My Indiana has had surgery 2 times, both to fix an extrahepatic liver shunt. He was first diagnosed last year when he was 6months old. He didn't have seizures, but he did have squinty eyes, almost like he was asleep on his feet. The surgeon called it pre-seizure activity. He was always a laid back puppy, played hard and slept really sound. He didn't fit the typical liver shunt puppy in that liver shunt puppies tend to be small and don't grow and thrive. Indy weighed 10lbs when he was diagnosd. We had the shunt fixed, and all went really well. By six months his bile acids were pretty much normal, his fasting was still a couple points high, but the eating one was completely normal. He gained 2lbs with in 3 weeks after the surgery and continued to grow and gain weight. At about a year (in July) I had another bile acid done and it came back high. We put him back on the Hills L/D prescription diet and tested again in 6 weeks, they had almost doubled. We went back to the surgeon and had another ultrasound and they found a second shunt. Odd thing was his liver had almost doubled in size and the veins going into it were big and healthy. They said he had the liver of a normal dog. So, he had a second surgery in Sept and at this point doing well. He goes in for his first post op bile test next week so hopefully they will have come down. I am told that a second shunt in a dog with a liver of normal size is rare, 1 in 200 dogs get a second shunt. My luck!! If you have any questions, please IM me. I would be glad to relate any of my experiences with liver shunts! Good luck!
Kim |