[simone r]

My dog has PANCREATITIS, SEVERE BOWEL DISEASE and (stable currently ) KIDNEY DISEASE. He was hospitalized and put on VIVOMEX PLUS tube feeding liquid diet and ever since i put in the Feeding tube he has explosive diahhrea ! And is losing weight ! I haven’t slept in a week. Literally. I am failing miserably on the feeding tube. He is losing weight and has explosive diarrhea. I know some is his bowel disease / pancreatitis but am CONVINCED it’s not helping that he is on a liquid diet ! Liquid diet -liquid poop right ?? vivonex plus is an elemental powder and seems like a great idea since it’s for gi compromised people BUT he is wasting from diahhrea ! He is on metronidazole /metoclompromide ( though I took him off of that myself because it’s bad for diarrhea ) Tylan soluble powder / cerenia tramadol and finishing up his anabiotic‘s and Omeprazole. This is so heartbreaking because his UTI seems to have cleared. His kidney numbers are looking pretty good and stable his pancreas numbers came down a couple hundred points from the over 2000 Mark and yet the diarrhea and the muscle wasting has made him beyond miserable and I don’t understand even with bowel disease why I can’t get on top of that except possibly that what I’m putting into the tube is just coming right out of him and aggravating his G.I. tract possibly because it’s all liquid? The last two days it was mucus and blood now today it’s more pudding like but still explosive diarrhea and the vet had taken him off of the steroid because it could possibly have been bad for the pancreas but now told me to put him back on it since he’s doing so poorly with the diarrhea. However I feel like a lot could possibly be contributed to what I’m feeding him I have also added in proviable forte probiotic and just did a search for honest kitchen perfect form. He is on Tylan powder, anti biotic, metromizadole, omeprazole, pain meds when i offer them and I stopped the metocompjlimide.
Imodium was suggested to me but when I looked up the side effects one of them was pancreatitis so now I am afraid of it. This all kills me because I have a miserable muscle wasted crampy diarrhea dog who has stable labs for the first time in a long time and a scope that said at least from what they could see that other than ulcers and Severe Bowel disease no cancer and yet I’m losing faith in this whole process. He never had diarrhea problems in his life and even the first few days on the feeding tube he did OK but it started to turn into diarrhea very quickly and now it is constant diarrhea.
He is wasting away on this diet and I don’t know how to save him.
Thank u!

[Lori H]

Hi Simone,

My dog Buddy has been through a lot, much like your dog. He just turned 10 and during his life he has had surgery on his spleen, surgery for bladder stones, been diagnosed with Diabetes and I was told by my vet that he was suffering from liver failure and was preparing me for the fact that Buddy was going to die. The liver failure diagnosis was 10 months ago and today, he is healthy, happy, looks amazing and has so much energy.

I now believe wholeheartedly that most vets know nothing about nutrition. They are told to carry a line of food in their offices by one of the large pharma/dog food companies because most of these companies go out and recruit at the vet universities across the United States when vets are in school and provide them with a kickback when the sell either Science Diet or Royal Canin in their clinics, up to 40%. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my vet, I just don’t believe he knows much of anything about nutrition. He has been great to me, my dog Buddy and my three cats. He is good at what he does, diagnose and perform much needed surgeries and procedures. He did Buddy’s bladder stone surgery which has complications.

I was at my wits end as well and thought that I was going to lose Buddy, but I was not willing to give up so I did a Google search and found an amazing person who brought Buddy back to the healthy dog he is.

Buddy is on a very special diet and he has made huge strides in the last 6+ months. He is a very healthy dog to what he was 6 months ago.

I worked with a man named Rick Scheyer. He has an amazing website http://www.doglivershunt.com He has helped many dogs with liver shunt, kidney disease, bladder stone problems and much, much more become healthy dogs again. I would suggest reaching out to him for a free consultation.

If you choose to go with his program, it is not cheap, but I believe that over time, I will save money by not taking Buddy to the vet time and time again because I don’t know what is wrong and having a battery of tests run and racking up bills in the thousands, I have been there!

He was slowly weened off of his processed food Science Diet U/D and placed on a diet of fresh veggies and meat based on a very slow transition to follow with Rick’s help.

Buddy’s diet is a balance of ¾ veggies to ¼ meats. Dogs with liver issues do not need as much protein as you would expect. He gets lots of yellow veggies (squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, celery, carrots, Brussel sprouts, snap peas, etc.) along with hemp oil and nori blended with goat yogurt into almost a smoothie consistency. I then add meats, liver is great as it helps to detoxify the liver (funny that you feed liver to a dog with liver issuesJ) and then he gets a variety of supplements. He receives three gut supplements in the morning (Acidophilus, Bifudus and a Spectrabiotic) along with an Enzyme and something called Whole Body. In the evenings he gets the Enzyme, Whole Body and a Mushroom supplement. The process to make his food is not that time consuming and if you are at your wits end like I was, I was ready to do anything.

He also gets to have as much goat yogurt as he wants with coconut oil. He also gets sweet potato chews and coconut slices.

He is also allowed to eat fruits, not during his morning and evening meals since they digest differently than veggies, but he has not yet warmed up to them yet. I don’t know if he ever will.

He is doing great! He has so much energy and the numbers don’t lie! I got a glucose meter and I am going to start checking his levels daily. I would really like to get him off the insulin if I can. I believe the medicine is what causes the blindness, not the actual diabetes, my vet believes otherwise.

My vet has not said much of anything. I explained I was taking him off the prescription food and putting him on this program and he never responded. When I took him in the last time for blood work, I think he was surprised Buddy was doing so well, but did not ask me further about what I was doing. He is a pretty straight and narrow vet and I don’t think he looks outside the box. If Buddy’s glucose numbers continue to decline, I will take him back and back off on the number of units he is given. Now it is just maintenance and keeping a spreadsheet and monitoring how he is doing.

I suggest reaching out. I think Rick saved Buddy’s life. I took him to the vet in October to have blood work done and he is perfectly healthy!

Let me know if I can be of anymore help.

Good luck on your search and reach out if you have further questions or concerns. It was hard to take the jump and trust someone other than my vet with my dogs nutritional health, but I am so glad that I did.

Lori

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