Urinary Tract Infections

[dwerten]

Originally Posted by kjc

UTIs won't always accompany LS/MVD. It all depends on how much liver function each dog has, the protein content of the food they are fed, and the general health of their intestinal tract. Just as many with LS/MVD are asymptomatic all together.

DD may have only had one UTI as a puppy, bc as a puppy their livers haven't fully developed or grown to full size. As DD grew, the liver grew and must have been functioning well enough to handle the protein load, so no more UTIs.

The day I first got Tinkerbell in April 09, we arrived home and got right out of the car for a walk. Well, she peed, and the ammonia that wafted up liked to knock me out. So to the vet we went. After meds for UTI, a BAT and a limited protein diet, it wasn't till 8 months later that she developed a UTI again. So her liver filters out a lot of the toxins, but over time, what doesn't get filtered out builds up, so you have increased amounts of ammonia producing bacteria and other toxins floating around in their system. This keeps increasing, which eventually gets to a level of toxicity that causes UTI and goofy neuro behaviors called Hepatic Encephalopathy, which, if left untreated, results in seizures and death. The treatment for HE is to get the toxins out of the body ASAP, which can be acheived by hourly doses of Lactulose, until she has blow out diarrhea, which takes most of the bacteria in her gut with it, thereby immediately limiting the load on the liver, and another course of Antibiotics to also decrease the bacteria in the gut.

In summary: clean dog, feed dog till she acts crazy, medicate dog to have clean dog again. How frequently this cycle repeats is how well her liver is functioning. She now eats L/D, which is 14% protein, 20% pork/chicken fat. No meat treats... cereal, whipped cream,cottage cheese, hard boiled egg whites, people crackers etc.

yeah dd is pretty mild her last post on low protein was down to 26 and that was done with jean dodds. The previous two by vet were 73 and 54 - so glad i did not do scintigraphy like suggested as she really has had no symptoms at all other than skin as skin can be a sign of it to as the body eliminates toxins through the skin. Allergies are my biggest issue with her

[dwerten]

just ran across this

Why is my dog getting a recurrent urinary infection (cystitis)?

http://www.petplace.com/dogs/acute-c...ogs/page1.aspx

[107barney]

Wow I never new MVD dogs could have bladder/UTI issues. Daisy was diagnosed at age 6 as probable MVD and we have not had a UTI at all.
At one point, she was incontinent but a short course of Proin tightened her bladder sphincter right up and we've been on dry ground since.

She at L/D canned food for a while when first diagnosed but now is on a vegetarian HC diet consisting of 16% protein, 6% fat. Well she does get fish oil so not a true vegetarian

[TLC]

Originally Posted by 107barney

Wow I never new MVD dogs could have bladder/UTI issues. Daisy was diagnosed at age 6 as probable MVD and we have not had a UTI at all.
At one point, she was incontinent but a short course of Proin tightened her bladder sphincter right up and we've been on dry ground since.

She at L/D canned food for a while when first diagnosed but now is on a vegetarian HC diet consisting of 16% protein, 6% fat. Well she does get fish oil so not a true vegetarian

Oh Yes, MVD dogs are very prone to UTIs, Crystals and Stones. If you are feeding a Dry Food, it is recommended to add distilled water to the kibble