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Originally Posted by ecucurlyq77 my little puppy, max, was diagnosed with a liver shunt when he was 4 months old. he started having seizures so we took him to the vet and they ran blood work and his liver enzymes came back elevated. so then they decided to have his bile acids tested and those came back extremely elevated...i think the fasting was in the 90's and 2 hours after eating in the 300's (i can't remember the exact numbers). my vet referred us to a vet surgeon and he recommened to go forward with the surgery because he was fairly certain it was a shunt. he didn't feel it was necessary to put max through all of the tests you were talking about to get an exact diagnosis since he had the clinical signs and elevated blood work. he gave us the option of choosing what to do, so we decided to just go forth with the surgery since this vet has worked with lots of dogs with liver shunts. plus he said he wanted to operate to get a liver biopsy anyway to check for other liver disease. anyway, he had the surgery and sure enough there was a big shunt they had to close off. max had the surgery about 3 months ago and is doing great now! he has not had anymore clinical signs and is a happy puppy. he is still on the low protein diet, lactulose and antibiotics. we did have his bile acids tested about a month ago and they were still elevated. but my vet said it could take 3 - 6 months for them to come closer to normal. so we will have the bile acids tested again in a few months.
i know how scary it is to go through this. if i can help in any way or answer any questions, please feel free to email me!!
brooke & "max" |
Brooke,
I am so glad to hear that Max is doing well. Your post was just what I wanted to hear. I would rather take the same route you did and go ahead with surgery since all of the blood work and bile acids were so high. I am now in the process of having my vet fax all of Mia's reports to Texas A & M so that I can set up an appointment with them. He had suggested a place in Houston, but my gut feeling is telling me to go to A & M.
Wishing you and Max the best.