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Originally Posted by twilson28  Hi everyone,
I put up a thread a couple weeks ago when we started having issues with my 2 yr. old Lhasapoo, after blood tests, urine tests, and bile acid tests, we think, about 99.9% its a shunt, probably one Chewy has had from birth. Oddly, my Vet was unable to see it on the ultrasound though...so looks like we'll be going into NYC to the amazing Animal Medical Center to get their radiology department and surgery wing involved.
But -- I've been reading up on this problem to prepare for what's ahead and I keep hearing that if you have a doggy with liver shunt, you should not give them heartworm prevetative or flea/tick preventative. I have given Chewy Heartgard and Frontline since he was 3 months when I first got him. I don't over vaccinate, we just do rabies, distemper, the usual, and the only "extra" I get is the Bordatella cause my dogs go to the groomer once a month and I don't trust how others care for their pets. I don't do the Lyme/Tick one and I don't do the Leptospirosis because I have little doggies and they don't go out in the woods or live in a very urban environment, so I don't feel they are necessary....
Anyway have info on this? Should I really stop the heartgard and flea/tick preventative? Also -- my little Yorkie is only 5 months, seems SUPER healthy...but I now know Yorkie have a bit of a predisposition to this problem...should I be watching for the same symptoms that I saw in Chewy?
Thanks in advance for all your help!
Mom to  Chewy and  Sparky |
join this liver shunt mvd group on yahoogroups.com as they know a ton on this
if cornell is near you then dr centers is great and she is internal medicine specialists or if surgery is needed university of tennessee dr tobias is who i would go to .
How did they determine shunt through bile acid tests? Protein c is not 100% accurate as a dog on here had a negative protein c and had 4 shunts when tobias opened him up but it was picked up with a scintigraphy at uoft and they thought just one but turned out to be 4 so it was inoperable
If the bile acids were not over 100 I personally would not do further testing unless my dog was having alot of symptoms and i would put on protein of 22% if my dog was having symptoms i would put on 18% protein and if still having symptoms would do scintigraphy as ultrasound is a waste of money many times as it is really hard to detect one unless the person is really good at detecting them and both scintigraphy and ultrasound her in california are $400 so if bile acids over 100 most likely a shunt and i would just go straight to scintigraphy and save yourself $400 on ultrasound as most likely if shunt after they do ultrasound they will have you do scintigraphy then anyway
the ultrasound will show if stones and if liver is small both of which are signs of shunts as well
let us know the pre and post bile acids as that will give us a better indicator whether mvd or liver shunt