Symptoms of Liver Shunt

[diggy4]

Originally Posted by Booboo'smommy

My baby didn't had any other symptoms except for Seizures.

Diggys also had seizures and did rub his face with paws....I was convinced he had a shunt and I was DEVISTATED!

After going thru with Bile Acid (which is NOT a hard test on the fur baby) it turned up hypoglycemia I was so relieved. I think with the amount of worrying we all tend to do over these lil guys a bile acid test is not a bad idea for anyone. You just cannot go wrong. It 1 eases your mind and 2 may turn up something that your baby may not be symptomatic of.

I dropped him off at 9 am they drew blood and fed him a high protein food waited like an hour or 2 then drew again I had my results by noon the same day!

[Yorkieluv]

Just ask for a serum bile acid test(pre-prandial and post-prandial)...Make sure it's NOT the IDEXX SNAP test because the range only goes up to 30. Usually they have to send the lab work out for the serum bile acid test.

[diggy4]

Originally Posted by Yorkieluv

Just ask for a serum bile acid test(pre-prandial and post-prandial)...Make sure it's NOT the IDEXX SNAP test because the range only goes up to 30. Usually they have to send the lab work out for the serum bile acid test.

I agree most do send it off but there are some hospitals that have the equipment on site to test with the serum bile acid....I called and called and called til i found one...I was such a wreck I knew waiting a week or even 2 days would KILL me lol So if your like me just keep calling around and with some luck you will find one that does same day testing but I TOTALLY agree with Yorkieluv (who prolly taught me this to begin with lol she is GREAT) do the serum bile acid. Good Luck!

Yorkieluv, do you recommend that a bile acid test be ran even if the baby is not symptomatic? I mean for yourself would you have one done on every Yorkie you own?? Just curious. thanks

[Yorkieluv]

Yes I do believe in bile acid testing because I think it's better to know...Some yorkies don't have a liver shunt but have MVD...
If this is the case, many times, they are asymptomatic until their livers become more and more damaged over time.
That's when most people find out about the problem. If they had known earlier, they could have been giving the liver the support that it needs so that damage wasn't taking place. You know what I mean?

[Yorkieluv]

Yorkies are 36 times more likely to have liver shunt than any other breed.