any vets can give me some advice?

[Leeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

Hi my almost 4 year old lab was recently diagnosed with IBD by way of an ultrasound & biopsies with endoscopy.
He started a course of prednisolone on Thursday & currently taking 1 twice a day.
On Saturday he & then again he passed black/almost black stools. He has done this once before a couple of days after his biopsies so put it down top a bit of bleeding then went back to normal after 1 poop.
I have rang my vets this morning to check if this could just be a side effect of the steroids & someone was supposed to ring me back which so far they have failed to do.
Just wondering if this is urgent & I should chase them up or if I should get some patience & wait for the call.
His usual vet doesn't work today & he would've rang staright away as he knows we are nervous of him having steroids, due to problems with our last dog on them.
Oh could also be relevant he takes 1 appoquel daily due to allergies.
Thanks

sorry should say Saturday & again yesterday he was passing black or brown with black mixed in poop.
Mumsnet really needs an edit button

I would phone back and express your worries to the vets. Sometimes you need to be that client.

When my dog was passing black stools and some with mixed black/brown my vets wanted him straight in. He was on steroids for an auto-immune condition.

I’m sure you know if you’ve had another dog on steroids, but they need a stomach protectant, like Omeprazole, alongside the steroids to prevent stomach ulcers and gastrointestinal tract bleeding. If he isn’t on this I would definitely be ‘that client’ and push them to see him asap and prescribe him some.

Thank you
They have rang me back now, & I've to start to wean him off the steroids & get him some tablets which turn off the pump which makes acid in his stomach.
He has had these before as he already has ulcers in his stomach & intestines due to his IBD.
The biggest problem now is obviously he can't have steroids, they said the next course of action would be chemo!
He can't have the special diet due to his allergies, & he's incredibly fussy with food to the point he will go days and days without eating if he doesn't like the food we give him. We finally found one he likes & he's still excited to have after more than a year which is unheard of for him.
Picture just because he's cute 😁

If you have insurance check your policy as many now come with free televet consultations which can be great in situations like this. You can just use them to sense check, ask for advice, explain what your vet is doing etc

Aw, is really cute!

So pleased they rang you back. Yes, omeprazole is a proton pump inhibitor that reduces the acid secretions, both myself and my dog were on them at one point!

My dog had a single shot chemotherapy drug when he was acutely ill. It was £££s, but ultimately it was that that triggered his recovery. We were told most dogs are fine on chemo. They don’t tend get the side effects from them that humans do, so fingers crossed he’ll do well.

Poor boy, you can kind of understand why he’d rather not eat than eat something he doesn’t really enjoy when his stomach/intestines feel like that.

Thankfully we do have insurance as his last bill for ultrasounds etc was £1785 😬
Also his allergy medication is £80 every 4 weeks.
We have been really grateful that his insurance has paid out each time without quibble, however are dreading his renewal quote for this year, already gone up monthly from around £34 to almost £70

yes that's the ones I couldn't remember what they were called. None of my dogs have ever been prescribed these when they get steroids. My last 2 were on a massive dose for a very long time just to keep them able to breathe properly. Unfortunately one of them got muscle wastage as a side effect & had to be PTS as he was so weak. But we were stuck in a catch 22 where he needed the steroids to breathe & was still able to enjoy his last year.
But they were both 12 at the time so easier to cope with. So hard when my fella is so young and obviously in pain and feeling miserable a lot of the time

Anything other than a couple of days low dose pred should always be given with Omeprazole. Has he been seen at at specialist vet hospital? We found the Internal Medicine specialists at the hospital were so much better at tweaking doses and adding in and removing adjunct therapies to keep him stable and with a good quality of life than our own vet was. (Our own vet was lovely but admitted they were out of their depth and in the end would only treat him after consulting the specialists.)

My boy was 5 and ultimately lost the battle when he was 7. Like your dogs, he needed high dose steroids to keep him alive, but the side effects were horrendous and often worse than the symptoms of his illness. Such a difficult situation, as without them he would definitely have died and during the times he was stable he was such a happy boy.

Eventually he developed Iatrogenic Cushings due to the steroids, but we were unable to wean him off the pred because the other meds weren’t working for him and every time we tried his original illness took over again. He was unlucky enough to have an intractable version of the disease, plus a second condition which interacted negatively with the first and the steroids, but we were able to give him a good quality of life and he was happy for his last couple of years. In the end it was complexities from the second condition that took him from us.

Your boy looks like such a smiley boy. You are doing everything you can for him and he knows he is loved, that’s the most important thing. x

so little update on my boy. He stopped pooping blood after cutting the steroids down.
Then on Tuesday evening, & all day Wednesday he farted almost constantly and they smelt like death. He's not usually a farty dog either unless he's bloated, which can happen with the IBD.
Anyway Wednesday night we had a terrible night with him, he was restelss, dry heaving and farting loads, & obviously was suffering with a sore tummy. About 5am he was sick so we thought that would perk him up as it usually does.
Gave him his omeprazole around 6am & 10 mins later he started vomiting blood, so we went off back to the vets, they said stop the steroids straight away & then when our usual vet is back from holiday this week to go and discuss his treatment going forward.
He thankfully has had no more bleeding or vomiting since then, but has had runny poo and wind ever since & is generally just down in the dumps.
He has also lost 1.5kgs after we had struggles to get 2kgs back on him.
Hoping the vet rings tomorrow & we can start to help him feel better or he is going to have a miserable 4th birthday next week