My Westhighland Terrier, 6 in September, has since day one food allergies that include proteins, wheat, flour, pretty much everything. She has had major intestinal upsets for the last 2 weeks but they were under control in combination w/a homemade diet consisting of vitamin supplements, cottage cheese, pumpkin, and brown rice along w/ veterinarian prescribed drugs being Clidinium/CDP 1 every other day or as needed, Lixotonic 1/2 ml orally once daily and Farnotidine that only had to be used once every week and 1/2 have now everyday . It is the only way she will eat because otherwise she is in severe pain. I can hear her stomach and feel it hard and bloated as well. My vet has run out of answers and obviously was able to give only a temporary fix to this long-time problem. My dog, when not plagued with this pain is happy and otherwise healthy. I need another alternative to safe guard and assure my dog a happy and pain free existence if at all possible. Do you have any suggestions. I would appreciate more than words could say!!
Thank You
“If your VET. has run out of answers then it time for referral to a specialist. Has your doggie been tested for Addisons? At this time the best course of action is to go see a specialist.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sabria
Crossroads Animal Hospital
Miami, FL 33176
“The only way to treat a food allergy is to feed a diet with a protein and carbohydrate that the dog has not ever had before. Here is why: If the food has never been fed before, the dog could not have built up an allergy to it. There are commercial foods available from the vet with unique ingredients, like kangaroo and oats, venison, duck, rabbit, etc. Changing from one store brand to another is futile because most contain the same ingredients. The new and novel diet must be fed exclusively with no treats, no flavored heartworm prevention, no milk bones, etc. for 8 weeks.
If the dog is not improved, perhaps it is not a food allergy but other intestinal problem. If so, blood tests and fecal analysis and endoscopy are the next things to do.”
Ernest Smith, DVM
1. Make a list of every commercial food you have given her, then make a
note of the top 5 ingredients in each diet.
2. To that ingredient list, add any major ingredients that you have used
(ones that constituted at least 10% of volume of a diet) in your home-made diets.
3. Using this ingredient list as an “eliminator list”, do a search
(either at your local pet supply stores, with your veterinarian, or on the
Internet) for any diet that contains 1 or less of these ingredients.
4. Using the diets that meet your criteria, start food trials with the
diets that appear to be the best candidates for success. A food trial consists of 10-12 weeks with no other foods, treats, or ingestible material (this includes grass from the yard, plants from the garden, or picking up things from the ground while out on a walk) being eaten during that trial.
A study I read several years ago showed that close to 1/2 of the patients didn’t even show response to what would turn out to be a successful diet until close to 2 months of it being fed to them. Also, on a personal note, one of my patients used to break with severe symptoms lasting for over a week if it ever ingested even the smallest amount of an offending protein; usually the culprit was a piece of cat feces it would find on a walk.
5. Has your dog had other laboratory tests (such as blood, fecal, and
intestingal biopsy) done to confirm that there isn’t another concurrent disease? Dr. Mike Willard, at Texas A&M, has talked and written about patients who were surprisingly found to have other diseases when tested, and that complicated food intolerances/allergies. Perhaps additional medications are needed to reduce inflammation to a point at which a food trial would be more revealing of success, which then in turn would allow for a reduction in the use of the anti-inflammatory medications.
Good luck.
Manhattan Beach Animal Hospital
Manhattan Beach, CA
What is your pet’s diagnosis?
You are treating something, but what is it?
Find a vet who will get you a definitive diagnosis.
Philip McHugh, DVM
Park Veterinary Hospital
Durham, NC 27713
If your vet has run out of answers, I would recommend going to an internal medicine specialist. I am up in Dahlonega, but I refer people to GVS just north of 400/285, or to the Vet school in Athens. Those might be ideas.
Has testing been done to determine what the pet is allergic to as well?
Just some thoughts.
Dr. Mark Helvie
Dahlonega Veterinary Hospital
Dahlonega, GA 30533