hope you get answers soon and I hope everything is okay with lacy..we love you guys..

Oh My! Poor little Lacy. I am so sorry to hear that she is not feeling well.:( We will certainly pray:hands: for God to give her Dr's the knowledge to diagnose her very soon and with as little testing as possible. I feel like all our bebies here in CS are family. Please give her a big hug:hug60: and kisses:kiss3:. Cujo , Jazzy , and Heidi send her puppy kisses as well!:Puppy2::kiss4:.
Please knoe that I am here for you and keep me updated.

Hugs, Julie

I don't have advice in this area. But I just wanted to say I'm sending good thoughts for Lacy! :)

Michele, I cannot help you.. but wanted to tell you Lacy is in my prayers... and I will keep watching this thread for updates and times goes on...

anne

Michele, I have nothing to offer in the form of advice. I can offer prayers though for your guidance and the knowledge and experience of the best vet care :hands: I am so sorry that you are dealing with this and that Lacy is suffering

Urinalysis & X-ray today
 

We just got back from our appointment. We did a urinalysis and no crystals were found so that was good. I did decide to go ahead with the X-ray because her vet said you can't tell liver size on ultrasound and an x-ray was the best way to tell...and that A&M would want to know if x-rays were done if we go there for an ultrasound. So anyway, we did one x-ray and everything looked normal. She said normally dogs with a shunt have very small livers and hers appeared to be a normal size, and nothing abnormal showed up on x-ray. So all good news there.

So most likely there is no aquired shunt since she's not more sick and liver appears to be a normal size. But obviously something is going on since her bile acids were high. So we are being referred to Internal Medicine at A&M and will be having an ultrasound...the radiologist there is supposed to be very good at finding shunts on ultrasound. So most likely we'll be doing that in a couple weeks as I have a lot of exams next week. I've got to call and coordinate an appointment time with the Internal Medicine specialist we'll be seeing.

So...if no shunt is found, I'm not sure what they'll want to do next.... I asked her about changing her diet and she didn't think I should at this point until we have a better diagnosis.

That is really confusing.:confused:
Because then you have sites like this (Abdominal Ultrasound) that say u/s is used to measure liver size. This site is about humans but it should be the same.

I could definately be wrong but I thought they measured Ellie's when she had a u/s.

Yeah...I dont know. Some people were telling me you could tell size on ultrasound but she said you can't. I'll ask the Internal Medicine specialist when I go to get his response as well. I figured it couldn't hurt to do the xray if she wanted to anyway..and it didn't cost that much. And we did get a good view of her abdominal organs.

So Sorry to hear this:(, Lacy :getwell:

Miko's liver looked normal size too when we were first finding out that he may have a liver problem, so that doesn't rule anything out, but normal liver size is great news!! :)

I don't understand how they can say that u/s does not show the size of the liver...U/s is used all the time to show the size of abdominal organs.

I don't know. I got an email back from the internal medicine specialist. He's out of town this weekend and will call me one evening next week about setting up an appointment so I'll probably ask him a few questions over the phone then. I'll try to remember to ask about seeing size on ultrasound then. He should have a lot of experience with liver cases so I'm sure he'll have some good advice on what to do next.

I am just seeing this thread. I am so sorry about Lacy's high BAT, but thank heavens you are at Texas A&M.

Any reason why you don't want to do a Protein C test next? That is Dr. Center's protocol.

Dr. Center doesn't recommend ultrasounds, especially in small dogs. Scintigraphy is much more reliable.

It sounds like you are probably dealing with MVD. A change of diet and perhaps Marin and/or Denosyl might be all you need to do.

Keep us posted.

I had forgotten about the Protein C test but will ask the Internal Medicine specialist about it. I'm going to ask about a scintigraphy too but it's more invasive than an ultrasound and is more involved...so i'll see what he thinks. I should get to speak to him on the phone in a few days and then we'll set up an actual appointment probably toward the end of the month. So when I have him on the phone, I'm going to ask him a few questions and see what he recommends doing and asking about whether or not I should change her diet now or wait until we have a better diagnosis. I should have more info after I get to talk to him in a few days.

Here's all the information about the Protein C test:

Comparative Coagulation -- NYS Animal Health Diagnostic Center

If that comes back normal, there probably isn't any need to do any further testing. Just assume Lacy has MVD and go from there. We don't see very many Maltese with shunts, but we do have several with MVD on Spoiled Maltese. All are doing very well with a change in diet and addition of medication (Marin & Denosyl).

I'll be looking for updates!

I agree.

Once Sasha's diet was changed to low protein (Hills LD & organic veggies) and we added Denosyl & Lactulose, she seems much,much better. She is eating well and has so much more energy!

Her BAT will be repeated next month....I'm expecting to see her numbers come down.

I hope your baby will be feeling better soon.