4.16K views
0
0 Comments

I recently took ownership of a family friends dog. His name is Lincoln and he is quite funny! He spent about 2 months with us just getting settled. He was active, ate like crazy, and was a real cuddler. When I found that he would be mine permanently, I scheduled an appointment to have him neutered. On 9/19 he went and was fixed. He came home sleepy and with little appetite. This is to be expected so I didn’t worry. By Friday, 9/20, he began to eat but vomited it up and also started to have diarrhea. It got so bad that I called the clinic that did the neuter and asked them what to do. They said white rice and boiled chicken. I did this all day Saturday 9/21. In the evening of that night he threw up and then had bloody diarrhea. I took him to the ER and they gave him some anti-diarrhea meds as well as anti nausea meds with sub cutaneous fluids.  He came home and the Dr. said it would 3-4 days for it to be better. Well, after 5 days he still had diarrhea and ate very little. Lincoln also was extremely lethargic. I took him to his primary care vet and they did fecal and blood tests on 10/1. All of these have come back clean. No parasites, no worms, no parvo, no broken bones. They gave me a different kind of anti diarrhea med which he has been on for a week. Still loose stools. I went back on 10/4 and the vet said, “I really dont know whats wrong” I have tried everything! He is not happy, doesn’t do anything but lay on his bed. He can’t/won’t go up or down stairs, he eats very little and has lost a total of 2 pounds since his surgery. He is a 10 pound dog so that’s a lot of weight to lose. The vet suggested doing more tests for some things that may be a bit more on the rare side. This makes no sense to me though! He was fine before surgery, and now he is wasting away. I am not sure what to do. I would really like a second opinion. I have spent $2,000 in 2 weeks trying to find answers and I am unfortunately tapped out! I can’t give up on him though!

Changed status to publish
0

I’m very sorry to hear about the problems you are going through.  It sounds like your veterinarian is doing all of the right things.  Performing bloodwork to look at metabolic function as well as screen for other diseases.  Common causes of vomiting and diarrhea include foreign bodies, pancreatitis, parasites, illness and a number of other conditions such as congenital defects, like portosystemic shunts.  There are various tests that can be done to help rule out or confirm many conditions.  For example in bloodwork, bile acids can be measured to test for a potential portosystemic shunt, there canine pancreatic lipase enzyme can be measured to test for pancreatitis, and x-rays or ultrasounds can be performed to look for foreign bodies.

It sounds like this is probably what is being offered or has already been run.  Unfortunately, there is no way to know what the condition is a lot of times without running more tests and the less common the condition is, the more difficult it is to determine the root cause.  It might be worth asking your vet if they think it would be worthwhile to see an internal medicine specialist if they are running out of options.  It would certainly cost more, but there may be some tests that they could help consider to help rule out or rule in some of the other conditions that may be causing the symptoms. 

Changed status to publish