Apologies, this may be long but don't want to miss anything........
I have a lovely border terrier who is 18 months and suffers from recurrent bouts of illness. We got him as a pup and it became clear quite quickly that he had a sensitive tummy. We used to have lots of wind, gurgling tummy, vomiting and just generally not as happy a pup as he should have been and after trialling various different foods thought we had found one that he tolerated.
The general symptoms of food intolerance are much reduced with restrictions we have made to his diet but he still gets these horrible episode where he becomes really poorly. He gets very upset bowels, passes lots of mucous, not always very vomitty but does do LOTS of lip licking like he feels sick, can be wobbly on his feet, trembles and looks generally sore and miserable. The last bout lasted three or four days and for about two of those he just didn't want to get out of bed at all.
We've been back and forward to the vet and they have been putting it down to food allergies but I'm not fully convinced. He definitely is sensitive to various things but these flare ups can happen when he hasn't had anything different to eat and the response seems completely disproportionate to what he might have had. We're very strict with his food and have long since realised he can't have any treats other than his kibble and chicken (although chicken currently banned too). He is currently on a prescribed hypoallergenic food.
In his last bout we had bloods taken that showed his liver enzymes were raised. We repeated them a few weeks later and they had got worse so he has just been though a raft of test on his liver which have all come normal so it must have been something else that triggered the initial problem with his liver. He's also been tested for addisons which was negative and has had a bowel ultra sound which looked normal (although was done when he was well).
I suspect he has IBD but the vet isn't convinced as thinks it would be unusual in a young dog. It seems that his flare ups can be triggered by him eating something that then irritates his bowel for example if he chews a stick, eats bits of a toy etc and then triggers a period of really sensitive bowel.
The vet isn't keen to rush to do a biopsy as she's not convinced it's IBD and says if he has another flare up she will refer him to an internal medicine specialist.
So I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else's dog suffers from IBD and if their symptoms sound similar to my boys? Or does anyone else have any ideas what it could be?
Thanks for getting this far!
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.
The doghouse
Inflammatory bowel disease?
11 replies
User467 · 13/04/2018 23:26
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.