Slippery elm bark powder for colitis

I have a two year old female cavalier with what appears to be colitis. Flagyl and deworming have not cleared it up, nor has a bland diet of chicken and rice. Has anyone used slippery elm bark and probiotic powders? that is what the holistic guy at the local dog shop recommended.

Has she been seen by her vet for this problem?

When my cavs had colitis we took them to the vet. Do you know what is causing it yet? Ours were chewing mulch and acorns in the backyard, and both got diarrhea.

Yes she has been seeing a vet for over a month now. He has her on Reglan (anti-nausea), Flagyl (antibiotic for Giardia), and Cimetidine (to reduce stomach acid secretion). She will be ok on these meds for 2-3 days then relapse and refuse to eat and have blood tinged mcusy diahrrea. She has also been dewormed in case she had whipworms, and has been on a bland diet of chicken, rice and oatmeal. :?

Her picture is adorable!

Ohhh, I know how upsetting bloody colitis is, you have my sympathy.

When my pups were at their sickest, we fed them plain strained beef baby food with white rice at room temperature (the vet said cold food could irritate their colons.) And their water had to be at room temperature also; we kept a pitcher of tap water at room temp.

I am also very careful about washing floors, to always rinse twice with water. We do not use any lawn chemicals or fertilizers in the backyard. I do not walk them in my neighborhood because of the lawn chemicals everyone else uses (makes my pups sick.)

Does the vet know what the cause is yet, and if not, are they actively looking for the cause?

What do you normally feed her when she is well? My Geordie gets diarrhea from chicken, so I have boiled ground sirloin beef in water and rinsed it, then mix into white rice for a bland diet.

My two had multiple problems causing the colitis. They chewed acorns and mulch which was just terrible! I could not even walk them on a leash in the backyard when the acorns started coming down August through November. (We finally sold the house and moved away from the huge oak trees!!!)

They also had worms and whipworms, which took a few treatments to get rid of. The vet finally had me give India a double dose of Panacur, which I felt terrible doing. I think that worms are sometimes difficult to diagnose, but I don't understand why.

And the lingering colitis was finally diagnosed as Clostridium, the vet had to culture their stool samples and send them to a lab, they had an overgrowth of it in the intestines that was releasing toxins. The vet gave us a bottle of Tylan powder for them. We had to sprinkle 1/16th teaspoon on their food every day for several weeks.

While they were recovering, we paid for a home visit by a veterinarian behaviorist. She did not feel it would be possible to train them from chewing acorns. But she did make a suggestion which I will always thank her for regarding worm prevention - we took them off the Revolution monthly drops, and put them on monthly Interceptor tabs and Frontline Plus drops. They have never had worms since then, knock on wood.

Hi Cathy,
Thanks for the advice. my vet is recommending we see a veterinary GI specialist because he cannot find any cause for this. But in the meantime yesterday I stopped all the meds she was on and started the Slippery Elm and probiotic pwders and she is like new! So far Murphy is eating and eliminating without problem! I am going to give this a course for a while if it keeps working. Then I think I will gradually get her onto the BARF diet recommended by the holistic dog shop guy. This was possibly brought on by feeding her a commercial reducing diet that was high in fiber and low fat. Murphy was quite heavy and had lost about five pounds over six months. We also live on a golf course so its hard to avoid chemicals in the grass. She pretty much swims daily in the pool so that I hope keeps the chemical residue off of her.
Your Cavs are so cute! I would love to have another, but we live in a condo that is pretty small and Miss murphy does not care for other dogs much. She prefers being an only child.

Woody had bad colitis, it took a while then we tried him on a sensitive biscuit and first poo was firm - if any of mine get upset stomach they are feed this and it clears them straight up.

Judi,
So glad to hear the slippery elm bark and probiotic works for Murphy. Where do you buy that, in case we ever need some?

Wow, she swims in a pool and lives on a golf course - that's the life! We'd love to see a photo of your little glamour girl swimming! :lotsaluv:

My crew thanks you for the compliment!

Hi Cathy
Yes, the Murph lives the good life! Here is a picture of her in her "swimmie" when she was a pup. I don't have any recent pictures of the little mermaid in the pool. I got the meds at the local Naples Dog Shop here in Florida, but you can get them on web sites too they are also used for human digestive problems.
Judi 8)

Wow, too cute! :flwr: Thanks for the info.!

Glad to hear Murphy's doing better! Just wanted to say I went through a similar thing with colitis. They gave me Flagyl and I got worse, then Cipro and I got a lot worse. And when I got home from hospital I was still sick so I cut out the antimicrobials completely and started doing better. In my opinion, these can make autoimmune colitis worse!

I also started my dog on raw and he's doing really well. He's 10 and his poos were always soft (even on high quality foods like Innova) until I switched to raw (2-3 months ago). Just be careful with bones as they can puncture the GI tract. I prefer ground bone, but again this is just my personal lean towards safety. Make sure you handle the meat really carefully to prevent an overgrowth of icky bacteria!

Wow! Glad to hear you are doing better. Sometimes modern medicine is not the answer. Murphy is still doing well and we have started her on home-cooked food. So far she is fine on chicken, hamburger, cottage cheese, apples, green beans, carrots, broccoli, pumpkin and yogurt. She has eaten them all in varoius mixtures with no problem. I bought some "Sam's Yams" for her to chew on and to provide fiber.

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Sorry guys still trying to download pictures

Hi Judi,

Sorry to hear Murphy's been a poorly baby but slippery elm is a good old fashioned remedy for upset tummies I remember my Grandmother used to use it and when my eldest was a toddler, a German pharmacist gave me some for him when he had sickness and diarrhoea - works every time