My dog's condition has me perplexed!!!

[TLHunter06]

We have a 1-1/2-yr-old female Pit Bull, Coco. Her shots are updated & she's never out of our site for more than a few minutes. Sunday we took a drive & at dinner, she wouldn't eat. Monday morning she wouldn't eat all day. I thought she just didn't feel well. She just wanted to sit on the deck all day, occasionally eating grass. Tuesday she still wouldn't eat. I tried everything, not even a lick. She would drink water though, but then I noticed she immediately went outside and threw it up. Wednesday she was vomiting hard; lots of yellow foamy bile. She wasn't listless, just really sad looking. I got her started on small doses of Pedialyte, gave her a Pepcid AC which seemed to help quiet the vomiting, and some Nutri-Cal. She only vomited once or twice - still urinating fine but I noticed she had a watery brown BM. Thursday she seemed to want more water, so I let her lap some instead of giving it to her via syringe, but she vomited it. Still urinating, still had some spunk, BM was brown & runny, but only a small amount. I called my vet, who couldn't get her in until Saturday & advised me to take her to another vet who had walk-ins. Friday she urinated, drank water on her own (no vomiting), but no BM. Went to vet. X-ray showed no foreign objects, but her bowel was distended (large black mass on x-ray). They kept her to do ultrasound. They said ultrasound showed some flat bowel, a large distention, but what they interpreted to be fabric of some sort, so they recommended surgery. I had asked if it was an emergency, or could I just take her home, try some mineral oil, but they assured me she had an obstruction and needed surgery. They found NOTHING in her bowels in the way of an obstruction. He said he checked her entire bowel with his hands..twice. Her bowels were "angry looking", very inflamed. Her suctioned the air (distention) out, behind which was a lot of backed-up watery stool. I went to pick her up this morning & she was very active. He sent her home on Cerenia for vomiting/nausea, saying one first thing in the morning, then 45 mins later I'm to give her (2) Tramadol for pain every 8 hrs, (1) metronidazole twice daily and (1) Baytril daily. We got home & she wanted lots of water, but I only let her have a little. She took the Cerenia just fine. When I tried to give her the pain pills, she took one, but the second one she spit up. I tried the metronidazole (fairly big pill), but she vomited everything. I then crushed one & put in syringe with a little water, but she was really fighting me on taking it to the point of trying to run, so I let her go. Now she's back to just laying on the couch. I called the vet, but he just said to give her some Pepto & he'll call tomorrow.

So I'm wondering now what was really wrong with her? The vet said she may have inflammatory bowel disorder, but would that cause her to not eat at all & behave the way she was? And he didn't do any blood work at all. I'm just a little stressed. I'm wondering if I should try some probiotics with her or some colloidal silver. She never had any problem with her diet before or her bowel movements.

[hazelrunpack]

We had a dog that had very similar symptoms that came on suddenly. His exploratory surgery also came up with nothing, and he was eventually diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease. If that's what it is, blood work would not show much of anything, but it would make me nervous that they didn't do a blood panel to rule out other things.

Will you be seeing your regular vet from here on out? I'm not sure how much diagnostics have changed since our experience (that was back in the 90s) but it took a visit to a veterinary teaching hospital and an intestinal biopsy to finally get the diagnosis of IBD. I know how very stressful it is not knowing what's wrong. I hope you get some answers soon.

[MaxaLisa]

Another IBD dog here - it can present in so many different ways. A good internal medicine vet can be a lifesaver.

Your dog may need some fluids and IV meds to get her stable.

Some infections can mimic obstruction. Clostridium (difficile or perfringens) can cause this, as well as some other nasty things.

[Longblades]

I'm dealing with IBD right now and it can depress appetite and the meds used can depress appetite as well. We have done fecal floats and bloodwork twice and my dog is extremely sick, has lost over 20% of his body weight and traditional western medicine ( metronidiazole then Prednisone, plus some othres with them) has not helped him one little bit. My dog has a good appetite but has been picky about eating a few times.

I have fed chicken and rice, then rice and hamburger. They did not work but they help many.

A friend sent me this:

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites...treatment.aspx

We started our boy on the ground turkey and pumpkin diet Thursday night. On Friday we had a two hour intake exam (preceeded by an intake questionnaire that took me hours to complete) with a holistic Vet that saved two dogs my neighbour, a Vet, could not help with traditional Western medicine. The holistic Vet agrees with much of the article and the diet. We switched to sweet potato as it is more palatable than pumpkin. We are weaning off the Prednisone and the new Vet has us giving Acidolpholus and some chinese herbs, ( asgastach or something) with meals. Our dog has now had the new diet since Thursday night and the new meds since Friday night and yesterday and this morning we saw the first firm, regualar poops we've seen in months. We've been fooled by short term improvement for a couple of days before but are hopeful this is going to help our boy.

I'm not a Vet, I'm only telling you what we are doing and that it seems (early days yet) to be helping. Maybe you would consider holistic medicine. I never would have but nothing else worked.

I wonder what that spot in your dog's bowel was? Did they say? Good luck, I hope you find a fix.

[MaxaLisa]

LongBlades, sorry about your IBD issues

My internist is a big believer in using soluble fiber with the probiotics. I switched to apple pectin and it helped a lot.

I firmly believe that combining the two treatments are the best of both worlds, more holistic if possible. My girl did terrible on pred.

[Longblades]

OP, any update? I should add my dog never had problems before either. As a matter of fact I've said I thought his stomach was made of cast iron. He could eat anything and did. Dead frogs, horse poop, fish heads went down his gullet with impunity. I was rotating three different foods with different main protein and filler sources and we could switch cold turkey. IBD came on him very quickly and in my research that's what it does, in dogs and in people too.