Our nearly 9 year old Cavalier has just started having Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI), where not enough pancreatic enzyme is being produced to digest the food she eats, even though she is being fed extra well she is still losing weight and now wants to eat her own poo, she produces lots of very soft pale coloured poo which contains undigested matter.
Our veterinarian has sent off a blood test for trypsin-like immunoreactivity (TLI) and we are waiting for the results. On conformation it looks like the treatment would be to add pancreatic enzymes to her food which can be obtained in a commercial pharmacy product, and where we are in Australia it will cost about $100 a month and this for the rest of her life.
We are looking into the alternative in the pancreatic enzymes, where instead of using the commercial product we instead use chopped bovine pancreas from an Abattoir which can also be used (pork pancreas should not be used because of the rare transmission of pseudorabies). The probable expectations is that her Symptoms should improve within a few days but the amount of pancreas added to meals may have to be adjusted to suite depending how she presents at that time, but lifelong treatment of this added on her meals probably will be required.
By the way, living out in the country we do have a local Abattoir for human consumption, and already my wife has obtained a fresh cow's pancreas for FREE, and she has already chopped it up into 1 ounce servings and stored it in the freezer, and note the pancreas cannot be cooked as that will destroy the enzymes.
Regarding Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency here is a link to a good article and where Cavaliers are mentioned.
World Small Animal Veterinary Association
World Congress Proceedings, 2003
Edward J. Hall, MA, VetMB, PhD, DECVIM-CA, MRCVS
University of Bristol, Dept. Clinical Veterinary Science
Langford, Bristol, England
http://www.vin.com/proceedings/Proceedings.plx?CID=WSAVA2003&PID=6553&O=Generic
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Update - Just received her serum trypsin-like immunoreactivity (TLI) result = 1.5µg/l.
The reference range for canine TLI is >5 to 35 µg/l. In EPI, values are typically <2.5µg/l.
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