Pilot has pancreatitis
 

It all started on Thursday, 3 hours after he ate his breakfast, he vomited up his food and bunch of white foam. We fasted him for 12 hours, fed him dinner, but 3 hours later the same symptoms returned.

We immediately called the vet yesterday morning and after bloodwork, x-rays, and an ultrasound we're pretty sure he has pancreatitis. We are still awaiting the overnight spec cPL results to 100% confirm.

He received SubQ fluids and we fasted him all day yesterday. In the evening, we began to feed him congee/rice water every few hours and made sure held it down before attempting to feed him again.

This morning he seemed very hungry so we gave him a very small amount of overcooked mash potatoes mixed with some unflavored pedialyte and a quarter of Cerenia to help him stay hydrated. He ate the mash potatoes right up but was he shaking a little afterwards so I know he's still not feeling great.

The plan is feed him small amounts today of mash potatoes today before attempting to add a very small amount of skinless chicken breast tomorrow.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time he had pancreatitis. He contracted it about a year ago and after his dental cleaning. We had to stop doing dentals because of this risk. He's also been a very low fat diet with mainly white fish, rice, and veggies due to other health issues, so I'm not sure how this happened! Really hoping he recovers with no setbacks!

Here's hoping that Pilot feels better soon!

What causes pancreatitis?

Pancreatitis can be caused by a number of things. The main cause is usually diet related, too much fat. Other causes can include medications (side effect), stress, or just genetics as Yorkers are the most common breed to get it.

Early warning signs include picky eating with their normal diet, vomiting (especially with lots of white foam), and diarrhea/loose stools.

It’s very tricky to recover from as the pancreas is involved in digestion. You must fast and then slowly introduce food back with ultra low fat and higher carbohydrate foods like chicken, rice, plain white potatoes, egg whites, etc.

Here is a good article if you went to read more:

https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/he...titis-in-dogs/

Glad to hear he is doing better and sounds as if y'all are great pet parents.

My Piccolo had Pancreatitis several times during her life and it took days of fluids to help her improve.

Anyway, look forward to hearing updates.

Pilot's bloodwork came back today and his spec cPL was over 2000!! :eek: However, he's been able to keep small amounts of bland very low fat food down and has great appetite. I'm very surprised he isn't feeling much sicker with a number so high. We are going to take it slow until that cPL number comes down.

Thank you for the support, hopefully there are no setbacks.

Hope things continue to improve!

Happy to hear you see some improvement. Keeping little Pilot in my prayers.