colitus in dogs---is the end coming

cazza1968

Morning all, I posted over the last few weeks re my springer spaniel who was very poorly. The vets have now diagnosed Colitus brought on by metacam. My question is, and the vet doesnt seem to know the answer. Does having a dog with colitus mean runny poos for ever? He is on hills z/d low allergen food, has no other food apart from that, and i have been giving him 320g per day split into two. He now weighs 20kg...he was 28kg before he was ill, slightly overweight but he is a big springer. He is now so visibly under weight, its quite sad to look at him. He still needs to try to go to the toilet every 2 hours or so, sometimes more. There is no blood, but there seems to be no firming up yet either. I have bought him a kennel for the garden, so when we go out he can stay in the garden. Has anyone else got any advice, he is still on steroids 3 am and 3 pm and imodium 1 am and 1 pm, all other tablets have finished.

cyberbob

cazza1968 wrote: »

The vets have now diagnosed Colitus brought on by metacam. .

You really need to speak to a vet to get advice on this. If your Vet doesn't know you need to get an opinion from one who does to enable to you to do the best thing for your Spaniel. Colitis may be affected by diet so you need some good advice on your dogs diet. Try and find a vet with experience in this field.

There_Goes_Trouble

Colitis seems to be a bit of a catch-all phrase which means 'we don't know what's wrong' in my experience, you really need to find a vet who can establish the cause of the diarrhoea and help you either resolve it or manage it. My old dog used to get stress-induced colitis and it was also affected by diet. It was managed by finding a diet which suited her and working out which situations she found stressful. It all went away when I got my second dog, I guess because having a companion in situations she found difficult removed a lot of the stress.... anyway, I'd be looking for a second opinion if I were you.

Soubrette

There_Goes_Trouble wrote: »

Colitis seems to be a bit of a catch-all phrase which means 'we don't know what's wrong' in my experience, you really need to find a vet who can establish the cause of the diarrhoea and help you either resolve it or manage it. My old dog used to get stress-induced colitis and it was also affected by diet. It was managed by finding a diet which suited her and working out which situations she found stressful. It all went away when I got my second dog, I guess because having a companion in situations she found difficult removed a lot of the stress.... anyway, I'd be looking for a second opinion if I were you.

Doesn't colitis mean inflammation of the colon? In which case there is a cause of the diarrhoea. Or is it the IBS of the dog world, symptoms but unable to find the cause?

Sou

There_Goes_Trouble

Soubrette wrote: »

Doesn't colitis mean inflammation of the colon? In which case there is a cause of the diarrhoea. Or is it the IBS of the dog world, symptoms but unable to find the cause?

Sou

Yes, inflammation of the colon is correct and technically is the cause of the diarrhoes, but you need to find what is causing the inflammation. A diagnosis of 'inflammation of the colon' is only half of the job. Finding the cause of the inflammation is what will give a solution. This could be any number of things but diet is the most common and would be a good starting point for investigation.

cazza1968

The vet has suggested doing a colonoscopy, as i understand it, this involves starving him for 48hrs. As he has only just started eating again is this the wisest move? I dont suppose we have any other option though....

sixpence1966

My OES has colitis .After the vet putting him on all kind of medication and foods i asked for a food allergy test to be done.Turns out he is allergic to beef.

He weighed 26KG by then. After a complete diet change he is now up to 37KG and no runny poos.The diet change was going to raw which i know isn't suitable for everyone.

A know steroids can cause stomach problems so these might not be helping.

My OES was on Prokolin .I don't like using immodium for dogs.

There_Goes_Trouble

I think you need to either be guided by your current vet and have the colonoscopy, or seek a second opinion if you're not happy with their proposed tereatment. If the metacam is the problem then there may well be some damage to the inside of the stomach/intestines which could be what the vet is looking for with the colonoscopy.

The way I look at it is this. Will the procedure change the dogs treatment. Eg, if I think 99% that my dog has got arthritits, it's going to be treated with anti-inflamatories. If I agree to xrays and prove 100% that the dog has arthritis, it's still going to be treated with anti-inflamatories. So the dog has had an anaesthetic and been manipulated around and the outcome is the same.

Is having the colonoscopy going to change the treatment? Is your vet looking to rule out other possibilities? If so what are those possibilities and what is the treatment for them? Is there a specialist you can be referred to? Are there less invasive treatments you can try before doing the colonoscopy (e.g different diets)?

I met a lady the other day whose dog is sensitive to chicken. Before she knew this he had really bad diarrhoea and all the 'special' diets she was recommended to put him on had chicken in. It wasn't until she was chatting to a stranger about it that she realised this and decided to try him on a chicken free diet and hey presto, the dog is now fine. Have a look at the ingredients of the food you've been feeding and see if there is a common factor e.g chicken.

If your vet suspects that metacam is the problem then stopping the metacam should help resolve the problem, but I'm guessing your dog will need something else. You may need to try a few, my old dog didn't tolorate metacam or rimadyl, but was fine on previcox for years although it did eventially wreck her stomach.

I hope you find a solution. Sorry for my rambling post but that is how I would be thinking about this.

If you're not happy with the treatment your vet is recommending then you need a second opinion.

getthemax

When our girl was diagnosed with kidney disease, about 3 years before she died, the vet recommended we put her on Hills k/d. Before that she was always on James Wellbeloved with added veggies and did the kind of poos you could break windows with. :rotfl:

As soon as we put her on the Hills her poos turned to being very runny along with her losing a lot of control, and she also developed colitus. We searched around for alternatives, and tried the Eukunuba veterinary diets which suited her much better. After lots of trial and error we found that her colitus could be controlled by a 50/50 Eukunuba Veterinary Renal and James Wellbeloved. We also continued with added veggies when there were any leftovers (we are vegetarians).

Needless to say I don't have a good word to say for Hills dog food, as I'm convinced it wrecked my girl's guts, but then again I'm biased. And it's scary that vets seem to get all their so-called dietary information from Hills.

Obviously we had to carry on with a kidney-friendly diet for our girl, but you might like to think long and hard about switching her diet away from Hills. My brother-in-law who runs a smallish rescue/fostering for cats and dogs and has a lot of experience in this field recommends just cooked veggies, untoasted wholemeal bread and pasta, and white meat (chicken/fish) for colitus. We couldn't do that 100% because of the kidney problem we had to deal with but you might like to consider that as an alternative.

As a final thought our vet has said that immodium is fine to use, as our other boy occasionally gets the squits quite badly, so we usually give 1/2 a tablet then another 1/2 if he's still doing loose ones. We also gave them to our girl when she had severe problems.

elsien

Mutt's colitis comes and goes, brought on by stress, some foods (no idea which, I just know not to give her scraps anymore) and sometimes if there's an R in the month! However it does get better and she can be fine for months before the next attack, but it does take time.
You'll get a variety of opinions on which food is best etc - like anything what works for one dog doesn't necessarily work for another, so I'd stick with your vets recommendations for now. Why does your vet want to do the colonoscopy, have they said? Are they worried that it's not healing as quickly as they like?

Lobell

When my dog suffered from bowel inflammation brought on by metacam, my vet recommended a bland diet of scrambled egg (no milk, just eggs) and boiled rice with boiled chicken or boiled white fish (rice must be boiled in loads of water until mush - cook for twice as long as you would normally). She stayed on this diet until the consistency of her poo returned to normal - about a week to 10 days, if memory serves. She also had Pro Kolin twice a day (you can buy it online much cheaper than at the vets as it's not a prescription med).

A fiend's dog that had severe colitis for most of his life (the cause of it was never established) improved greatly when switched to NatureDiet (a wet complete food that comes in vacuum sealed trays - available from most pet shops such as Pets at Home etc).

Not strictly relevant to the OP but having seen immodium mentioned on this thread, I would just say that it should NOT be given to Collies or other dogs of a herding breed (inc. rough/smooth collies, Shelties etc) unless the dog has been tested for the presence of the mutated MDR-1 gene. Imodium contains Loperamide which is potentially fatal to herding breeds with this gene. So, please avoid it at all costs unless you are 100% sure of it's MDR-1 status.