Paranoid about liver shunt

[sadiesamie]

The specialist we saw also praised Hills and said how he visited the plant and how they are the best. (I just kinda blocked out everything he said from there... bc i pretty much still am not convinced) My dogs can't tolerate the corn- otherwise if it came down to it being our absolute last resort i would have to try it for them to get every benefit from the hills food. but while they were both on the hills foods things got so ugly with hair loss, itching, ear infections, yeast infections, samie suffered an allergic reaction in her digestive tract after eating it. i have taken videos of her and what she did when she was eating that food. it was not pretty. she panted, hung her head down to the floor and wouldn't even look at me after eating. The food was so bad for them. oh and the vet also says to me- well you have to decide what to treat- the condition or the allergies??? she never seemed to care that my dog was itching herself out of control every minute she was awake- didn't care that she was losing her hair- her solution was to just keep her on the CLaritin, Yeah the claritin was horrible for sadie- made her bp rise to 265! nearly killed my dog. then she prescribed amloyipine and my dog fainted from being on so much medication. I know this friend of mine tells me that we are going to the best of the best- but my husband and i are really really having a hard time believing this.

[Ellie May]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

My last conversation with our vet about what to feed ended when she told me that a lot of her patients refuse to change food simply bc they are happy with what they are feeding. she said I can't make people switch their dogs food. She also added that it has nothing to do with what we feed. It's all about proper medication for their condition. WHAT?!?! that's crazy. Not with the research that i've done- that is not true. So with that- i knew i would never be comfortable with any advice she gave us on what to feed if it wasn't hills. that actually when in knew we were gettign no where with her. I decided to start researching- I ended up clicking on something that took me directly to YT. When i first discovered YT i was like- OMG.... why have i never heard of this?? i have had my girls for 10 years and this was the first time i ever saw YT. all i say is it doesn't matter how i discovered YT... I am just sooooooo thankful that we did :-) where else could you find better advice from someone who owns a yorkie? NO WHERE but YT. :-)

Ellie's vet says as long as homecooked is balanced, it is okay with her.
She also doesn't push Hills. She uses it sometimes, but totally understands why I don't want to. And she admits that she knows very little about animal nutrition/dog food (just like most other vets). She told me to look online.

[Ellie May]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

The specialist we saw also praised Hills and said how he visited the plant and how they are the best. (I just kinda blocked out everything he said from there... bc i pretty much still am not convinced) My dogs can't tolerate the corn- otherwise if it came down to it being our absolute last resort i would have to try it for them to get every benefit from the hills food. but while they were both on the hills foods things got so ugly with hair loss, itching, ear infections, yeast infections, samie suffered an allergic reaction in her digestive tract after eating it. i have taken videos of her and what she did when she was eating that food. it was not pretty. she panted, hung her head down to the floor and wouldn't even look at me after eating. The food was so bad for them. oh and the vet also says to me- well you have to decide what to treat- the condition or the allergies??? she never seemed to care that my dog was itching herself out of control every minute she was awake- didn't care that she was losing her hair- her solution was to just keep her on the CLaritin, Yeah the claritin was horrible for sadie- made her bp rise to 265! nearly killed my dog. then she prescribed amloyipine and my dog fainted from being on so much medication. I know this friend of mine tells me that we are going to the best of the best- but my husband and i are really really having a hard time believing this.

When we found out Ellie's bile acids were up, we needed to put her on reduced protein. I didn't want to do Hills, so I asked about Royal Canin. I got some of that and Ellie was SOOO itchy from the corn. The vet never said keep her on it to treat the condition. She couldn't even recommend Science Diet at this point because it has corn in it also. She said we could go back to homecooked because I wanted to anyway... I shouldn't have used the Royal Canin in the first place (and the vet wouldn't have cared) but I did...oops.

[Ladymom]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

what about supplements and vitamins? none of that? I could leave out the sweet potato since it is high oxalate. one of my girls cannot have high oxalate with history of calcuim oxalate crystals. so even feeding 35% (GOOD) quality protein was what she needed then.

Yes, you have to supplement those diets. I just posted them to show you they are both high in protein.

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by Ellie May

When we found out Ellie's bile acids were up, we needed to put her on reduced protein. I didn't want to do Hills, so I asked about Royal Canin. I got some of that and Ellie was SOOO itchy from the corn. The vet never said keep her on it to treat the condition. She couldn't even recommend Science Diet at this point because it has corn in it also. She said we could go back to homecooked because I wanted to anyway... I shouldn't have used the Royal Canin in the first place (and the vet wouldn't have cared) but I did...oops.

sorry- this was a duplicate entry i did...

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by Ellie May

When we found out Ellie's bile acids were up, we needed to put her on reduced protein. I didn't want to do Hills, so I asked about Royal Canin. I got some of that and Ellie was SOOO itchy from the corn. The vet never said keep her on it to treat the condition. She couldn't even recommend Science Diet at this point because it has corn in it also. She said we could go back to homecooked because I wanted to anyway... I shouldn't have used the Royal Canin in the first place (and the vet wouldn't have cared) but I did...oops.

yeah the vet was VERY adamate with me. she says "well you need to decide which is more important to treat...the kidneys or the itching, if it were my dog i'd want to treat the condition. But you can't say that she is allergic to corn unless she has an allergy test"

I told her well i found this forum called yorkie talk and everyone on there and also researching on line talk about how corn is bad for dogs and that they can be allergic to it. she says "yeah well, you can't believe everything you read "on line" and every dog is different"
that was when she proceeded to tell me that it really didn't matter what food they had. the only thing that would help was medication. one of my dogs was on 6 diff meds at one time!!! Soloxine, Claritin, Amlodipine, Tramadol, Amoxicillan, Benazeperil. she was very dopey the first night we added the Amlodipine and 3 days later she fainted. needless to say we rushed her to er. we waited over 2 1/2 hours in the waiting room at until 3 am. Sadie seemed totally fine so we made the decision to leave and get her into the vet first thing in the morning. Still the vet didn't say to discontinue anything when we saw her that morning. The vet said she was at her witts end and banging her head with this one...that was when she referred to see us to the specialist and her exact words were to be prepared to spend 150.00 just to walk in the door. I wanted to say hey- we already spent 1000's what's 150.00 dollars more????

so then after seeing the specialist he said to stop the Claritin and that he believed it was raising her bp. and indeed after doing a bp check after disc the claritin 2 wks later- her bp was back to normal. thank god! high bp is a symptom in Glomelur disease (which the specialist thinks sadie has) he didn't want to do a biopsy on her kidney bc he believes that that is the absolute last resort. So all along I was thinking the worse.... the specialist said he believed in as little medication as possible and he wanted her on the soloxine and the benazeperil ONLY. my dog has improved immensely. we couldn't get sadies prot/creat ration lower that 7.1- it wasn't until the spec said increase her dose from 1/4 pill to 1/2 pill. her next prot/creat ratio dropped to 1.9

all that and it was only a 150.00 VISIT! We spent about 3000 on testing for addisons,tick, lyme disease,urinalysis, cultures and retests and more blood panels... and so many others when all we needed to do was increase her med. (benazeperil) our vet even told me at one point that she had been maxed out on taking 1/4 pill of the benezeperil. It was now when we started losing confidence in our vet. especially since her bp dropped after disc the claritin like the spec said to do and after increasing her benezeperil her prot/creat ratio improved immensely- from 7.1 to 1.9. that was a miracle! so like i said- we are using her only for labs and urinalysis follow ups only. the numbers and tests don't lie. but after she recommending a liver biopsy (light sedation,small needle way) and 850.00 for that all. we knew we were now on our way to her being "test happy" with samie now like she did sadie.

So after this follow up bat. The vet already said that she would refer us to the same specialist but we figured we would see where samie was at with a retest first. then if still nothing good. we (w/o any hesitation) will will tell her to get samie's file ready so we can visit with the specialist.

Until this next test we are praying very hard and doing everything in my power for them and researching everything i possibly can. my husband hasn't seen me for weeks bc i have been glued to this computer. :-) i am learning so much from my YT talk friends. And i appreciate you for helping me so much.

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by Ladymom

Yes, you have to supplement those diets. I just posted them to show you they are both high in protein.

so 35% protein plus supplements would be fine for samie bc she would be eating high quality protein that is easier on her liver. am i understanding that correctly? i talked to my husband and told him that it was time to talk to a nutritionist. i will fight him on this big time bc i think it is best like you all have suggested. and i think it is the right thing to do. i told him that although wellness is YES- a great food. that there are things in there that are high oxalate and not good for samie. plus i would love to not have to give her this potas citrate. i am worried that her ph at 8.0 is too high and she could start forming another form of crystal. and also i told him that my other dog is going to also have a bat also. although i am nervous what her result will be- there is only one way to find out.

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

yeah the vet was VERY adamate with me. she says "well you need to decide which is more important to treat...the kidneys or the itching, if it were my dog i'd want to treat the condition. But you can't say that she is allergic to corn unless she has an allergy test"

I told her well i found this forum called yorkie talk and everyone on there and also researching on line talk about how corn is bad for dogs and that they can be allergic to it. she says "yeah well, you can't believe everything you read "on line" and every dog is different"
that was when she proceeded to tell me that it really didn't matter what food they had. the only thing that would help was medication. one of my dogs was on 6 diff meds at one time!!! Soloxine, Claritin, Amlodipine, Tramadol, Amoxicillan, Benazeperil. she was very dopey the first night we added the Amlodipine and 3 days later she fainted. needless to say we rushed her to er. we waited over 2 1/2 hours in the waiting room at until 3 am. Sadie seemed totally fine so we made the decision to leave and get her into the vet first thing in the morning. Still the vet didn't say to discontinue anything when we saw her that morning. The vet said she was at her witts end and banging her head with this one...that was when she referred to see us to the specialist and her exact words were to be prepared to spend 150.00 just to walk in the door. I wanted to say hey- we already spent 1000's what's 150.00 dollars more????

so then after seeing the specialist he said to stop the Claritin and that he believed it was raising her bp. and indeed after doing a bp check after disc the claritin 2 wks later- her bp was back to normal. thank god! high bp is a symptom in Glomelur disease (which the specialist thinks sadie has) he didn't want to do a biopsy on her kidney bc he believes that that is the absolute last resort. So all along I was thinking the worse.... the specialist said he believed in as little medication as possible and he wanted her on the soloxine and the benazeperil ONLY. my dog has improved immensely. we couldn't get sadies prot/creat ration lower that 7.1- it wasn't until the spec said increase her dose from 1/4 pill to 1/2 pill. her next prot/creat ratio dropped to 1.9

all that and it was only a 150.00 VISIT! We spent about 3000 on testing for addisons,tick, lyme disease,urinalysis, cultures and retests and more blood panels... and so many others when all we needed to do was increase her med. (benazeperil) our vet even told me at one point that she had been maxed out on taking 1/4 pill of the benezeperil. It was now when we started losing confidence in our vet. especially since her bp dropped after disc the claritin like the spec said to do and after increasing her benezeperil her prot/creat ratio improved immensely- from 7.1 to 1.9. that was a miracle! so like i said- we are using her only for labs and urinalysis follow ups only. the numbers and tests don't lie. but after she recommending a liver biopsy (light sedation,small needle way) and 850.00 for that all. we knew we were now on our way to her being "test happy" with samie now like she did sadie.

So after this follow up bat. The vet already said that she would refer us to the same specialist but we figured we would see where samie was at with a retest first. then if still nothing good. we (w/o any hesitation) will will tell her to get samie's file ready so we can visit with the specialist.

Until this next test we are praying very hard and doing everything in my power for them and researching everything i possibly can. my husband hasn't seen me for weeks bc i have been glued to this computer. :-) i am learning so much from my YT talk friends. And i appreciate you for helping me so much.

in the meantime, i am home with my girls all day long on the w/ends. and they are starving. sadie started laying by her water bowl 4 hrs after she ate this morning. this wellness is not keeping them full. and they are pooing a lot. like 4 times a day sometimes. i think there are a lot of fillers in this food. like i said though it's helped samie lose a pound which is a lot for her. but it's time to make a switch.

[Yorkieluv]

35% protein is pretty high even for a healthy dog. It would really be helpful if you talk to a nutritionist. None of us can tell you for sure what would work for your babies since their conditions are more complex. You are dealing with kidney issues, collapsing trachea, and possibly liver problems.
Honestly, I would not jump to conclusions about the liver until you do a retest of the BAT. Something could have thrown that test off...But then again, you put her on actigall which can help her but can throw off the bile acid test results in the other direction as well...It helps with bile acids, so it is likely that the next BAT that you do will come back normal because of the actigall...

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by Yorkieluv

35% protein is pretty high even for a healthy dog. It would really be helpful if you talk to a nutritionist. None of us can tell you for sure what would work for your babies since their conditions are more complex. You are dealing with kidney issues, collapsing trachea, and possibly liver problems.
Honestly, I would not jump to conclusions about the liver until you do a retest of the BAT. Something could have thrown that test off...But then again, you put her on actigall which can help her but can throw off the bile acid test results in the other direction as well...It helps with bile acids, so it is likely that the next BAT that you do will come back normal because of the actigall...

Yes we are going to talk to a nutrionist after this next bat definitely. I wouldn't expect anyone to tell me what to feed. I am just asking bc you are all familiar with this and have given me lots of good info and links to valuable info. So at this point i am just learning from you is all. the part that makes me nervous is the increase after the denamarin so fast. She is not getting her frontline or heartguard this month until after her test. I have started adding the omega 3 once a day but other than that. no canned food just the wellness dry food (that i wet) so that part makes me nervous. and not knowing if she really thought that doing the biopsy was the way to go or not. I am going with what all of you say definitely on that one. I wanted to retest first and to be honest i don't know if we will ever do a biopsy on samie. surgery for her would be ify with her ct issues. I guess we can say i hope we never cross that road but if we do we will deal with it.

I had put tresaderm in samies ears yesterday but read somewhere that it could alter things after i put it in her ears of course-so who knows... i wont anymore. It was the only thing that removes her heavy wax build up she gets every couple weeks. I only used a drop or two in each ear and now she is all better.

I just purchased something called WAX-O-SOL 25% and also Cerulytic Ear Cleanser. hoping that will help. i only used the tresederm bc it pulls that wax right out of her ear. the tinest amount makes her crazy when she has wax buildup. I don't want to be using the tresaderm for this- i know that this is not what it is for. but after days of using the cleaner i had nothing worked. so i ordered something else for her to try. I think the wax o sol will help. Is anyone familar with it? just checking.

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

so 35% protein plus supplements would be fine for samie bc she would be eating high quality protein that is easier on her liver. am i understanding that correctly? i talked to my husband and told him that it was time to talk to a nutritionist. i will fight him on this big time bc i think it is best like you all have suggested. and i think it is the right thing to do. i told him that although wellness is YES- a great food. that there are things in there that are high oxalate and not good for samie. plus i would love to not have to give her this potas citrate. i am worried that her ph at 8.0 is too high and she could start forming another form of crystal. and also i told him that my other dog is going to also have a bat also. although i am nervous what her result will be- there is only one way to find out.

I wasn't going to mix up anything i was just asking if that kind of diet would work for a situation as samie's bc Ellie May did say that dogs need protein to survive. it does make a lot of sense- it just seemed high but "If" it was good quality protein as such was what i was wondering if it was bad or good for liver comp dogs. i was only trying to learn something that's all and understand it. The specialist told us 17-20% protein and low fat to feed them both but that was before we encountered liver issues.

i was however looking for someone to give me info on snacks... and if it was ok to give cottage cheese, tofu as snacks. super small specs of this. I made the homemade treats and they went over well but sadie seemed to start itching again- nothing major but a tiny tiny bit. maybe she is allergic to the white flour. ?? so in the mean time i had been giving them super small sprigs of cauliflower and watermelon as snacks.

[Ladymom]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

so 35% protein plus supplements would be fine for samie bc she would be eating high quality protein that is easier on her liver. am i understanding that correctly? i talked to my husband and told him that it was time to talk to a nutritionist. i will fight him on this big time bc i think it is best like you all have suggested. and i think it is the right thing to do. i told him that although wellness is YES- a great food. that there are things in there that are high oxalate and not good for samie. plus i would love to not have to give her this potas citrate. i am worried that her ph at 8.0 is too high and she could start forming another form of crystal. and also i told him that my other dog is going to also have a bat also. although i am nervous what her result will be- there is only one way to find out.

Those were just two examples of Maltese who were being treated by Dr. Dodds and Dr. Center. As far as I know, they have no other issues besides asymptomatic MVD.

Your dogs have multiple issues. You really need to see a nutritionist IMO.

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by Ladymom

Those were just two examples of Maltese who were being treated by Dr. Dodds and Dr. Center. As far as I know, they have no other issues besides asymptomatic MVD.

Your dogs have multiple issues. You really need to see a nutritionist IMO.

yes we do plan on talking with a nutritionist.

[sadiesamie]

Originally Posted by sadiesamie

I wasn't going to mix up anything i was just asking if that kind of diet would work for a situation as samie's bc Ellie May did say that dogs need protein to survive. it does make a lot of sense- it just seemed high but "If" it was good quality protein as such. What i was wondering if it was bad or good for liver comp dogs. i was only trying to learn something that's all -and understand it. The specialist told us 17-20% protein and low fat to feed them both but that was before we encountered liver issues.

i was however looking for someone to give me info on snacks... and if it was ok to give cottage cheese, tofu as snacks. super small specs of this. I made the homemade treats and they went over well but sadie seemed to start itching again- nothing major but a tiny tiny bit. maybe she is allergic to the white flour. ?? so in the mean time i had been giving them super small sprigs of cauliflower and watermelon as snacks.

....................

[Ellie May]

You don't have to do allergy testing to see if she is allergic to corn. Ellie has never had it... Her vet looked at the ingredients in the Royal Canin and said she thought is was the corn. She has told me that allergy testing is a long road that I probably wouldn't want to get into. And she's right. If your dog itches on a food, pull it. If it is a complex kibble and you don't know what ingredient she is allergic to then pull all of it for a few months and reintroduce individual ingredients to see which one she reacts to. If you are sure it is the corn, then it is the corn and there is no reason to do this.

I elected not to use Actigall with Ellie. One of the reasons is it does alter bile acid numbers and I want to get good readings. I might go with it someday though. Retesting bile acids will be pretty close to pointless (but maybe still necessary) for Samie now.