[SugarPie]

Originally Posted by 107barney

Just wanted to chime in again and give you some prices that I've paid for these things in the Northeast.

Superchemistry (blood profile) with urine: $160
Bile Acids study $80
Internal Medicine consult $185
Ultrasound $165 plus $35 radiologist consult fee at a specialty hospital, (single organ ultrasound at regular vet without radiologist $95)

Perhaps the price you were quoted was for a ultrasound guided wedge biopsy ?? I don't know but I'd think $500-700 would get you blood, urine, BATs, ultrasound and that is in the northeast where everything is overpriced.

As for doing to a hospital w/o xrays or a ultrasound, you are wasting money you could use to get answers, in my view. Your money is better spent at an internal medicine consult. My dog also has liver disease and we started with a internal med consult and from there did blood testing and an ultrasound.

It should also be noted that an experienced ultrasound reader (i.e. a board certified radiologist) is the most likely person to pick up a shunt on an ultrasound as it is often not detected even when present.

As for AAI and it's differentials, my understanding from Teddy's neurologist is that a starting point is an oblique lateral xray of the neck, followed by MRI and spinal tap.

Wow, that seems cheap compared to what I was told here. I just spoke to someone that the Veterinary Medical center at Ohio State as was quoted at $900 - $1200 for the LS testing and for surgery anywhere from $2,000 to $2,800. Now that I am also wondering if AAI is the culprit, I am thinking of going ahead and having an x-ray done. Like I mentioned to kjc, if it's liver shunts, they told me they can see whether his liver is small in proportion to his body size and they could probably also see if it was AAI from the same x-ray, right? It'd be like killing two birds with one stone and getting down to the bottom of what's wrong.

I also mentioned to kjc that there was an incident at the vet clinic awhile back where the vet tech had worn heavy gloves to handle Cricket. She turned his body and neck every which way so that the vet could examine him. She used the gloves because she thought he was being feisty but the truth is, he likes to be held close to someone's body when he's being handled like that. When she handed him back to me, he looked simply stunned. He held his neck to one side like he couldn't move it at all and whimpered while he stared off into space. I didn't like the way she was holding him AT ALL.