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Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 11 Apr 2019, 17:25
by Bri S
YIKES!

I will certainly check that out for the recall. Thank you very much!!!!

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 11 Apr 2019, 17:37
by jilbert57
Yes. In the article is also the previous link for an earlier recall. Not sure if maybe dry was on the earlier recall or not.
Ps on first glance it appears to be canned on both recalls.

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 15 Apr 2019, 10:56
by Bri S
Good Morning!

I checked and thankfully Opal's wet and dry foods were not on the recall list. Phew! Thank you for sharing that with me.

*A question for all of your seasoned EPI dog parents*:

This is Opal's first "relapse" if you will, back to where we started at her EPI diagnosis. She has bloody, mucus, diarrhea stool I'd say about 1/2 the time right now and I have placed a call to her vet this morning. My question is has your pup's tummy and system evened out with time and got back to normal on the regimen of meds and food that had previously worked for them? Maybe I just need to be more patient? Opal has done well before and gained a ton of weight along with having normal stools for quite awhile until we tried to change her food as of late. That being said what we were doing did work for months - so have you all been able to get back to that?

OR - should we be looking into tweaking things here and there? Meds or food? It has been just over a week now since Opal has been having troubles and so far all we've done is diagel 3 times which is a temporary fix along with Cerenia which she has now finished. I wouldn't necessarily say we're doing any better today than on last Sunday when this all started up. It's frustrating because I know she doesn't feel well.

I just don't know if the answer is to wait (or will she get worse / stay the same) or should we look into changing things up to get better results at this point, you know?

Thanks,
Bri & Opal

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 15 Apr 2019, 11:42
by jilbert57
Maybe if you end up going to the vet you could take a poop sample in if you haven't done so recently.

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 15 Apr 2019, 11:45
by Bri S
Hello,

We did bring in a poo sample when this started last week. It came back negative for any worms/parasites. So we know that isn't the issue. It's balancing out her EPI again.

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 15 Apr 2019, 12:17
by jilbert57
Thanks for the reminder. If you do start tweaking food, enzymes or tylan make sure to do one at a time and give it 3 or 4 days. Let us know what the vet says.
The only other thing I might recommend is going to a food with no grain.
Did the B12 level ever come up?

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 15 Apr 2019, 12:32
by Bri S
I just talked to Opal's vet and she recommended that we give her Prednisone for 7-10 days. She thinks that the blood continuing to be in her stools is because she has swollen and enlarged bowels right now that are clearly irritated. Hopefully Prednisone will mellow that irritation out, and help to work as an anti-inflammatory for her intestines and bowels.

Since Opal was doing so well the vet never pushed for us to re-do her blood-work to see where levels were at. However after she starts doing better from this little incident I think we'll have that done again so we know.

This all occurred I would have to think - due to us attempting to switch her to a grain free food. After 2 weeks we were at a 50/50 ratio and doing pretty well until she randomly started having blood in her stools. We certainly want to switch her to another food but she's done well before on Hill's so I think until she's doing well we will keep her on it if we can. Don't want her losing weight on us again!

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 15 Apr 2019, 17:19
by jilbert57
Sounds like a plan. Thanks for the update.
I thought she had been on the i/d now for a couple weeks after the trial food switch. Good luck.

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 17 Apr 2019, 06:18
by Judith
Hi

Hope Opal is feeling better. I would get a full blood panel done (cbc and chemistry) and possibly a resting cortisol if you have not started the prednisone (it makes the resting cortisol inaccurate). My EPI and Addisonian corgi presented with similar symptoms as Opal. First he was diagnosed with EPI and then about 6 months later Addison's disease. It is definitely something to talk to your vet about especially if she get more lethargic and continues not to want to eat along with all the GI symptoms. Please keep us posted

Re: Newly Diagnosed Corgi w/EPI - Suggestions?

Posted: 17 Apr 2019, 21:25
by Madelon
Good point Judith - thank you so much for chiming in.