Originally Posted by Ladymom (Post 3012140)

I have one of those timed feeders for my diabetic Lady. They are wonderful! :thumbup:

Crystal, they have a spot underneath for a little ice pack that comes with it to keep food cold.

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3012139)

You don't think it would become a disgusting consistency after baking and then freezing and thawing?

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3012143)

Well, that is awesome. I'll have to look into them. :)

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3012138)

Unortunately, I don't think it's that easy with Ellie.
Because she has pancreatitis, high bile acids, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth/IBD, and allergies, we are extremely limited.

Red meat, pork, and exotics aren't good for her liver and can trigger pancreatitis. Chicken obviously doesn't settle and we aren't sure if she is allergic to turkey or not. So our choice here is fish.

Grains aren't the best for allergies, and if she can't have white potato, then are only choice here is sweet potato (or a grain and hope it doesn't make her too itchy).

She does fine with most vegetables, but she is usually underweight, so these don't help really do a ton for that...

The fat % in her diet is now going to have to be lowered which means she will have to eat even more of the main ingredients everyday and she already gets bloated on the amount she is on now.

She does okay with fish, sweet potato, and vegetables, but it is pretty low calorie and if she starts not doing well on it, I have no idea what we are going to do.

She does not do well on rx diets at all, to the point where they are out of the question for now.

Oh and I am just hoping the food allergies don't start to really flare up now. She was on Temaril-P and I can't restart it for at least a week, and even then, it may not be a good idea because of her pancreas.

Originally Posted by dwerten (Post 3012438)

yeah steroids can trigger pancreas - wow she sounds a mess like my dd - the only thing dd does not have is pancreatitis dex has that

i would stick to fish and sweet potato no other grains or white potato and i would use zuccini instead of carrots as zucchini cleanses the liver and that will help her mvd. Have you done dr dodds liver cleansing diet but skip the white potato -- you can juice zucchini with celery and put pulp and juice on food as celery cleanses urinary tract. I would not do carrots as they are a sugary food and bacteria grows in sugar just like in white potato as diabetics are told not to eat white potato but they can eat sweet potato.

Have you tried atopica for allergies - some dogs vomit on it but it is being used off label for ibd as well as allergies and dd is mvd as well and was on it - are her allergies really bad? How much temarilp is she getting ?

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3011912)

The ingredients are fish, sweet potato, occasionally oatmeal, and assorted vegetables (usually carrots or green beans).

Aww, thanks for such a sweet offer. :)
I think we have one, but the bag are so expensive (we go through bags like mad for her food). I wonder if they're reusable?

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3012457)

Dr. Dodds diet is very similar to what Ellie is on now.
Yes, we tried Atopica. It didn't do much (probably because Ellie has food allergies). She is on the amount of Temaril-P that she seems to do well on at the time. Usually 5mg (1/2 pill) once a day... At times, the itching gets to the extreme. She will occasionally go at it for 45 minutes out of an hour when she isn't on drugs... Thankfully usually just 5 minutes at a time though..

Originally Posted by dwerten (Post 3013044)

1/2 tablet is 1mg of prednisolone as each tablet has 2mg of prednisolone. How much does she weigh? DD is on 1/2 every other day and just discussed with ims yesterday about safety of doing daily and she said ideally every other day but maybe doing every day but spreading it out so monday in am tuesday in pm kind of thing and doing 1/4 instead of 1/2 this way adrenals can still function on own on off time but we get it in her again before the flair up as she gets aggitated on off days not too bad but still want no itching if possible - allergies are tough and my fear is always in using steroids as it can trigger the pancreas and dd has high lipase on all blood draws which concerns me - she had high amylase and lipase when on prednisone but she never had pancreas attack but i got her off asap when dex had pancreatitis and learned steroids could affect pancreas

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3013069)

These are 10mg pills, so she is getting 1mg of prednisolone daily.
We had made the decision a couple months ago to go this way long-term because we are no longer talking about a little bit of itching here and there. It is an extreme quality of life issue and it is not fair to Ellie to itch like that. I won't put clothes on her or use an ecollar to stop her. That would just make her more miserable. She is on a very hypoallergenic diet. We've tried Atopica just in case it was environmental. She has had steroid injections, but they only last about 5 days. We are very concerned about starting the Temaril bak up, but at this point I don't know if we have a choice (unless Ellie doesn't start itching again).

Originally Posted by dwerten (Post 3013134)

yeah can definitely relate - does she get miserable in a tshirt though as dermatologist calls it shirt therapy and boy does it work for dd she is much more comfortable in a tshirt as it keeps the dust and pollens off her skin limiting aggravation. Sounds like you are feeding her a hypoallergenic diet except for oats i would remove those and food is only 10% of the time and steroids nor atopica will help with food allergy as they are strictly for environmental so my guess is this is environmental not food if the steroids are helping. the temaril helps dd much more than atopica as i had to still use temaril with atopica so i figured one drug is better than two

are these the temarilp you are using as i am not aware of the 10mg ones only these that we use?

Temaril-P: Cough Medication For Dogs, Pet Cough Medication - 1800PetMeds

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3013138)

Yes, those are it. I think they weigh 10mg.
From our experience, steroids definitely do help with food allergies.
It may still be environmental, but at one time we are sure food caused a problem and that would still be my guess. Because it is probably food, clothes wouldn't protect her skin from anything. In fact, she hates wearing shirts. She hasn't gotten oats in quite awhile. I guess we will see how the itching is when we thaw here in MI.

Originally Posted by dwerten (Post 3013175)

yeah because they can have allergies to dust and mold and if itching in winter time mold allergy is pretty common as well - the only other thing is the type of fish are you using wild fish or farm raised as mercury in fish can cause itching - just feel so bad for you as i know how frustrating pancreatitis and allergies can be and to have one dog with both is a VERY tough situation to get a happy balance - so sorry

Originally Posted by Ellie May (Post 3013187)

No idea. Honestly, we just grab whatever white fish we can find that isn't from China. That is hard enough as it is. :( I am very concerned about using fish long-term with the mercury concern, but I'm not sure we have a choice.

She has to be on fish anyway, because all other protein seems to set off the SIBO/IBD.

Originally Posted by bonbon (Post 3012860)

It sounds like you've gotten some really good advice here. I wanted to address your concern about the consistency, or texture, of frozen cooked meals. I don't like to cook, so on weekends I'll prepare several dishes to last me for the entire week and then I freeze them. Some things (like pasta) just aren't meant to be frozen because it affects the texture. But, I've rarely had the TASTE of food affected when it's frozen. I'm not sure the consistency is going to matter as much to Ellie as it would to us, she would probably eat it as long as it tasted good to her. Maybe you could try freezing without doing anything extra to the food, for just a week or two and see how she tolerates it?