My 11 week old puppy has a liver shunt :(

[dwerten]

Originally Posted by Robin Lodal

Ok, sorry it has taken me all day to get back on here and update.

Ok... so I got a call around 1pm from Dr. Bohling and he said that the surgery went well and that she was in recovery. She did really well. The only thing is... there is no shunt! ??!!! I am totally scratching my head on this one b/c her post bile acids were 129 and they had done a scintigraphy... so I don't know. He said they were pretty extensive in their search and they ended up doing a portogram and talked with radiology (and a few other things I didn't understand) but they are positive there is no shunt and that its just MVD. He said she did not really show any major signs of fibrosis and that her liver looked like it was in pretty good condition and that he has seen a lot worse. So they ended up doing all that, spaying her and removing a dew claw.

I mentioned that I had never heard of a dog having a post bile acid number with having above a 100 w/o having a shunt and he said that the bile acids is not always an indication of a shunt or MVD. He said that he has seen dogs with really high bile acids w/o a shunt and then a dog with a post bile acid of 30 and have a very large shunt.

I am kind of disappointed b/c at least with a shunt he could've repaired it and I was hopeful for a med-free life for her but that just isn't the case.

As for the Vetri Liver Chews, the nutritionist had not seen them before but took a look at them and said that they would be sufficient to use in place of Denamarin or the Denosyl. They said its essentially the same exact thing and that as long as the dog is willing to eat them then we can use those. They could not definitively say they are "better" or "worse" but that they would be "sufficient"... so yeah! I am SO pleased to hear this.

Also, I know that Ginger will always need to be on meds (the liver chews and lactulose) and a diet but will it always need to be LOW protein like the RC kibble or can it be NB Veg (I think it has low protein as well but not as low as RC)? I was just curious.

Anyway, I plan on picking her up tomorrow as long as she is eating and doing well. There is a UT game tomorrow (oh brother) and so I am going to try my best to avoid all of that traffic. :P

Thank you all so much for your support!

Robin & Ginger

a dog with symptoms of mvd needs to be on 18% protein or less and nb vegetarian is low protein - wow that is very surprising no shunt after surgery wow this is shocking to me too - did the scintigraphy show a shunt? wow at least she was spayed and that is resolved but poor baby that incision is not fun - so did they biopsy the liver and determine mvd ? she must have been on high protein to have displayed such bad symptoms in beginning poor little thing but most puppy foods are high in protein still in shock at this news as thought bile acids were a very good indicator and over 100 more a shunt and never heard of a low number like 30 indicating a shunt wow my dd was below 100 but over 25 but no symptoms just came up on 3 bile acid tests. Well at least you have a firm diagnosis which is important and maybe with low protein diet she can eventually just eat that and may not need meds in future. I will say there was a yorkie on here no signs and at 3 years old had some diarrhea and they opened him up at dr tobias and he had multiple shunts so i guess it is hit and miss in some cases

[Robin Lodal]

Originally Posted by dwerten

a dog with symptoms of mvd needs to be on 18% protein or less and nb vegetarian is low protein - wow that is very surprising no shunt after surgery wow this is shocking to me too - did the scintigraphy show a shunt? wow at least she was spayed and that is resolved but poor baby that incision is not fun - so did they biopsy the liver and determine mvd ? she must have been on high protein to have displayed such bad symptoms in beginning poor little thing but most puppy foods are high in protein still in shock at this news as thought bile acids were a very good indicator and over 100 more a shunt and never heard of a low number like 30 indicating a shunt wow my dd was below 100 but over 25 but no symptoms just came up on 3 bile acid tests. Well at least you have a firm diagnosis which is important and maybe with low protein diet she can eventually just eat that and may not need meds in future. I will say there was a yorkie on here no signs and at 3 years old had some diarrhea and they opened him up at dr tobias and he had multiple shunts so i guess it is hit and miss in some cases

The scintigraphy that she had done (a month before surgery) was "cloudy" but they said it showed a shunt (it was just not as localized as they'd like... so I fully expected them to do another the day before surgery but they elected not to b/c they were pretty confident it was a shunt. When they do a liver biopsy, the results of having a LS and MVD would be the same. So if she DID have a shunt, there is no way for them to determine whether or not she had MVD with the biopsy alone, it would take months to determine that (if her bile acids did not go down dramatically). Since there was no shunt, they automatically know it is MVD. Does that make sense? The ONLY way for a biopsy to say whether or not a dog has MVD definitively is if they have no shunt. This was new news to me at the time.

So far she has done wonderful with the RCLS and LD. She loves it. She is pretty much at 3lb now (yay!).

[ktafe1109]

My sister gave me a Yorkie. He's now 8 months old. The vet in Kentucky said when he was nathargic and stuff and blood tests done she felt he has liver shunt. He takes 1\2 pill and 1mg liquid meds everyday at 8am and 8pm! The vet said he can only have water and special food she sold my sister! Reading up on all these different xrays and possible surgeries scares me to death. I'd rather keep him on meds and find other things he can eat. Where can I get a list of things he can have? Thank you all, have a great Yorkie day!