Slippery Elm

[Emma.cyan]

Hi all,

My sweet baby was just diagnosed with EPI a few days ago (TLI 1.5). I’m feeding her 3 times a day with Pancreved Enzyme and a Vitamin B12 pill prescribed by the vet. Her stool has formed up, she’s going far less frequently and the stool is of small volume now but is still light brown with traces of yellow. I’ve been reading through the forum and saw that most others have their dogs on Slippery Elm and that seems to help. I would love any experience anyone has with it in these situations. She’s a German Shepherd/Husky that is currently 37 pounds but normally about 48 pounds (already quite lean at 48 pounds).

[Olesia711]

MANY of us use SLippery ELm..... for loose stools. we actually try it using Slippery Elm powder first before trying probiotics (since the probiotics may or may not help) before automatically reaching for Tylan antibiotic.

SLippery Elm is a mucilage with prebiotic properties. We "think" it coats (and soothes) the intestines damaged by SID (dysbiosis ..jsut visualize a bunch of tiny holes.......)

SLippery Elm does not always work with every single EPI dog, but it works in many of them. If i had to guess, i'd say it helps about 85 to 90% of EPI dogs struggling with loose stools.

BUT..... it is a fiber... the right kind of fiber... so with Slippery ELm, sometimes less is better.. if you give too much, as with any prebiotic, it can have the opposite effect and give loose stools.

SOme EPI folks swear by it and keep their dog on it forever.... a small maintenance dose.
Other EPI folks just use it as needed.

A good read on Slippery Elm is here: https://epi4dogs.com/slippery-elm/

Recent research now touts SLippery Elm as an anti-inflammatory :
https://www.clinicaladvisor.com/home/fe ... ory-agent/

Just be sure to get the powder so you can control the dose
And keep us posted on how it works out for your pup!


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[Emma.cyan]

Thank you! I will most certainly give it a try. She still has the stomach rumblies after meals but her stool has completely firmed up. I haven’t seen any improvement from the probiotics at all (she was on them for about a month before diagnosis and nothing). As far as the enzymes go, I’ve been reading that they’re temporarily inactive when they’re cold? Cyan is on refrigerated fresh food so when I pull it from the fridge it’s cold. I add room temp water and then let incubate for 30 minutes outside of the fridge but I imagine it’s not enough time for the food to be room temp. Will the enzymes be okay like this?

[Olesia711]

if you have to work with cold fresh food from the frig... add hot water to the cold food to bring the food temp up
once the cold food is approximately room temp....
THEN add the enzymes, mix and let it incubate.

And yes... cold temp inactivates the enzymes and hot temp (130 degrees and above) will kill the enzymes.

[Eddiespaghetti]

When Eddie was getting refrigerated food I would add hot water. The hottest I could get from the tap and add it to the food. I would give it a big stir and then add the enzymes. I never checked the temperature, but the food would feel cool. As of it was 50-60 degrees. I only added two teaspoons of water though. He did fine with this method. I only took him off the refrigerated food because it was a hassle to cut up the packets.

[Emma.cyan]

Thank you! Good to know. I’ll give that a try

[Olesia711]

let us know how it goes