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Originally Posted by elmosmom  Is anyone giving their Yorkie Sam-e or MilkThistle for there liver problems. Elmo has a probable liver shunt and one "vet" recommended milk thistle and said to buy it at the health food store. I bought it in liquid form and of course it only has dosing instructions for people. The vet "guessed" I should give Elmo 10 drops 2X a day. "guessed!" do we really pay for them to guess?" Also his recent blood work showed low platelet and phosphorus levels, we will retest again in 10 days. The vet didn't seem sure what could be causing this but I thought I read this can "go along with advancing liver disease. Any thoughts or suggestions. He now has Elmo on Hill's l/d, Baytril and milk thistle if I can get good dosage information. Any thoughts on Sam-e and dosage would be appreciated also. Do any of you give your babies popcorn "unsalted" of course as a treat? Elmo loves it but I'm always afraid to give him something in case it's not good for him.
Thanks in advance
Elmosmom |
So sorry about Elmo and his liver problem. I have a site that you may want to look up don't know if it has anything there on the milk thistle dosing. I do know that Milk Thistle is highly recommended in humans with Hep C and also other liver disorders. I was told that it can help. I don't know a thing about the Sam-e. I don't give Baby Blessing stuff for treats cept I give her baby carrots cut up and tell her they are carrot cookies, oh my gosh she loves that 
I will do a search and pm you the sites I have bookmarked. okey dokey, here you go on the one sitehttp://www.juliespuppies.com/doghealth.htmthis is the other site
http://www.vetinfo.com/dliver.html Please know your little Elmo is blessed in having you to be watching out for his diet and doing all you can to help him. I noticed the mentioning important information about protein diet in the very first paragraph. also I have copied and will paste this information that was on the vetingo.com site ( it talks about the milk thistle and also the Sam-e
I don't know if these sites will be of any help. Hope so. Patti and Baby Blessing
The below is information copied and pasted for you from that site.
The typical dietary recommendations for liver disease are to use a low
protein diet that has very good quality protein ingredients so that the
liver doesn't have to do much work to convert the protein into forms the
body can use. There are commercially available diets that help with this,
including Hill's l/d (tm) and k/d (tm), Purina's NF diet and others.
Vitamin supplementation with B vitamins is often recommended for patients
with liver disease, since these are important to liver function and because
Vitamin B12 storage partly occurs in the liver. Vitamin K supplementation
may be necessary at some time as liver disease progresses, as it may not be
stored properly and blood clotting problems may develop. Vitamin C is
sometimes recommended for its anti-oxidant properties and Vitamin E is
sometimes recommended due to its anti-inflammatory effects.
SAMe (Denosyl SD4 tm) is commonly recommended for liver disease by some of
the leading authorities on liver disease in veterinary medicine. The
recommended dosage is 20mg/kg per day.
Ursodiol (Actigal Rx) is recommended to help with bile flow and protect the
liver from the toxic effects of some bile acids. We use this medication
frequently and I believe that it is helpful.
Hope this helps some.
Mike Richards, DVM
8/13/2000