• If you're a past member of the board, but can't recall your password any more, you don't need to set up a new account (unless you wish to). As long as you recall your old login name, you can log in with that user name then select 'forgot password' and the board will email you at your registration email, to let you reset your password.

Advice Needed-Liver Issue

CVFlagg

CVFlagg

Well-known member
Hi All-

I have been battling a health issue with my oldest, 11 year old Beanie. Just over a month ago she became extremely lethargic, stopped eating and was having diarrhea. After two trips to the regular vet and a night at the emergency vet, we ended up at the vet specialty clinic where she was in ICU for six days. They ran a battery of tests and concluded it was a suspected bacterial hepatitis in the liver. She was on Baytril and Amoxicillian for a month. Two weeks after she left the ICU, we had her blood retested and her biliruben (sp?) and protein levels were back to normal but now her ALT level was up (at 123, normal is 12-118) so they added in Metronidizale and Denamarin and we decided to recheck blood work again in two weeks. Just got the call from the vet that her ALT has now gone up to 223! She has faxed the results to the internal medicine specialist and placed a call to him to coordinate next steps but mentioned we might need to do a biopsy of the liver. As far as her behavior and attitude, everything is back to normal. She is eating, drinking and active.

Throughout this whole process, I have switched vets and really love the new vet and she is being very diligent about coordinating with the internal medicine specialist but I thought I would reach out to the great CavTalk team to see if anyone had and advice or suggestions on anything I should be doing or not doing or anything I should research or suggest to the vet. Thanks in advance for your advice!
 
Sorry to read this. I have no advice to give. I just wanted you to know that I am sending good thoughts your way and hope the doctors can quickly figure out what's wrong with Beanie. It sounds as though you and the doctors are doing a through job of investigating the issues at hand. Keep us updated. Good luck
 
I don't have any advice either, I am sure someone will though. I am really sorry you have this problem, I hope it gets resolved soon as I can imagine how upsetting this must be for both of you.
 
Food

CVFlagg said:
Hi All-

I have been battling a health issue with my oldest, 11 year old Beanie. Just over a month ago she became extremely lethargic, stopped eating and was having diarrhea. After two trips to the regular vet and a night at the emergency vet, we ended up at the vet specialty clinic where she was in ICU for six days. They ran a battery of tests and concluded it was a suspected bacterial hepatitis in the liver. She was on Baytril and Amoxicillian for a month. Two weeks after she left the ICU, we had her blood retested and her biliruben (sp?) and protein levels were back to normal but now her ALT level was up (at 123, normal is 12-118) so they added in Metronidizale and Denamarin and we decided to recheck blood work again in two weeks. Just got the call from the vet that her ALT has now gone up to 223! She has faxed the results to the internal medicine specialist and placed a call to him to coordinate next steps but mentioned we might need to do a biopsy of the liver. As far as her behavior and attitude, everything is back to normal. She is eating, drinking and active.

Throughout this whole process, I have switched vets and really love the new vet and she is being very diligent about coordinating with the internal medicine specialist but I thought I would reach out to the great CavTalk team to see if anyone had and advice or suggestions on anything I should be doing or not doing or anything I should research or suggest to the vet. Thanks in advance for your advice!
Click to expand...


What type of food do you feed her? A lot of time a Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or Bones and Raw Food would stabilize liver function. Mind you I am not a vet, my dog are fed novel protein diets (duck and sweet potato) which keeps their glucose levels at healthy levels.

When we thought Luka's SM was an allergy he was on Raw Food and loved it.
 
Thanks for all of your good thoughts!

Currently she is on a mix of Innova Senior Plus dry kibble and wet food. We switched to that after she was in the ICU because she was not taking to her old food and was no longer willing to eat just plain dry kibble. I will definitely ask the vet about a liver-support diet and see if that is something she recommends trying.
 
I have a friend who's Pug had liver issues. She was, I believe on a Hills Prescription diet for liver, and she also was on several supplements to support her liver.

I'll drop her a line and see what she recommends. But, there are probably others here with similar situations.
 
mommytoClaire said:
I have a friend who's Pug had liver issues. She was, I believe on a Hills Prescription diet for liver, and she also was on several supplements to support her liver.

I'll drop her a line and see what she recommends. But, there are probably others here with similar situations.
Click to expand...

I am surprised people still use Hills since their food contains corn, and dogs generally don't digest corn well...
 
We tried Jake on the liver support food, it didn't seem to help - on the vet's advice we switched him to a low fat diet which did help. You can get wet and dry versions of the low fat diet too. We gave to be very careful of treats etc as anything with a high fat content really does nit agree with him. His liver results fluctuated quite a bit before settling back to normal after his liver problems. Sending healing vibes over to you x
 
Just heard from the vet specialist and we are going in to get her Lepto titers checked. While she is not exhibiting all of the symptoms of Lepto, she has enough that he wants to test for it before doing any biopsy that would be invasive. Because of the holiday weekend here we won't have results until Tuesday but we are going to keep her on the Denamarin until them. I'll keep everyone posted.
 
Many of the Hills Prescription Diets don't have corn.

Sorry I have yet to hear from my friend who had the Pug with liver issues.
 
Well, Lepto titers came back normal so we can cross that off the list. Next up are bile acid tests tomorrow morning then depending on those results, we will go from there. I guess I should be happy we can cross one more disease of the potentials lists but would be even happier if we could get a diagnosis and get her on the road to recovery!
 
Beanie had a laparoscopic liver biopsy today and it went really well. She is awake and alert. The vet said her liver looked smooth, which was good, it was smaller in size but he said that could just be the size of her liver. He did find some yellow spots on the liver which he said he had not seen before on another dog so he biopsied those spots but also said they could just be bile stains. He sent over several samples for pathology and we should have the results next week. She is active and alert, eating and drinking well, the only way you would know she was sick is if you looked at her blood work. She'll be staying the night for monitoring and I'll be able to pick her up in the morning. Hoping we have a confirmed diagnosis next week and a treatment plan in place!
 
Oh good heavens, I wasn't saying she should put the dog on Hills, and I really don't want to get into a discussion about dog food on this thread.:sl*p: I don't even feed my dogs SCIENCE DIET. But, I was talking about the Prescription Diets that are out there.

Anyway, I do hope you will get to the bottom of this, and glad she'll be home soon. It's the waiting that is hard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top