Any experience of full thickness biopsy?

[BurningBridges]

My cockerpoo is due to have this done on 12th Jan - currently trying to stabilise him, he's 5 this month, has been passing mucus since October, painful straining - he gets up every hour most nights to go out and "try" to poo. Had all the antibiotics, steroids, probiotics over last 2-3 months, he will only eat chicken now (yes we've had allergy tests and no its not the chicken). Agreed with vet to withdraw all meds for a few days and see what happened and poor dog had massive poo meltdown (well, liquid poo meltdown), now even his poor bottom is infected and inflamed (shaved and given special cream - ).

Have discussed endoscopy but vet thinks its time to do full thickness biopsy, he said he's done "loads" and never had any complications but even so, letting my little boy have a general anaesthetic - children are outraged I am letting vet do it!!

Does anyone have any positive experiences with this procedure and can tell me how he will be afterwards?

PS - stabilising is being done using more steroids and a syrup which I must say seems to have helped a bit, but this is only short term just so he has some relief (and we get some sleep) before the op.

Is this a general practice vet or have you been referred to a specialist?

I work at a referral centre and we do very few full thickness biopsies. We mostly take endoscopic biopsies. They recover a lot quicker and the risks of peritonitis is a lot less. He would still require a general anaesthetic though.

We did discuss referral - I got advice and was told to ask how many FTB he'd done, and if the practice was equipped to do it; he said he'd done the procedure many times since he qualified in 2001, he had never had a complication.

Another question was what would an endoscopic biopsy achieve; I've been googling and apparently the sample size is so small as to affect its diagnostic value. But I've also only found one small study of FTB dated 2005 which said of 66 dogs sampled 8 died!! Which is a huge number I think, but surely that's not the only study done?

Its interesting though as really VetNurse you would know so if you are worried then I would be a bit as well.

We don't have enough left on our insurance to get a referral TBH so this is a cheaper option and the dog is pretty much in crisis, we are having to work from home/take time off to care for him 24/7 and this has been going on since October.

Endoscopy allows the intestines and stomach to be examined plus biopsies can be obtained. These mostly show inflammation which confirms IBD which is very common.

To be honest I would be reluctant to put my dog through biopsies unless it has been confirmed that it is required after an ultrasound.

There is always a risk of peritonitis when you are cutting into the intestines. I would speak to your vet about your concerns.

He did mention ultrasound but said that the equipment he had on site for u/s was not good enough. Maybe we should spend some of our remaining insurance on getting a referral for a better ultrasound, even if that means we have to then borrow to get the rest of the investigations done.

I have a feeling if I ask for this though he'll say ultrasound won't help in this case.