Sam's Story With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

[LisaCC]

I've been thinking of doing this thread since Sam passed.

I'm now able to look at photos of him and smile so I thought that this thread could be of some help to people now and in the future.

Sam was a fairly healthy pedigreed labrador, with only a few visit to the vet. Until 2007-2008 when he started to dramatically lose weight. It started just after he turned 6.

Sam was always a big boy looking his best around 36kg, Mum and I noticed very quickly but every vet we went to would just say to us 'He's a lab it's good he is getting skinnier'.

It took a new vet straight out of uni to realise that looking at his records it wasn't normal. She noticed as an adolescent (around 10months) he was fairy overweight, but dropped all the weight in about 1 month. We had always thought it was from changing Puppy food to Adult food.

After doing some general tests and nothing coming back the vet booked him on for an exploratory operation within 2 weeks. Results came back that he had Inflammatory Bowel disease, but not "normal". He had Both types. So both Crohn's, and Ulcerative. From that moment on we started vigourous treatment on many many medications and every specialist diet you could think of. He just could not digest food, it was all coming back out. The weight loss slowed down a little on Kangaroo and mashed Potato but not enough.

In about 4 months he was down to 21kgs. We were advised there was nothing else we could do, his muscles had wasted, especially his temporal muscles, apparently once they go it's a good sign, we decided to put him down at the end of the week. I took these photos at the start of the week.

Our vet said, give him what ever he wants to eat. He always loved Pedigree meaty bites, and we used it as training treats, so we just started feeding it to him.

We still can't tell you why but in 5 days he put on 5 kilos.

...continued on a reply so I can add more photos.

Edited June 28, 2013 by LisaCC

[LisaCC]

So these are two photos I took the 5 days later, after we found out he put on 5kgs and we were not putting him to sleep today.

We kept up his medication but slowly decreased it, and with a diet of Pedigree he put back on ALL of his weight. His temporal muscles never came back

Edited June 28, 2013 by LisaCC

[LisaCC]

Here he is come that Spring, about 6 months later.

He lived until easter this year, So he was 11. It stayed away until this year, but fortunately he did not loose too much weight this time, only a few kgs. The lack of protein swelled his stomach and it was time to let him go instead of seeing him half starve again.

If anyone wants any information that they think will help, please feel free to ask.

Edited June 28, 2013 by LisaCC

[trinabean]

Lisa thank you for sharing Sam's story.

I have a dog who has always had digestive issues ( ulcerative colitis plus allergies) and nothing is ever straightforward. It has been a struggle at times, and so hard to keep weight on him.

[LisaCC]

I hope he stays well for you Trinabean

[persephone]

Thank you for sharing .. Sam was beautiful , and it's useful to have someone's story on what happened...

[LisaCC]

Thanks Persephone, I really do hope somebody finds it somewhat useful. The major thing I want to stress is to try EVERY food possible. Who would of thought that one of the cheapest and supposedly crappiest dog foods around would be the food he could actually eat!

[kelpiecuddles]

What an amazing story Lisa, how lucky for you that you decided to just let him have what he liked! Interestingly we have a cat who had less severe IBS and she does best on Optimum from the supermarket despite having previously tried her on a number of super premium foods.

[teekay]

Thanks for posting this Lisa, Sam was a gorgeous boy.

I have a friend whose dog is having similar issues. I will direct her to this thread.

[LisaCC]

Yes Kelpiecuddles we were extremely lucky, our vets had been talking to specialists in sydney about him and even they couldn't believe it. He became pretty famous after he survived Good luck with your cat.

Thanks Teekay, I hope it helps her in some way.

[trinabean]

I hope he stays well for you Trinabean :)

Thank you Lisa. :)

He's been on (yet another) elimination diet, and we are now re-challenging him with one ingredient at a time. Painstaking, but hopefully we can work out exactly which foods he can tolerate.

He has actually gained some weight and is the healthiest weight he's ever been ...touch wood.

[LisaCC]

Oh I know how that feels. How does he go with the basics like rice?

[trinabean]

Do you know, I could never figure out why giving Bruno cooked chicken and rice (after gastric upset) didn't settle his gut down.

The old adage of bland food like chicken and rice 'until stools are normal' just didn't work for Bruno. Poor runny bum boy. It now seems, from doing this elimination diet, that he can't tolerate chicken.

His skin allergies seem to flare when he has chicken too. I don't know about the rice itself, although I doubt it was a problem. Chicken apparently is a pretty common problem food for atopic dogs. As is beef, but he's trialling that at the moment, and going ok on it.

[LisaCC]

Thats great :) Have you tried Kangaroo? Venison can be good too, but not for Sam.

Sam had massive problems with Rice, as in it came out completely undigested. Ended up with Mashed potato.

Have the vets put Bruno on any meds?

[trinabean]

Yes Bruno is ok on kangaroo but he loses weight if that is the only meat given, it's just too lean. That said, he can't digest too much fat well either. So hard to get the balance right.

He's currently having goat and cooked quinoa as the basic elimination diet, plus whatever ingredient is being tested (so beef at the moment). He is on anti-histamines (hydroxyzine) twice a day to keep him at a minimal level of itchiness from his environmental allergies. Apparently it just keeps him stable, and will not mask an increased itchy reaction to a new food. Bad allergy skin flare-ups are treated with Cortavance spray too, luckily he doesn't need that at the moment.

He has had several courses of Baytril (twice daily) in his life when the ulcerative colitis has been at it's worst. The longest Baytril course was 6-8 weeks. It does help and settle things down fairly quickly (expensive though). Vets' have not biopsied his colon to confirm it but they suspect it is ulcerative histeocytic colitis or 'Boxer colitis.' The positive response to Baytril fits with this theory.

Interesting that Sam didn't digest the rice at all. Sometimes Bruno doesn't digest the quinoa at all, it comes out looking exactly as it went in (ie. it looks like cous cous). Other times he does digest it. I have no idea why!

edited: for typos and rotten grammar.

Edited July 7, 2013 by trinabean

[LisaCC]

Well I'm glad the beef is working out, surely its a lot less expensive than goat!

I'm surprised the vets haven't done a biopsy, it was the first thing done with Sam, but if Bruno is responding I then I guess it's not needed.

Also great that he is not on a large amount of meds, hopefully things either get better or stay as they are.

[Troy]

Bump

[sueang]

I've been thinking of doing this thread since Sam passed.

I'm now able to look at photos of him and smile so I thought that this thread could be of some help to people now and in the future.

Sam was a fairly healthy pedigreed labrador, with only a few visit to the vet. Until 2007-2008 when he started to dramatically lose weight. It started just after he turned 6.

Sam was always a big boy looking his best around 36kg, Mum and I noticed very quickly but every vet we went to would just say to us 'He's a lab it's good he is getting skinnier'.

It took a new vet straight out of uni to realise that looking at his records it wasn't normal. She noticed as an adolescent (around 10months) he was fairy overweight, but dropped all the weight in about 1 month. We had always thought it was from changing Puppy food to Adult food.

After doing some general tests and nothing coming back the vet booked him on for an exploratory operation within 2 weeks. Results came back that he had Inflammatory Bowel disease, but not "normal". He had Both types. So both Crohn's, and Ulcerative. From that moment on we started vigourous treatment on many many medications and every specialist diet you could think of. He just could not digest food, it was all coming back out. The weight loss slowed down a little on Kangaroo and mashed Potato but not enough.

In about 4 months he was down to 21kgs. We were advised there was nothing else we could do, his muscles had wasted, especially his temporal muscles, apparently once they go it's a good sign, we decided to put him down at the end of the week. I took these photos at the start of the week.

Our vet said, give him what ever he wants to eat. He always loved Pedigree meaty bites, and we used it as training treats, so we just started feeding it to him.

We still can't tell you why but in 5 days he put on 5 kilos.

...continued on a reply so I can add more photos.

How sad, poor boy, was Sam ever tested for EPI? or SIBO? just wondering, my boy has IBD we finally have his poos going real good on the Eukanuba Intestinal Low residue kibble this kibble breaks up easy & easier to digest... Patch also gets bad pain after eating, so on Tuesday he's having the endoscope to look at this stomach & have bi-opsies done to see why he's having pain after eating, he too has trouble keeping his weight on...