[Lauren S]

My 5 year old walker/fox hound has been battling IMTP since January. He was on Prednisone for this up until a few weeks ago.

Last month, we did some extra blood work on him to determine why he had rapidly gained 25 pounds. We were being very careful about feeding him, so I was concerned that something else was going on besides the effect the steroids had on him.

His blood work came back with his lipase at 5000 (normal is about 100). Nothing else on his blood work was off, and we confirmed with a CPL test that the lipase was coming from his pancreas and not somewhere else in his body. My vet gave him a course of antibiotics, switched him to Royal Canin Low-Fat GI canned food, put him on fluids for 3 days, and retested. His lipase was about the same, so he referred us to NC State.

NC State suspected raging pancreatic cancer, but found nothing to indicate this. They ruled out pancreatitis since his amylase levels are normal and he has no symptoms except occasionally trying to eat grass. His ultrasound was clear, as was his additional bloodwork. They suspect he has a food allergy. We tried giving him Royal Canin HP but he refused to eat it. They also took him off of the Prednisone he was on (5 mg) so we’re hoping that doesn’t cause his platelets to crash.

1. Does anyone know what could be causing this besides a food allergy? He doesn’t really show any other signs of an allergy and he had been on Taste of the Wild for a long time before all of this.

2. What hypoallergenic/novelty protein foods are good to try?

[Susan]

Hi Lauren,
I woke up this morning thinking about your boy, has he eaten yet?? have you tried feeding him something you have cooked?
When you stopped the Prednisone did you do it slowely & reduce over 1 month period??
has stopped eating since you stopped the predisone?? was that when he “was” eating the Royal Canine HP then he has stopped?
also is the vet 100% sure he has IMPT?
Why I’m asking is your vet 100% certain he has IMPT is I suffer with C.R.E.S.T it’s an autoimmune disease/multisystem connective tissue disorder, but when I was 27 yrs old Dr’s first diagnosed me with Lupus…these auto immune diseases are hard to diagnosed, Dr’s only know I have CREST now cause I ended up moving & getting a really good Proffessor as my Dr & as the years have passed my symptoms for Lupus changed….

There’s “4Health” Sensitive Stomach it has NO meat or there’s 4Health Sensitive Skin & it has Hydrolzed Salmon, it comes in wet & dry, I don’t know if the meat is Hydrolyzed in the Sensitive Stomach Wet can food, I don’t have the time to google I have to be somewhere, 4Health is sold at Tractor Supply, I’ve read on a few sites dogs seem to do really well on 4Health formula’s when they have diarrhea & stomach problems, why did you stop feeding Taste Of The Wild??
I really think he needs a really good probiotic to strengthen his immune, I drink 1 “Yakult”probiotic drink every morning inbetween breakfast & lunch, when I stopped drinking my Yakult probiotic drink I started to feel sick all day, probiotics are best taken without any foods when the stomach acids are low…. I wonder if your boy is feeling sick after eating his Royal Canine? or wont he eating any foods?
He’s probably having a few different symptoms & this is when vets don’t know what’s going on??
Has he been tested for Lupus??

[Lauren S]

Information overload coming, but I want to answer all your questions!

He has been eating Royal Canin Low-Fat GI canned food at the recommendation of my regular vet, who said it’s better to have him eating something, even if it means we’re not solving the food allergy problem right now.

When he was REALLY sick with IMTP, we would do boiled chicken and rice but have since learned that chicken is the most common food allergy for dogs. We’re not sure if it was helping or hurting him since he doesn’t show any outward symptoms of this.

We stopped the Prednisone very, very slowly. We tapered every 3-4 weeks at 25%, eventually going from 60mg to 5mg. He was at 5mg for awhile until this lipase issue popped up, so then we tapered again to 0mg.

The vets are 100% sure he has IMTP, but they — like in most IMTP cases — don’t know what the cause was. He had a very rare lump on his shoulder that was removed in January. He wouldn’t stop bleeding during/after the surgery, which is how we discovered the low platelets. NC State suspects that the lump is what triggered his immune system.

We only stopped feeding Taste of the Wild because of the high lipase number. At the time, we thought he had acute pancreatitis so our vet put him on the low-fat food and started doing the fluids to flush his pancreas. He LOVES Taste of the Wild but I don’t think we can switch back to that (at this point, anyway) because if he does have a food allergy, it’s definitely to an ingredient in Taste of the Wild since that was all he was eating.

He used to be on probiotics because he had some diarrhea that would not resolve during his heavy duty IMTP treatment. We also put him on pumpkin. We thought it was caused by all of the drugs he was on because he needed a good 15-20 pills a day, but maybe not. I’ll be calling my vet today to get him the probiotics again.

He isn’t showing ANY symptoms except for an occasional desire to eat grass. He doesn’t try to eat any in the yard, but will grab a bite or two when we’re on walks. Otherwise, he acts completely normal. I think this is why the vets are stumped. With such a high lipase number and everything else being normal, my regular vet referred us to NC State because he thought he must have a tumor on his pancreas and we would need a biopsy. Prior to doing their testing, NC State said this is either “raging pancreatitis or raging pancreatic cancer.” Their testing found that it was neither. They said they had never seen this happen and that most dogs would be crashing at this point.

I will definitely look into the foods you recommended. It’s so tough to figure out what to do next since he doesn’t have symptoms and it can take 6 weeks to see a change in his bloodwork.

One more thing to note. When we discovered his high lipase number, it was at 5,000. After fluids, it dropped to 3,200. We thought he was getting better. A week later, we were back up to 5,000 and went to NC State. The next day, his lipase was 1,000. NC State said it is HIGHLY unusual to jump that much. A week after that, he was at 4,200. It’s all over the place, which adds another layer to things.

[Susan]

Hi gee you’ve been thru a lot so has your poor boy, the vets would be stumped they rely on test result, they probably haven’t see anything like this before, so go with your gut if they recommend to try news drugs if it doesn’t feel right don’t give the drugs cause your dog is being a guinea pig for them to learn on, try to contact other dog owners that have been thru the same thing.
I looked & there isnt any face book groups “yet” but you could start a “Dog or Canine with IMPT group” & just wait & see if a few dog owners join & talk about what they have been thru, especially if they live in another country (Australia) they may treat with different medicines, I read that there’s been no studies done on Canines with IMTP vets only know what owners have been thru & it has been documented…

Did the meds they prescribe for IMTP make him worse & sick?? he’s probably better off with no drugs if he seems OK…..I found this site it was written by Cold Coast Verterinary Services Australia, I wonder if you contact email other pet owners who have dealt with IMTP ?? you learn so much from other pet owners what they did, what worked, what didn’t work.
http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/imt.htm

The Royal Canne Low Fat Gastro he’s eating has Pork as the only protein, it has rice flour instead of the boiled rice & corn, if he’s doing OK on the R/C Low Fat Gastro then that means he does OK with pork, rice & corn, the fat in the R/C low fat Gastro is 2.5%max when it’s converted to dry matter (kibble) it’s 10.45% max fat.., so if you want to cook something you can add some fresh lean cooked pork meat, you can buy some lean pork & mince thru the mincer yourself that’s what my vet does & told me to do the same for Patch, then you know what he’s eating, I was buying the human lean 5 star pork mince but Patch started to get pancreatitis symptoms, vomiting bad pancreas pain, I had bought the pork mince from a different supermarket & the fat said 5% but it must of been higher & had more fat then the other lean pork mince I was buying & Patch became real sick…

“Canidae” make their “Pure Wild Boar” dry kibble.
https://www.canidae.com/dog-food/products

there’s “Walk About” made in New Zealand & Australia they import to California, they only make Jerky & freeze dried treats & wet tin foods-Wild Boar, Wild Kangaroo & Goat, fat is 2%min when fat is converted it’s around 15%max fat.
http://walkaboutpetproducts.com/

[Jared T]

Hi Lauren,

Can you please provide an update. I think my dog may have a similar situation.

Thanks,

Jared

[Patricia A]

Jared if your dog has high Lipase levels read this article regarding correct blood test to determine if the elevation truly is from pancreatitis or some other problem. Can routine tests be used to diagnose pancreatitis?
Routine blood tests, including a Complete Blood Count and Biochemistry Profile (see handouts: “Complete Blood Count” and “Serum Biochemistry”) typically reveal abnormalities that are suggestive of pancreatitis. However, the changes are not unique to the disease and do not give a definitive diagnosis.
In the past, the diagnosis of pancreatitis was based on finding high levels of two enzymes called serum amylase and serum lipase. While high values of these enzymes can be found in dogs with pancreatitis, the tests have not proven reliable and are no longer considered the tests of choice for diagnosing pancreatitis in the dog.
What is pancreas-specific lipase? How is it different from serum lipase?
“…blood values increase only when there is pancreatic inflammation.”
Pancreas-specific lipase is a form of lipase produced only in the pancreas. It is highly specific to the pancreas, and blood values increase only when there is pancreatic inflammation. By comparison, serum lipase can come from tissues other than the pancreas, and high blood values can occur with conditions other than pancreatitis.

[Lauren S]

Hi Jared, sorry to say I don’t have an update that will help you. I lost my boy a month ago to the IMTP. He went through 4 bouts of IMTP from 2017-2020 and during that time, his lipase levels were like a rollercoaster.

I’ve charted all of his bloodwork in Excel (there was a lot of it given the IMTP) and he had an abnormal CPL (the pancreas-specific lipase test, as the poster above mentions) for pretty much all of 2017. He did have drug-induced pancreatitis at one point that we had to hospitalize him for since it coincided with an IMTP relapse, but he wasn’t symptomatic any other time throughout his life and he still had these high levels that would rise and fall. He was on a ton of medication for the IMTP but his pancreatic levels didn’t coincide with the level of drugs he was on for that, with the exception of the one instance where it was drug induced. He had so much testing done for other things, with numerous abdominal ultrasounds and CT scans included, and nothing on his pancreas was ever noted. We were very strict about giving him only low-fat foods, too. It was quite the head scratcher but luckily never turned into too much of an issue.

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