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Originally Posted by CaponeTheYorkie  Wow, thank you LadyJane for your reply, after researching the forum on this topic, I have read quite a few of your post. I currently live in the Austin area and I’m from Houston. My family lives in Tennessee close to the UT campus and I’ve read that is the best place to go if my puppy does have a liver shunt, but I don’t want him to have to travel via plane a week after his surgery. I’m very open to any reputable places in Texas if there are other options. Capone’s ALT levels have slowly gone up since 2014. It just concerns me because the vet mentioned he would have seen a liver shunt in his ultrasound but he said his liver looked fine. I’m also curious about a low protein diet to make it easier on him in the meantime do you have any recommendations ? |
I personally go to Gulf Coast Vet Specialists in Houston....they are amazing!
www.gcvs.com There really is no reason to travel to UT ... yes, Dr. Tobias is a leading researcher in the field, but liver shunt surgery is not all that complicated and many vets have studied there. GCVS has a surgeon who did her residency at UT. I am not familiar with specialists in the Austin area, but you could search for internal med at
www.acvim.org and for surgeons at
www.acvs.org
As for the comment about ultrasound not showing a shunt....they often are not seen on an ultrasound. The fact that his liver looks good is encouraging because with a shunt, they are usually smaller; but, of course, nothing is ever etched in stone.
I know lots of people would jump to a low protein diet...I have never done that nor have I been advised to with pups who had elevated ALT. ALT is a fluky enzyme ... I think if it were me, I would just do bile acids and then take it from there. I would stick with a regular diet for now if it were me until they get to the bottom of the elevated ALT.
Here is a link to a brochure that is really good. It was written by Dr. Tobias at UT. You may have already seen it ......
https://vetmed.tennessee.edu/vmc/Sma...D-Brochure.pdf