien in the urine due to kidney issues. High bun (60) and she is passing gas today too and it is so smelly.

I can tell her tummy doesn't feel good. she is playful and all but the passing of gas and little toots i have heard her let out I know her tummy doesn't feel good.

I have read about the canned pumpkin but I scared to try it. will the canned pumpkin make things worse with the pancreatis issues?

I don't know if this had anything to do with things-I am sure it may--- but yesterday I began giving her wellness ocean whitefish & sweet potato canned food. I ONLY gave a dime size piece with her meds. so it was the super smallest amount -I was using the venison & swt potato but it is 8.5 % fat and the ocean white fish I was told by wellness has only 4.5% fat. She LOVES LOVES OMG- loves the canned wellness but we only give it for treats 2 x's a day and for her med am/pm. she has maybe 1 tbl a day of it total so it's not given as her main diet. the vet specialist told me is was ok. bc i questioned it maybe being too high in fat with the high amylase/lipase values.

vet is leaning towards ibs or some type of gastrointestional issues going on. we are not going to run any further tests just yet bc he is also positive there is some type of gastrointestinal thing going on here. that's why he said he could not stress enough to us to feed diet 5% fat and high fiber (like 18-20% fiber) I can't find a food like this that is not a pres food.

I am not a FAN of pres food at all and i refuse to feed it. We did it once and that was the end of that. it really causes so many problems with allergies. My girl itched her sides to the point where she was all red and lost her hair. we are done with pres diets! not in this house will you find that :-) so... i am just to the point where i do not know what to do. until we see the nutrionist that is. My husband is not a fan of feeding raw diet and I am not oppossed either way- i just want whats best for my girls. i have heard good things about it and i would do the switch today but with the other issues we are presently dealing with I am too scared. i don't know if raw food is low fat or not. and the fiber is not high in it so i don't know...

the wellness canned ocean white fish does scare me because the last time I gave her anything with fish it was pinnacle trout& swt potato. this was highly recommended by a girl that worked at Pet supplies plus (this was before I found YT) it is a good food for allergies yes- so we made the switch and it may have been too fast-but that night and the next morning my girl was vomiting non-stop and diarrhea was bad. i got her to the vet the next day and that was when the pancreatitis came back postitive. all the vet said that was she tested postitive and that anythign above 400 would test positive. sadie was 783.

my plan:
continue the wellness wgt mgt
give very super small pea size of canned venison& sweet potato to give meds
I am blaming the diarr on the wellness canned ocean whitefish. poos have been very soft and mushy but after the ocean whitefish canned this morning poo was drippy. :-( so we will be pitching that. :-)

I will keep a small dish of wet kibble in the fridge and give that as a treat.
going to have to do all i can for her and if i have to fake her out for a while by giving food as a treat then -she will love me more in the end :-)

I have some metrondiazale I can give her for diarrhea but I dont know if i should give it to her or not? the specialist is not available until Monday.
the metrozidiazale will help her but this because that is the reason we have it in the first place. every time she was given an antibiotic she got runny poos so we have the metrondiazale leftover from that. I know it is not going to fix our problem. :-( so maybe i should give it to her. I am also one that does not like medication. our last vet had my girls on way too many med.

I don't know what to do- If the diar gets worse then i will give her the metrondiazale for sure.

Will pepcid ac or tums help her? I can't see how the fiber supp we just started her on could cause diarr?

ONE MORE THING... Is it normal for her poo to resemble what she ate? like the color of it is that same as her food. It looks like regurgitated poo- never thought about asking this before- i just thought of that. should the poo be darker or should it look like this? it really looks exactly like her dog food. ok i am laughing right now bc what it this is how it is really supposed to look like. LOL...

[marcerella02]

i'm sorry i know nothing about this... just wanted to let you know i'm thinking of your girl and hope things get better soon!

[Wylie's Mom]

You really have a lot going on here, so I sure hope you find a very, very good nutritionist - have you talked to the one you're meeting over the phone first?

As for the poo, no, it shouldn't really "look" overly like food - except perhaps if it's corn etc.; otherwise, it makes me think there are some malabsorption issues going on. Color could do anything, at this point, if she is having some consistency/fluid issues.

I think if it were me, at this point, I'd probably homecook - at least for awhile - to get her away from all potential stuff in the can. Btw, Marcel was "diagnosed" with ibs/ibd/colitis as well (which can often be the diagnosis when the vet cannot find anything else wrong, definitively). He had runny, mushy, gel-like, mucousy, bloody, mysterious poos for about 4 months - I was out of my MIND. Spent hundreds at vet. Finally talked to that nutritionist I told you about in your other post. Put him on a super easy homecooked diet - 1.5 days later, a firm poo. Now, he's on raw and healthy as ever.

The diet was easy - based on whitefish, mashed white potatoe, green beans - and you can add Benefiber or canned pumpkin for the fiber portion. We chose benefiber - bc you have to feed a large volume of food due to how lean it all is and we didn't want to add any more volume w/ pumpkin - so we just added a pinch of Benefiber.

Anyway - a good, custom diet of some kind, plus the right meds (if needed) might do the trick.

[sadiesamie]

and this scares me to death! all of this protein loss. I am not going to lie to anyone... I have worried every day since last June. There was a period of 2 mos Jan & Feb that I worried not so much bc UPC had gone from 7.1 to 1.9 after increasing the benezeperil. Now rechecking the UPC 2 mos later her UPC jumped back to 7.3. So that tells me the med is not working. She gets UPC rechecked in 2 wks. I have all of that going on... the pancreas issues...the diet- trying to find food to feed them. Needing a new vet since our old vet had my girls on way too much medication. I can't wait to talk to a nutritionist. I want to schedule with the holistic vet in Plano and don't know if I should consult your nutritionist now... and still see the holistic vet or just do one or the other. I mean for now the specialist is handling things with us. SO maybe i will just call your nutritionist and go from there.

The cost for everything to date I checked our budget that we keep is now 7,100.00! That was since June 2007 to present- and that includes food/heartguard/frontline also- the vet section has every vet expense included- so we can subtract maybe a couple hundred dollars. I am beside myself and I am to the point where I really have a hard time with this all. It is so overwhelming. ANd I am thankful for the good news we got with the specialist a couple weeks ago. No crystals with Samie- no hypothyroid with both sadie and samie... and samie's liver is perfect. so she doesn't need a liver biopsy. if our old vet considered all of the meds she had my girls on she wouldn't have had to jump to conclusions and get right to a liver biopsy. but aside from that there are still major things going on with my girls. as you know i have several posts out there on all situations.

I mean I don't mean to sound so bleak but it kinda feels like i find a road and i keep driving and the scenery is so beautiful and then I come to a dead end with fires burning and no way out after things looked so beautiful. I know that's a strange way to describe it. But the time I spend with my little precious angels is something I hold dear to my heart. :-) I never have felt a love for a small animal like these yorkies ever. and I will say it time an time again. I want whats best for them and I love them so much I can cry i get so overwhelmed. This is some info on the protein loss disease we are dealing with. Amyloid is ok- it has not dropped and bun is high at 60- so not sure how high that can go before we are in real danger here.

sadie is feeling better this morning- she is playful and kissing me like crazy. so glad she is feeling better today! I just LOVE her so much!!! Read the link if you have time for a better picture of what we are dealing with...

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body...nephritis.html

[sadiesamie]

[QUOTE=sadiesamie;1901595]and this scares me to death! all of this protein loss. I am not going to lie to anyone... I have worried every day since last June. There was a period of 2 mos Jan & Feb that I worried not so much bc UPC had gone from 7.1 to 1.9 after increasing the benezeperil. Now rechecking the UPC 2 mos later her UPC jumped back to 7.3. So that tells me the med is not working. She gets UPC rechecked in 2 wks. I have all of that going on... the pancreas issues...the diet- trying to find food to feed them. Needing a new vet since our old vet had my girls on way too much medication. I can't wait to talk to a nutritionist. I want to schedule with the holistic vet in Plano and don't know if I should consult your nutritionist now... and still see the holistic vet or just do one or the other. I mean for now the specialist is handling things with us. SO maybe i will just call your nutritionist and go from there.

The cost for everything to date I checked our budget that we keep is now 7,100.00! That was since June 2007 to present- and that includes food/heartguard/frontline also- the vet section has every vet expense included- so we can subtract maybe a couple hundred dollars. I am beside myself and I am to the point where I really have a hard time with this all. It is so overwhelming. ANd I am thankful for the good news we got with the specialist a couple weeks ago. No crystals with Samie- no hypothyroid with both sadie and samie... and samie's liver is perfect. so she doesn't need a liver biopsy. if our old vet considered all of the meds she had my girls on she wouldn't have had to jump to conclusions and get right to a liver biopsy. but aside from that there are still major things going on with my girls. as you know i have several posts out there on all situations.

I mean I don't mean to sound so bleak but it kinda feels like i find a road and i keep driving and the scenery is so beautiful and then I come to a dead end with fires burning and no way out after things looked so beautiful. I know that's a strange way to describe it. But the time I spend with my little precious angels is something I hold dear to my heart. :-) I never have felt a love for a small animal like these yorkies ever. and I will say it time an time again. I want whats best for them and I love them so much I can cry i get so overwhelmed. This is some info on the protein loss disease we are dealing with. Albumin is ok- it has not dropped and bun is high at 60- so not sure how high that can go before we are in real danger here.

sadie is feeling better this morning- she is playful and kissing me like crazy. so glad she is feeling better today! I just LOVE her so much!!! Read the link if you have time for a better picture of what we are dealing with...

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body...nephritis.html[/QUOTE

meant to type Almumin- not amyloid- sorry...

Albumin

[sadiesamie]

Can there be a possibility of adding this fiber supplement that is making the poo mushy? Today both of them pooed and when I went to pick it up it looked as if it "could" have been firm but as soon as I went to scoop it up with the shovel is was very soft.

I don't know what else to give them as far as high fiber goes. and we have to be careful bc as soon as Sadie gets something different in her system she immediately gets diarrhea. I gave her some sweet potatoes last week and that created runny stool. and sweet potato or canned pumpkin is supposed to be good for that. And.... I was giving the fish oil supplement (being careful with giving only 1/2 a pump) and I kinda thought that maybe triggered some loose stool. SO i gave no more sweet potato (they were these dehydrated sweet potato fries-for dogs :-) and I stopped with the fish oil supplement. we still have poo problems. It's not horrible but it isn't normal. large stool sometimes too. Probably from the kibble.. The weird thing is my other dog Samie-never has had loose stool.

It is very brain wracking to say the least.

I was going to try to wait to see the nutritionist here in Plano after we got a upc recheck in 2 wks. but if things don't start getting better then I may need to do something sooner. I haven't talked with the vet I was going to try to get in with. I left them a msg and I am waiting to hear back from them.

Natures variety rep gave me a name of someone and we spoke last week- she says first visit is 1hr 30min and cost is 215.00. She said she would be willing to formulate a diet for both of my girls but she would have to see at least Sadie. and she said just because one diet works for one dog it may not work for the other. I understood- One thing I did not like is that she talked way too fast and she literally babbled. I don't absorb as much as I should when people talk so fast to me :-)

Samie has too many issues with her breathing (possible laryngeal Paralysis/collapsing trachea so I can't take her all the way there. But she said she would review her labs and we'd go from there. I told her i'd talk to my husband and go from there- she is 47 miles away one way-- so almost 100miles round trip- I don't want to be driving that far with my little girl in the car -even for just one visit. Texas traffic at all times is just nuts. :-)

We also are searching for a new vet so thats when I found this holistic vet in Plano- he is 15 miles each way for us and that's do-able.

He is supposed to be excellent! his name is Shawn Messonnier, DVM
Web Site: www.petcarenaturally.com
i may email him to get a quicker response if I don't hear from them by the end of tomorrow.

[Ellie May]

When you find out how to stop the loose stool, please let me know.
Ellie had pancreatitis (confirmed on ultrasound while looking for something else). Her only real symptom was one day of vomiting a lot. Now she doesn't do that but her stools have been too loose lately (not diarrhea really). I ended up pulling food the other day and switching to PediLyte because I didn't know if i would go into full blown pancreatitis. It hasn't but still loose stool... I am told her diet is not too high in fat but I think I might play around with that.

[sadiesamie]

The specialist told me to feed low fat and high protein. like 5% fat and 15% fiber. they are on wellness for now- 6-10% fat and 8% fiber. the people at wellness told me the bag can vary from 6-10 %. It's the lowest "non prescription diet" I could find. same thing with Sadie she vomited one time- if was the next morning after trying to make a food switch. no vomiting ever since just occassional lose stool. It could be timing with things progressing...or the fact that we started adding the fiber supplement. I stopped the fiber supp as of this evening and if we have firmer stools this week...then we will not try it again. and we will just wait to talk to the nutritionist. The spec also told me that her amylase and lipase values are high also bc of the kidneys... her bun is 60. She also is producing high amts of protein in her urine. last upc was 7.3!!! goes for recheck in 2 wks. currently on benezeperil. 2 mos ago the benaze was working bc her upc was 1.9. now in 2 mos it has gone up again. (I am a wreck with this all going on) :-)

She was tested for pancreatitis- no ultrasound or anything.. the test the old vet did was 787 and she said anything over 400 tests pos for pancreatitis.

what are you currently feeding?

[sadiesamie]

The specialist would have liked us to start Hills Science Diet W/D this food contains 6% fat and 20 % fiber.. how in the world am I going to find something close to this. I don't want to even think about this food. they were on it before and we had all kinds of problems. The itching with my one dog was OUT of control. Too many problems while my girls were on this- ear infections, allergies, allergic reaction in digestive tract.. it was awful- just awful.

I was reseaching tonight food again and I had no idea that a food could even contain 20% fiber.. that's high.

Is there hope in homecooking or raw with fat needing to be so low and fiber needing to be so high??
I do not know but I cannot wait to find out.

[Ellie May]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

The specialist would have liked us to start Hills Science Diet W/D this food contains 6% fat and 20 % fiber.. how in the world am I going to find something close to this. I don't want to even think about this food. they were on it before and we had all kinds of problems. The itching with my one dog was OUT of control. Too many problems while my girls were on this- ear infections, allergies, allergic reaction in digestive tract.. it was awful- just awful.

I was reseaching tonight food again and I had no idea that a food could even contain 20% fiber.. that's high.

Is there hope in homecooking or raw with fat needing to be so low and fiber needing to be so high??
I do not know but I cannot wait to find out.

I don't know about raw because I don't like it at all (I guess it is possible but because there aren't that many choices of pre-packaged, it would be hard to find one to meet your specifications but you could probably do prey-model) but there is hope with homecooking. It is just getting the right recipe and anything is possible.

Ellie is eating homecooked with 18% fat which the vet thinks is fine for her but I changed something around, so I think I increased the fat content. I am going to switch protein sources and maybe cut down on the oil and see what I get.