[dwerten]

First off I am totally against liver biopsy for mvd because I think it is extremely invasive when the bats and urine will tell you what is going on with liver. The incision is large and really not necessary in my opinion. You will not treat the dog any differently with a biopsy so why put the dog through this incision and pain. Dogs with liver disease need low protein (hightly digestible protein) diets and if bad enough supplements for the liver like milk thistle and sam-e and in some cases lactulose. If there was something the biopsy would do to offer a different treatment plan then I would consider it but it does not that I am aware of. Is anyone aware of a different treatment plan for biopsy vs no biopsy for a liver compromised dog? If not why put the dog through this?

I do not believe in doing testing that is invasive unless the outcome of treatment is different than not running the test and following blood work.

For ex. A Good internal medicine specialist will not treat and IBD dog with steroids unless an endoscopy has been performed because if it is not ibd and something like a fungal infection then you are going to make the dog more ill by suppressing the immune system thus allowing the fungal infection to over take the body possibly killing the dog. This is why our ims would not prescribe steroids for dex ibd without an endoscopy performed but luckily our last resort of food worked and he has been fine for years now and he did not need an endoscopy or steroids. Also ibd dogs are prone to pancreatitis and steroids can cause pancreatitis thus the treatment has to be right for that dog and all testing should be done before just throwing drugs at a situation. So above is a reason to do a more invasive procedure because you are dealing with a treatment plan of drugs and you need to know exactly what you are dealing with or you can make a situation worse if doing the run treatment. This is not the case with a liver biopsy. You will treat the dog the same way it is just for an owners peace of mind of knowing it is MVD which you have enough evidence in blood work and urine. If it is another liver disease then I do believe that is more rare in this breed but I believe the treatment plan will still be the same for those dogs. The liver is very forgiving and it can regenerate itself so why it is not a death sentence if mvd.

The reason Kalina82 dog was vomiting was because evo is extremely high in fat so could be protein but I would blame it more on fat content as dogs on my malt group have shown up with fatty deposits in their eyes from evo diets. I would never feed that to a yorkie breed as they are known for pancreatitis so low fat foods are best. Also I disagree with feeding regular high protein diets as well as dogs with mvd and no symptoms should be on 22% protein and dogs with symptoms should not go over 18% protein.

The protein should be a highly digestible protein as well like cod as I do not like tilapia as too contaminated of fish, egg whites, soy. My dog is on soy and her bats went from 73, 54, then on soy diet down to 26. I would not feed chicken to an mvd dog. I would not feed peanut butter as a treat as that is high in fat. When treating you do not want to do protein treats as that will add protein to diet and every little bit adds up.

Also no need to keep doing bats over and over because if they have it they have it so a waste of money in my opinion. I did 3 - first was just post, second bc vet did not do pre and post we did that then last was done after 6 mos on low protein diet so will not ever do again as ALT is fine and we manage with low protein diet and we know it is there to address with meds, etc. She did great under anesthesia as well for spay and dental on iso.