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specialklm · 07-09-2007, 12:33 PM

Greetings,
I had my 7 yr. old Yorkie baby, JaJa's, teeth cleaned & that went went very well. However, the vet did prelim. blood work prior to sedation & found a significant abnormality in her albumin count (1.5 where it should be 2.7 or higher) and sent her blood to a lab. The next day, Fri., the vet phoned w/the opening line "I'm not happy at all".... long story shorter --

she weighs 6.5 lbs, has lost .5 lbs in a month and 2 lbs in the past year, her albumin (protein), chol., calcium and wbc levels were Very low. The vet said not to delay in taking
her to a specialist because it's life threatening.... so I took her to an animal med center.

They did an intestinal ultrasound,
chest xray and took blood for specific tests to rule out/in bone marrow, addison's & liver disease etc. This vet (& my regular's)strong guess was that she has Intestinal Lymphangiectasia: A Protein-Losing Enteropathy,a form of severe ibd ( where the intestines are leaking lymph into body cavities- nutrients are not going where they are supposed to and severe edema could result.)

JaJa's diagnosis: she does have Intestinal Lymphangiectasia: A Protein-Losing Enteropathy (PLE) ( supposedly a "common" Yorkie disease). Supposedly only an endoscopic biopsy gives a definite diagnosis, but since I can't afford that & don't want to put her through that (and the treatment would be virtually the same) the vet said he feels comfortable with this diagnosis without an endoscopy.

So, now she's on prednisone 2x/day (.5 mg & 2.5mg) and metronidaz (flagyl) (0.5ml liquid) 2x/day. Tomorrow 7/10/07 I'm taking her for another ultrasound and blood tests.
Despite all this, she has been and is acting normally and doesn't have any obvious side effects from the meds.

I don't like having her on prednisone and flagyl (metronidaz) especially "long term". I didn't have the luxury of time to explore holistic options and surprisingly there are no recommended holistic vets in New York City....

Any suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks very much!

07-09-2007, 12:33 PM	#1
specialklm Yorkie Yakker Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: New York Posts: 27	Intestinal Lymphangiectasia: A Protein-Losing Enteropathy (PLE) Greetings, I had my 7 yr. old Yorkie baby, JaJa's, teeth cleaned & that went went very well. However, the vet did prelim. blood work prior to sedation & found a significant abnormality in her albumin count (1.5 where it should be 2.7 or higher) and sent her blood to a lab. The next day, Fri., the vet phoned w/the opening line "I'm not happy at all".... long story shorter -- she weighs 6.5 lbs, has lost .5 lbs in a month and 2 lbs in the past year, her albumin (protein), chol., calcium and wbc levels were Very low. The vet said not to delay in taking her to a specialist because it's life threatening.... so I took her to an animal med center. They did an intestinal ultrasound, chest xray and took blood for specific tests to rule out/in bone marrow, addison's & liver disease etc. This vet (& my regular's)strong guess was that she has Intestinal Lymphangiectasia: A Protein-Losing Enteropathy,a form of severe ibd ( where the intestines are leaking lymph into body cavities- nutrients are not going where they are supposed to and severe edema could result.) JaJa's diagnosis: she does have Intestinal Lymphangiectasia: A Protein-Losing Enteropathy (PLE) ( supposedly a "common" Yorkie disease). Supposedly only an endoscopic biopsy gives a definite diagnosis, but since I can't afford that & don't want to put her through that (and the treatment would be virtually the same) the vet said he feels comfortable with this diagnosis without an endoscopy. So, now she's on prednisone 2x/day (.5 mg & 2.5mg) and metronidaz (flagyl) (0.5ml liquid) 2x/day. Tomorrow 7/10/07 I'm taking her for another ultrasound and blood tests. Despite all this, she has been and is acting normally and doesn't have any obvious side effects from the meds. I don't like having her on prednisone and flagyl (metronidaz) especially "long term". I didn't have the luxury of time to explore holistic options and surprisingly there are no recommended holistic vets in New York City.... Any suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much!