Explosive diarrhea after castration - poor pup!

[GidgetGirl]

Hi all,

My 8 month old was castrated yesterday - he was fine apart from the expected drowsiness/soreness afterwards. However, he’s just had properly explosive diarrhea (thankfully in the garden..) - is this to be expected after castration? I perhaps put him back on normal food a bit too soon today. He’s normally got such a strong stomach I wasn’t really concerned..

Is this something I should be worried about, or to he expected after castration? Anything I can do other than make sure he drinks and give him well-boiled rice and chicken tomorrow?

Did the vet give him painkilling meds as they can cause dioreah. I'd phone vets just to be sure.

It will almost certainly be the pain meds post op. Mine always has diarrhoea if she's given any sort of pain meds. Hope he's feeling perkier now!

mine did too.... and I hadn't been warned at all! Horrendous

I have found Kaolin is brilliant - settled his stomach afterwards and use whenever he's eaten anything suspect now

It will be a reaction to the paid medication post surgery. Just keep an eye on him!
Thank you for being responsible and neutering your pet!

Thanks for the replies all. I’m picking this up nine days later because my poor little pup is still not well. I took him to the vet just over a week ago and he was checked over but there were no signs of anything more serious.

He’s had on and off diarrhea (although no accidents and only once or twice a day) since, but nowhere near as bad as when it first came on. Until today that is.. He’s had the most horrible stomach cramps and diarrhea today, and was sick this afternoon. It’s just awful and horrendous to see him in such obvious pain.

I took him to the vet again today - they prescribed antibiotics and I have to take his poo sample in tomorrow. I’m assuming the symptoms came back because we’d started to transition him back to his normal food (from plain chicken and rice), and he wasn’t ready.

Any tips to make him feel better until we see if the antibiotics work? I know this is small fry in the scheme of things, but I HATE seeing him so depressed and poorly. He’s really feeling sorry for himself.

Does he usually eat chicken, and had he had rice before this? Mine is intolerant to both, discovered after the vet advised chicken and rice after an anaesthetic.

Boiled egg firmed up things a bit while we waited for his system to calm down.

I hope he feels better soon. Poor you, and poor ddog.

Probably the Metacam they gave them after.

Mine was dreadfully poorly after being spayed.

Pro-Kolin paste; boiled rice and chicken or scrambled egg. And keep going for at least 5 days with it.

The best thing I have found (and I spent the first two years back and forth to the vets with stomach problems with my dog) was after one vet said feed normal food but split it into about 10-12 feeds a day so they don't have to digest much at a time. After a couple of days reduce to about 8 times a day, then 6 etc until you are feeding normally and their stomach has settled.

@ByTheStarryNight He doesn’t normally eat just normal chicken (but has dried chicken treats and chicken flavoured food). To my knowledge he hasn’t eaten rice before. It did cross my mind that he was sensitive to them, but it seems to have got worse after I introduced his normal food again.

@cherrypie790 He only had the Metacam for two or three days post-op in case that was the culprit. Can that stuff mess them up for so long after stopping it?

@GidgetGirl if it is metacam that causes the diarrhoea it usually stops as soon as the metacam stops. The fact that you are doing a three day pooled sample makes me think your vet is looking for giardia a parasite infection that rears it's head when the dog is stressed.

@Lonecatwithkitten I kind of hope it is something like Giardia so it can be relatively easily fixed. Dreading it being some kind of lifelong disorder.

It was Giardia! After a course of antibiotics he’s back to full health now..

So pleased he's better now! Does that mean he picked the giardia up in the vets?

Most likely he already had it (he loves drinking filthy puddles and licking fox poo), but it wasn’t causing any symptoms. Being physically run down by the op would have given it a chance to thrive and really take hold, which it certainly did. Poor little man was so poorly for a while.