You are a GODSEND for telling me about the yahoo site!
xxxxxxxxxxxxx!!!

Yes, I am a member of the liver shunt group. They really can't tell me what is wrong with Ellie because she isn't even near clinical. There are a zillion reasons why the bile acids could be doing this, so nobody really knows... They are a wonderful group of people though and I highly recommend that people join if they have a liver compromised dog.

You are welcome!! :) The group's members are amazing and have helped soooo many dogs...

How did the specialist trip go?

Update- Specialist visit today
 

Well took Samie to the Internal Med Specialist today…His recommendation was to stop everything. The Flovent inhaler, Soloxine, Potassium Citrate granules, and the Denamarin liver supplement. We will go see him in 6 wks for a new baseline blood and urinalysis. He also indicated that based on the x-rays Samie does not have CT but- may have something called Laryngeal Paralysis. This would explain why Samie would occasionally turn blue. It has to do with the breathing inward and it can stop air flow and be very serious. Samie did well at the vet. At first she was very excited but she calmed down after we were there.

He also recommended that we send over my other dogs labs for him to review and also recommended that we stop the Soloxine with her. Apparently my girls may not be hypothyroid. 2 of their readings showed other low thyroid values, but the TSH in general was within range.
Overall he was not convinced that there is a thyroid problem.

He was concerned with Samie’s ph being at 8.0 and her urine being now on the alkaline side. So he said no more Potassium citrate. They do a urinalysis to check for crystals “in house” so the urine is tested immediately. The urine taken at the reg vet gets sent out to the lab and by the time they get to testing it, crystals can form in the urine causing inaccurate results.

Her liver size was slightly larger than normal, but he didn’t think anything looked abnormal about it. He specifically said that she does not have a liver shunt. In 6 wks Samie will have a BAT and she will stay at the clinic. They said they are going to feed her regular food and also add a higher fat food to challenge her liver. They will do a full blood panel and urinalysis also. He did say that the Flovent could be contributing to this easily and there was only one way to find out.

It appears to be that my girls have been over medicated making it impossible to determine “what” is wrong- if anything.

So- with that, for the next 6 wks, I am going to relax and feel more at ease.
He said if we notice anything unusual to call him immediately.

I am still reeling this all in, as I was sure that we were going to get bad news today. I was so overwhelmed I could not help but just start crying when we left the place. If you all knew the whole story as to how we were treated at the regular vet! From being rushed into tests, never getting a detailed explanation on results, the money we have spent this past 6 months on a lot of unnecessary tests… AND an incident that took place a few months ago when the office manager called me to tell me how all calls will go through her since we take up valuable time with the vet. And that because of the fact that i talked to her on the phone for 15 minutes and kept her from seeing very sick patients that I will now be charged 25.00 for phone calls if I didn’t handle everything with her. I have a write up saved that i did one night on this experience but have not had the time to read through it all first. Just something I wanted to share with you all. I haven't decided it I am going to post it just yet.
WOW it was such a learning experience they put us through.

So anyway- AFTER today's visit with the specialist... I am so overwhelmed.

You can be sure that we will not be going back to the regular vet any longer.

I will continue to check back and continue to update. I won't go 6 wks without checking in with you all who have been here to support me and help me through this.

It has been 6 mos of sheer madness for me.

Wow, what an interesting day for you.
I am so glad you're done with that vet. You deserve better. All calls go through the office manager...LOL...yeah sure.:rolleyes: If the vet doesn't want to talk to her clients then why is she a vet to begin with? And $25 for a phone call?:mad:

Just about any meds could elevate bile acids, so those being elevated wouldn't be my first concern (just recheck like the specialist said). I would be very unhappy if my dogs were medicated for more than one disease all this tim for no reason. I think your "old" vet has a lot of explaining to do.:confused:

almost a week without meds
 

Ok- I am feeling nervous. Not only has my daily "med giving routine" totally changed. This is day 5 and Samie is without: Flovent, Soloxine, Potassium Citrate or Denamarin... I don't know if the specialist wasn't able to figure anything out bc of Samie being on so many meds? Or if something is going to change. We go back for a revamp of everything - blood work and urinalysis.

Samie is doing very well. It's nice to not have her running away from me. She hated getting the mask for the flovent.

They are still on the Wellness for now but they have such a ravenous appetite when it is feeding time. I think there may be a lot of fillers in this food. For as bad as I want to switch- (it's time for a new bag) I have to be patient. I need to know what the labs show in 6 wks before we persue talking with a nutritionist. I know my girls love their food wet... so maybe the appetite comes from that. ??

I was relieved at first when we saw the specialist but now that we are not giving "any" meds. I am nervous. He said I don't believe Samie has a liver shunt? Maybe mvd? only one way to tell- take her off of all of this meds. He didn't want to come out and say it but several times he would refer to his saying "UM...Not sure how to say this???" I think he pretty much was saying that the vet messed up. He did tell us that if for whatever reason Samie started to not feel good- vomiting or diarrhea... to call him immediately.

So far- so good. yet I am a worry wart so... The specialist knows his stuff and he is a specialist for a reason. He has years and years 30+ experience so I am going to trust him and go with it.

Yahoo Liver group...
 

Also, I posted a follow up on the yahoo liver group, but I can't seem to locate it. I did it twice and it said my reply was sent. I still can't locate it..
and I never heard anything back from anyone. I can't help but think no replies are a good sign. Bc maybe they feel my situation isn't as serious as we thought? not sure- i keep checking for responses to my follow up and nothing... ??

I haven't seen any posts from you since the original post??

I don't think they are going through...Make sure you are sending it to the entire group...Could it be that you are sending it to only one person's email...

The yahoo group always responds.

It really sounds like your specialist knows what's going on!! What a relief it must be to have them in this vet's care :) I am so happy to hear that they are doing so well without all those meds. Your vet is right, if they have been given these meds unnecessarily that definitely could be a big problem right there...

I hope to see your post on the yahoo group soon!

revised...

I would be very happy that the specialist pulled the meds for now. It could be MVD but even more likely is the bile acids are up from all the medication she is on. Those are bound to effect the liver somehow.

Ok- I think it worked this time. I don't know what I was doing wrong but I saw what i posted. It is good to see that specialist. I think if there was something major going on here he wouldn't say to stop the meds... but still it makes me a nervous wreck. He knows these lab results... he has to. He knows what to look for??? I have got to trust him and I am in such denial. I thought for sure he was going to say- ultrasound... ??? more tests... we left there literally dumbfounded!

One thing I am noticing is Samie has a little irritation by her private area. she did a little scooting last week and i think she took off some skin. ALSO- her hair around her privates was WAYYYY too long - maybe the urine irritated her also.

I cleaned her anal glands again the other day. I knew I got it all this time, (her glands are so tiny and so hard to find) my other dog's are easy- but samie's are hard to find. Still she was still scooting a little- I need to shave her private area but for now I just used scissors.

I checked her front area. just a tiny little irritation. Like one little spot. I don't want her to go to long with this. bc i worry she might have another uti. she had 2 in the last 6 mos. ???

i think i am really................. just driving myself crazy. I will continue to put the Entederm ointment on her the rest of this week. I am off next Monday if still not better -then I will have it looked at. don't want to wait six wks to see him.

I just keep saying to myself- it something was going on he knows how to read those labs he would have said differently. but to stop all meds? I just can't believe that. I just can't believe my little dog was on so many things (373.00 a month in meds!) we figure if she lives 5 more years or so on all of this it will be like 25,000.00 to keep her alive - a little dog who shows no signs of anything wrong. I am just in awww.... I might want to go our and buy a new car now! :-) geez i tell ya...

He is the same specialist that saw my other dog for high bp (265) and he said stop the claritin he knew it was that immediately raising her bp. instead- our reg vet prescribed something to lower her bp. (AMlodipine) is she crazy???? how did she not know that the Claritin was raising it in the first place. It's like she was telling me to give her something for her itching - she had high bp and then also prescribing somthing else to lower it at the same time. How did she not realize it was the claritin raising it??? It just doesn't make sense to me. my husband and i keep asking ourselves... why did the reg vet not take into consideration all of the meds samie was on? she immediately wanted to do a biopsy? wow.

I don't think the specialist is going to put her life in danger. Try to relax.:)
Ellie's anal glands have never been and hopefully will never be emptied. Once you start it can lead to problems.
Ellie has one red bump by her privates and it is going away. I think the girls just get irritated sometimes. She has long hair down there.
When she was diagnosed with those UTIs, was the urine sample taken by cysocentesis or free catch?

Holy heck. If a vet put Ellie on $373 worth of meds a month and I found out she didn't need them, well, I would NOT be happy.

the Flovent was 178.00, her Denamarin 62.00 her ursodiol was 30.00, Potassium Citrate 25.00 Soloxine 10.00... Hydromet 12.00...Then her frontline and heartguard... and that was just samie- she had my other dog SADIE--on even more meds- at one time- soloxine, tramadol, clavamox, benezeperil, amlodipine, and claritin- and all of this at ONE time!!!

and to go a step further- i faxed the specialist Sadies labs- (he saw her in december)... and he said to stop the thyroid med with her too. their thyroids were in normal range. Both dogs! sadies at 22 and samie's at 24. both tsh in normal range and both on thryoid med. ??????

for what it's worth- sadie is only on benazeperil for her protein loss- and we are hoping that her high blood pressure is what caused so much protein loss in her urine. If that's the case then I will be HOT about things. bc liver can reverse and repair- the kidneys cannot. As soon as I get some free time I will update info on Sadie.

Tramadol is for pain. Why was Sadie in pain?

If you ever need to use Denosyl, it is cheap at entirelypets.com.

Not to mention the stack of invoices i have for all of the unnecesary tests she did- we have a budget we track and we averaged about 500-600 a month at the vet. when samie fainted one day and we did labs and xrays it was 378.00 just for that day. it has been literally insane. we ask ourselves...how in the world did things get so out of control? how did this happen?

what else could we do but think we had such a great vet! she kept finding so many things wrong with our dogs that the old vet didn't. the old vet too was bad- she said i was lucky to have samie this long with her ct. the specialst said to us.. has she ever had a scope? who diagnosed her with ct?? he said she did not cough while we were there with her once. she does not have ct. i have a video of her that i will take with us in 5 wks. i am anxious for him to see it. she is coughing but maybe it wasn't ct after all. yeah you guys are right- i need to rest my weary brain for a little while. My mom is coming in town this week from Ohio. It will be so nice to see her.

WE had a bad storm here sat am and both cars hail damage big time! and our brand new house.. a hole in the roof and shingles everywhere from the storm. water leaking from the b/room ceiling. it just has to get better. what a w/end! :-)

yeah she overcharged us big time for the denamarin. sadie sometimes has back leg pain. she runs like a maniac and that week she was limping a little. she is totally fine now. if she does it anymore she is having it looked at. she was only on the tramadol for an as needed basis. and she needed it the week she was on everything else. you should see the doggie drugstore i have here. it's crazy!

I wonder if it is luxating patella.

I feel bad that you spent all that money for possibly no good reason.
And I'm so glad you decided against a liver biopsy for now.

omg i was so mad at my husband for not wanting to do the biopsy. we spent so much on Sadie and now Samie needed something and he was totally against it. so at first I was so mad at him. It if wasn't for YT we would have done the biopsy... We were ready to schedule the appt the following week. I wanted to get in out of the way before my mom came this week. Plus i did not want to wait. The trigger to see the specialist is when we learned that the ursodiol could potentially mask a problem. that was all i needed to hear and off we were right to the specialist!

Both of my girls i believe at one we were told that knee pops out...not a grade level to be concerned with. Samie has already had the surgery for lp 3 yrs ago. we are still hoping Sadie will not ever need it. if she ever has problems with it again to the point where she would need pain meds then i want it x-rayed.

I am signing off for the evening. Have a good night :-)

almost 2 wks w/o meds!
 

We are nearing 2 wks now w/o meds and Samie is doing well. I am anxious to see what her labs will show in another 4 wks. the only thing she always has an issue with is her ears. She has some hair in there that I would like to remove but she always gets an infection when i take it out. She seems to have a lot of wax buildup so i make sure to stay on top of that and clean her ears. she has been itching them and I tried cleaning last night. There must be some irritation bc the swab had a super tiny spot of blood on it. I think she may have scratched and that was why- but it still freaked me out. she hasn't itched or dug in her ear anymore today. I don't want to use any type of cleaner just yet bc i don't want it to burn or irritate her. I do have some ear relief drops and some wax-ol which is a more oily liquid and soothing that i will use if she starts shaking her head or starts digging in there again. I sometimes see her digging and then licking her paw. Once I get all of the wax out she stops. Also i see no brown color discharge or anything so I don't think any infection. no foul odor or anything either.

she is doing well overall. Mom and sister are visiting from out of town...and they are getting LOADS of LOVE. they are loving life :-)

update on SAMIE...
 

Well after seeing the specialist... and discontinuing ALL meds! (flovent, pottassium citrate, soloxine, Denamarin, Ursodiol)

We did a new baseline with new complete blood work up and urinalysis.

Samie's Bat came back PERFECT!!!!!!

She is NOT HYPOTHYROID!!! SO no more Soloxine

and... NO CRYSTALS!! the urinalysis is done "in house" so her urine is immediately tested within seconds of collecting it. her ph was @ 6.0, we will continue to monitor every 3 mos to make sure no signs of crystals show up= I also have test strips so I will monitor her ph every few weeks since I am too nervous to just wait it out for 3 mos :-) No more Potassium Citrate added to her food either now,

Needless to say the (OLD!!!!!!!) vet had her Over-medicated for no reason!
this Vet is no longer OUR vet!

It was the FLOVENT that was impacting her LIVER!!! and immediately the Vet wanted to jump into doing a biopsy! Makes me so MAD to just think about it again!!! she so messed up and for the second time! And she messed up big and this was for the LAST TIME!!!

We are still unsure if she has collapsing trachea or Laryngeal Paralyis so we are closely monitoring that. Samie has bad allergies, her nose and eyes have been watery and when she lays down sometimes she coughs. I have benedyrl to give her if her allergies are really bad and she does a lot of coughing.

the only thing we found was she is producing protein in her urine, and her lypase and amylase is high. this "could" be the reason for the protein loss but we will monitor and we just started her on Benazeperil) her UPC was 2.3
we are hoping the med will help this come down.

The specialist recommended a diet LOW in fat and high in fiber. they are still on Wellness wgt mgt it has 6% fat and 8 % fiber. We also are adding Metamucil (1/4 teas 2 x's per day) to her food. Stool has been a tiny tiny bit loose but nothing runny. Still- I am keeping a close watch on it.

However, now that we have the new baseline it's time to talk to a nutritionist about what the best diet is.

Wanted to give ya'll the news!

:bravo:

What wonderful news!!!!!!!

So happy to hear the BETTER result!

I am looking EVERYWHERE for the Nutritionist info that someone gave me and I cannot find it anywhere. I would like to do some research but I have so many threads and messages LOL. If anyone remembers posting it please let me know :-)

I have not been on this site for awhile and I had not been up to date on what had happened recently..I am so sorry for what you went thru. It is really a crime the way this last vet treated you..geez...that is so wrong.. sounds to me like she doesn't like what she does and needs to rethink what she wants to do when she grows up...If I had to pay everytime I personally spoke to my vet I would have been broke a long time ago.. I almost left my vet because of a partner he had that didn't seem to like animals..I never saw her touch my dog when she did an exam. And it wasn't because he was dirty or mean or anything like that. And she overmedicated him once and I almost lost him...That cost a fortune in the Emergency room...They are just like our own doctors though, some of them are just in the wrong business...I am so happy you have found someone to help you..your babies and you have been thru hell for apparently no reason...I just pray they continue to improve...God Bless...:animal-pa :)

I can't believe she was over medicated that much.
You must be relieved.:)

I have a nutritionist, Wylie's Mom does and then there is the one from Cornell or U of Tennessee.

I am currently researching Dr. Shawn Messonnier, DVM. he is here in Plano,TX and he is a Holistic Vet. I am hoping he can help us with a super great diet to feed my girls. I also am hoping her can just be our regular vet. I just don't know what our best options are. My girls need to be on a LOW fat and HIGH fiber now bc of pancreatitis problems. One was diagnosed with it more than the other so they both need this type of diet. no vomiting, just runny poo. and not every single time. but more so than not. today it is mushy.

I have 2 wks until we get a new UPC reading to see where we are at with that- and then I will have a fresh lab to take to the nutritionist or fax to which ever one I pick. I don't know if I want to do a phone consult with one or just go to Dr Shawn Messionnier. He is so well known. If you do a search on him it's amazing the accomplishments he has made.

in the meantime, the girls are still on Wellness wgt mgt. I tried to switch to the wellness super 5 mix/senior since the fat content wasn't too much higher. the folks at wellness told me the wgt mgt formula can vary from 6-10% and the super 5/senior did not have more than 10% fat. but maybe it was enough to make a difference?? don't know but not taking any chances. can't wait to find the right rood for them.

the stool started being a bit more runny so we are now back on the wgt mgt. food. and adding fiber supplement called Konsyl. 1/4 teas 2x's a day.

Anything to try to get harder stools. Been mushy today. :-( passing gas... (pee-u!) not too often but a few every now and then. so i know her tummy does not feel good. maybe tums or pepcid a/c will help.