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[ed33935]

Hello and thank you for letting us join. I'll give a little background about us. My name is Ed and I live in southwest florida with my wife and 4 dogs. Two of them are 13 year old pekingese, brother and sister. Lizzie is the little girl and Spencer is the boy. In about 2008 Lizzie was diagnosed with EPI. We started treatment with enzymes on her food. After a time we stopped the enzymes and she never had a problem with digesting her food or weight ect. This went on for many years. She around that time had a back injury, which is not really relevant to this issue. Not long ago we noticed her losing weight. Had many tests done including Urine, blood tests (not specifically for EPI, yet), ect. Turns out she had a urinary tract infection and possible kidney infection, which was subsequently cleared up with antibiotics.

We are still trying to find the cause of the weight loss. Our doctor suggested that we try the enzymes on her food. We will do the (very expensive) blood test next month, but thought we could try this and see what happens.

After giving her the first dose of enzymes with her food, she seemed not to take them well, vomited up a little and generally seemed not to tolerate it.

Is this normal with dogs taking the enzymes for the first time? How do your dogs react after eating them? Does this spitting up sound normal?

Again, she doesn't show any symptoms (diarrhea, vomiting ect) other than weight loss. Perhaps this isn't EPI after all.

Blood test will show, but I have to wait for a few weeks to see. wondered how other dogs react to the enzymes.

[Jean]

hi there from the UK

now, that is weird

firstly, what made ther vets diagnose EPI years ago, do you have any test results they ran

normally thery are on enzymes for life

what has made the vet think towards EPI now

you can get a test kit

https://enzymediane.com/product-category/test-kits/

its not the gold standard but if needs be, Give Diane a call she will go over it with you

I will leave the US guys to talk about problems with their enzymes, our are different

jean

[ed33935]

Hello Jean

back in 2008 she had the blood test which apparently showed the EPI. Thats why we started her on the enzymes. Do your dogs have any reaction when first starting the enzymes at all?

[ed7385]

Hi! I have zero advice because I'm new to this whole thing too, but had to post because our usernames are so similar. LOL

But the vomiting sounds weird to me. So she was on enzymes, then off and then back on?

[ed33935]

hello

Lizzie had not been on any enzymes for many years. Until a few months ago she had always maintained her weight. I'm just wondering what the normal reaction would be for a dog that actually has EPI and starts the enzymes. Is it normal for them to act like that?

[Olesia711]

Hi Ed.

So sorry to hear the Lizzie is not doing so well.

My first gut reaction to what you said is to not give her the porcine-based enzymes, especially since she has not be tested recently (after years of no enzymes) to confirm that she does indeed have EPI., and that fact that she is such a tiny little thing (so she doesn't need much even if she does need enzymes)... I know the tests is expensive, but if the vet suspects EPI..... then the best thing is to have them run the TLI blood test .......

In the meantime.... what you can try is buy some inexpensive plant enzymes.... just a little bit and see if this would be more agreeable with her....

The reason why i am suggesting this is (1) she might not even have EPI and that could be why the enzymes make her vomit- -it may be just too much for her and/if she doesn't need them.... or .... (2) she has an allergy to pig/pork and that is why she vomited.

Plant enzymes are not potent enough to treat EPI ....HOWEVER... we have had a handful of small pups that couldn't take the proper porcine enzymes (severe allergies) and did better on plant enzymes... this is why i am suggesting this althou this is not normally what we recommend for most EPI dogs.

Or..... you can try giving her 1/2 the amount of enzymes and see what kind of reaction she had.

Quite honestly it is very very odd that she was diagnosed with EPI years ago but after some initial use of proper enzymes you stopped them and she has not needed them since. In over 10 years of dealing with EPI and combined an EPI researcher's knowledge .... between the two of us.... we both only came across 2 actual EPI cases where the pup did not need the proper porcine enzymes. We suspect (although we don't know for sure) is that what might have happened in these 2 cases is that the pancreas exocrine cells (85 to 95%) have atrophied to the point where the dog clinically has EPI ... but that there is 8-10% of these same digestive enzymes that are produced elsewhere in the gut..... but usually some or much of these other digestive producing enzymes cells are damaged by SID.... we never really have any idea how much is left/viable to still produce enough digestive enzymes so that the dog might not need replacement enzymes..... so this is one remote rare possibility. Highly unlikely that this is what happened with your little pup ...but a remote possibility if she does indeed have EPI

Has her B12 been checked.... that often has a lot to do with why many of these dogs don't have an appetite and/or don't gain weight......... or this could be something completely different and not EPI.

Not sure if any of this helped, but please keep us posted with what you decide to do and how she reacts. What you might want to do is keep an EPI log..... tedious BUT extremely helpful! Often when keeping a good log or journal ... after a while you will start to see trends of things that cause good and bad reactions in your pup and this often helps your vet better diagnose the dog without having to perform lots of expensive tests to try and figure out what is going on....

We have a sample EPI log that you can use / get an idea of what to keep track of.... located on the EPI Log page:
https://epi4dogs.com/epi-log/

[ed33935]

Hello Olesia

Thank you for your response. So much good information. She actually was prescribed and I’m giving her b12 now. I need to read your post again.

[ed33935]

Olesia

Have you ever come across a case where the dog was diagnosed with EPI and it went away or resolved itself?

Maybe she was misdiagnosed years ago? Maybe she never truly had this at all. I'm sure we gave her other medications and perhaps b12 at the time, ( as we are doing now).

Just wondering if this comes and goes? Seems to me if a dog has it, it does not just go away.

Hi Ed.

So sorry to hear the Lizzie is not doing so well.

My first gut reaction to what you said is to not give her the porcine-based enzymes, especially since she has not be tested recently (after years of no enzymes) to confirm that she does indeed have EPI., and that fact that she is such a tiny little thing (so she doesn't need much even if she does need enzymes)... I know the tests is expensive, but if the vet suspects EPI..... then the best thing is to have them run the TLI blood test .......

In the meantime.... what you can try is buy some inexpensive plant enzymes.... just a little bit and see if this would be more agreeable with her....

The reason why i am suggesting this is (1) she might not even have EPI and that could be why the enzymes make her vomit- -it may be just too much for her and/if she doesn't need them.... or .... (2) she has an allergy to pig/pork and that is why she vomited.

Plant enzymes are not potent enough to treat EPI ....HOWEVER... we have had a handful of small pups that couldn't take the proper porcine enzymes (severe allergies) and did better on plant enzymes... this is why i am suggesting this althou this is not normally what we recommend for most EPI dogs.

Or..... you can try giving her 1/2 the amount of enzymes and see what kind of reaction she had.

Quite honestly it is very very odd that she was diagnosed with EPI years ago but after some initial use of proper enzymes you stopped them and she has not needed them since. In over 10 years of dealing with EPI and combined an EPI researcher's knowledge .... between the two of us.... we both only came across 2 actual EPI cases where the pup did not need the proper porcine enzymes. We suspect (although we don't know for sure) is that what might have happened in these 2 cases is that the pancreas exocrine cells (85 to 95%) have atrophied to the point where the dog clinically has EPI ... but that there is 8-10% of these same digestive enzymes that are produced elsewhere in the gut..... but usually some or much of these other digestive producing enzymes cells are damaged by SID.... we never really have any idea how much is left/viable to still produce enough digestive enzymes so that the dog might not need replacement enzymes..... so this is one remote rare possibility. Highly unlikely that this is what happened with your little pup ...but a remote possibility if she does indeed have EPI

Has her B12 been checked.... that often has a lot to do with why many of these dogs don't have an appetite and/or don't gain weight......... or this could be something completely different and not EPI.

Not sure if any of this helped, but please keep us posted with what you decide to do and how she reacts. What you might want to do is keep an EPI log..... tedious BUT extremely helpful! Often when keeping a good log or journal ... after a while you will start to see trends of things that cause good and bad reactions in your pup and this often helps your vet better diagnose the dog without having to perform lots of expensive tests to try and figure out what is going on....

We have a sample EPI log that you can use / get an idea of what to keep track of.... located on the EPI Log page:
https://epi4dogs.com/epi-log/

[Olesia711]

Hi Ed,

I hope the info helps a little..... just keep a journal/log of everything you try with her (use the EpiLog as a template) and i forgot to mention that the other thing that is very helpful is when trying things... only try one-thing-at-a-time.... give a 3-5 days... observe her reactions/record the reactions before moving on to the next thing to try. And this includes EVERYTHING.... even something minor like 1 itty bitty supplement.... or 1 ingredient that you don't think is important.

Madelon, Doc's mom (on another thread) mentioned how she changed food version- -still from the same company brand name... the only difference were some herbs.... and her dog Doc had a negative reaction. You just never can tell without proofing what in the world could be a trigger for your dog, hence why keeping a log is so valuable!

Please keep us posted on what you try and what little Lizzie (who by the way is absolutely adorable!!!) reactions is and we will help you as best we can!