Catching up

[Vanessa Woodward]

I've been very out of touch for two years. After a year long battle I had to have Nelson put down in March 2009. He was only three years old, a very handsome chap, affectionate and funny. I miss him every day.

A month later Tara had kidney failure and we nearly lost her. The vet kept her on a drip for five days and she survived, made a remarkable recovery, only to develop inflammatory bowel disease. She is not in pain but weighs less than 22 kilos now. As she's 62cms that's really skinny. There are good days and bad days. Sometimes she's quite lively, although I don't know where she gets her energy, but on other days she seems very low and depressed. I have her on a grain free food and of course, she eats as if she's starving which in effect she is. She also has Eurobiol, a pancreatin powder which is more effective than Tryplase. Does anyone have any advice on getting weight on her?
She has very little resistance to other illness and recently had a very bad reaction to her vaccinations. A couple of weeks back she developed an abscess on her tooth. Antibiotics didn't work so the tooth had to come out. She's much better today but I would like to hear from anyone who has experience of IBD (MICI in France).

[Susan Stone]

Sorry to hear your news, sounds like you've been having a tough time. Maybe the Yahoo group 'K9 Autoimmune Support Group' could help. It is run by Sandy Waterton who is a setter person.

[Laureen Strellioff]

I have a young boy who has IBD. He is on Hills TD and has done quite well on it. He gained back 20 lbs. We have had a relapse(it had been 6 months) so we have put him on prednisone this time to settle down the bowels. He is again eating like crazy and back on the raod to recovery. Please check the water you use also. We have had to put |Robbie on distilled or filtered water as the chlorine in town water also irritates him terrbibly.

[Myra Thomas-Rhodes]

Sorry to hear your news, Vanessa. Good Luck with Tara - hopefully sunnier days ahead.

[Cheryl Gorey]

I don't have any experience with this, but just wanted to wish you all the best with her recovery and health management. I hope that you are able to maintain her health and diet soon.

[Marta Magi]

So sorry to hear your loss of Nelson. Hard it must have been for you!
No experience with IBD fortunately, I only wanted to wish you the best of luck for you and your sweet little girl. She is so lucky to be loved and cared by you!

[Kerstin Thaens]

Hi Vanesse, we are analysing Amy's loss of weight (now 22,5kg) for about 4 months. She had diarrhoea but was always hungry. So we have repeatedly tested her blood (always too high level of leucocytes), excrements (NAD) and have started with a diet (Royal Canin Intestinal and Royal Canin Blue whiting ((selected protein)) & Tapioca ((selected carbohydrate)), "Almazyme" powder and an antibiotics treatment. It worked (diarrhoea subsided) but Amy does not like the dry food and hence does not gain weight. She is a bundle of energy, has no signs of depression but has a sort of hyperactivity. Now she daily gets chicken broth, bread with liver sausage und her dry food. Next we have to check up where the source of the inflammation in her body is.
We are not sure if she has IBM but maybe our diet/treatment helps you in any way to support your little Tara's recovery! We keep our fingers crossed.

[Vanessa Woodward]

I've been offline for a couple of weeks so haven't been able to thank everyone for there help and advice. First Kerstin: Tara can't take bread or anything with gluten so she can't take RC or Hills. It sounds as if Amy might have pancreatic insufficiency. Has she had a scan?

It's good to talk to someone with the same problem Laureen. All our water here comes from a spring (source) so shouldn't it shouldn't be a problem. Initially my vet thought about prednisolone but the specialist we took Tara too in Toulouse spoke to him and advised him against it. If we don't stabilise her soon I'm going to suggest that we try it for a short while. Some weeks she seems to improve but then, like your boy, she relapses. She also seems very prone to catch any bug that's going and has very little resistance. A couple of weeks back she had an abscess on a tooth which had to be removed. The last few days she's been great but today she has diarrhea again and is vomiting which is unusual. No temperature so I'm hopeful it's nothing serious.

Susan I'm going to look at that K9 Group. I know one theory is that this is an autoimmune condition. The specialist told me that there is a study in progress at the moment. 20 European vets have been looking into this disease in 1000 dogs. In most cases they have found it is not a bacteria. The lesions appear in the intestine for no apparant reason. I don't know how far they've got with this study but it does seem to suggest something odd about the immune system.

Thank you all so much for your comments and support. It's great to know there are people out there who understand the worry.

[Vanessa Woodward]

Tara has been very down and depressed the last few days with some diarrhea - just when I have absolutely got to go away for a couple of weeks leaving her with the "pack leader" i.e. my other half. Today the vet has prescribed a course of prednisone - only ten days but I'm concerned about her liver and kidneys which don't function too well. Laureen how did your boy cope with prednisone? Did it have any bad effects? I've read some horror stories.

[Vanessa Woodward]

We tried Tara on a course of prednisone at the end of May but it hasn't made any difference. She has good times and bad but most of the time, if you were not experienced with setters you probably wouldn't think there was much wrong as she's eight in November - that is if you didn't notice the fact that she continues to loose weight even when she goes a few days without very large stools or diarrhea. She was last weighed about two weeks ago and was 21.7 kilos. Since then I think she's lost more and I'm almost frightened to weigh her. She has a couple of strange skin problems which she has had since before this problem started: either side of her tail she gets greasy spots which come and go. They sometimes dry up leaving the skin there dry and flaky. She also gets skin problems on the front of her forelegs - just in front of the "knee". The skin is red and folded - difficult to explain unless you see it. I've bought some Orijen and am going to gradually add this to the current food, (Exclusion) both of these are cereal free but Orijen is higher proteing.