Enteric coated gel caps help pls - UK

[KLKEAR]

Good Morning from the UK. My name is Kate and my newly diagnosed EPI dog is Taylor, she’s a beautiful nearly 2 year old Eastern European Shepherd with a bit of Mally and is currently a wee but thin!

We were diagnosed last Thursday and have her on Protexin Pro-Enzorb currently. I want to thank everyone on here for their wealth of knowledge as the vet initially told us to give her 1-2 tabs in the morning….. after finding this page, we are now giving her tablets based on food weight and at every meal and we’re seeing an improvement 36 hours in.

After reading about the different enzyme types, we’ve decided to go down the powder into enteric coated gel caps route, but other than http://www.capsulcn.com/ - I’m struggling to find any.

Do any of you knowledgeable people
a) know whether this is a legitimate company (£180ish for 10000 capsules delivered excluding import tax)
b) tell me how I can tell if the caps are enteric coated on websites such as Amazon or eBay or c) can you recommend a UK based (or trusted outside the UK) company who I can purchase them from?

Thank you in advance for help

[KLKEAR]

I have found some!

Just in case anybody else from the UK is struggling with this, I have spent the past couple of hours searching online and found plenty of fraudulent websites , but I finally found a supplier on ebay. The seller is simply_capsules and you can buy the capsules in volumes of 100, 200, 500 and 1000.

Hope this helps someone else

[Tuckaboo Pam]

Hi Kate, and a warm welcome to the both of you.

At first things will seem overwhelming, but you will soon settle in to a good routine. I'll include some basic rules of thumb, but at some point Patsy and others from UK will join in with more specific information.

1) ENZYMES---Whatever kind you settle on, everything your pup eats has to have enzymes included. A treat may be given close to a meal.

2) B12 must be at 600 or higher, which is more than for a non-EPI dog.

3) SID is a condition that ALL EPI dogs have, and as long as it is under control, you don't need to worry. Here's more on that --- https://epi4dogs.com/sidsibo-in-brief/

4) DIET---low fiber(less than 4%), and grain-free if possible. Feed 150% of what you would feed at her desired weight, broken into at least two meals, but preferably three.

I use powdered enzymes from Diane, so I won't complicate things by stepping beyond my ability, but I did want to welcome you, and to encourage you to keep a journal of what you do & what happens next, to share this website with your vet, and to stay active on the forum, asking any question that pops up for you.

Take Care---Pam & Nina

[scoozle]

Hi Kate! welcome to the forum from another UK EPI dog mum!

I wasn't quite sure what you wanted to do initially, are you talking about buying enzyme powder and putting it in capsules yourself?

We were using Lypex for the first few weeks with our Oscar but I quickly looked for other options because of the eyewatering price!! We are now using Chemeyes enzymes which they sell as a powder or capsule: https://chemeyes.co.uk/product/pancreatic-enzymes/ and it's a fraction of the cost. Seems to be working well for us but I have just been adding 1 capsule per meal - I assume you are wanting to weigh out the enzyme quantity to match Taylors food?

Oscar was diagnosed in January so we are still working out what works best but this is what we are doing at the moment - we are spending around £150 per month for food and meds combined as an indication (but without knowing how big Taylor is obviously this might have an effect on costs!).

3x meals a day - enough for a 20kg dog according to the food, but Oscar weighs 14kgs and we're trying to get him to 15.5ish!!
Skinners wet dog food - chicken or salmon or a mix: https://www.skinners.co.uk/product/chic ... -root-veg/ - was recommended by Patsy on here and seems to be working well for Oscar
Chemeyes enzyme - 1 capsule opened and sprinkled on every meal
Chemeyes B12 supplement - https://chemeyes.co.uk/product/vitamin-b12-capsules/ - 1 capsule opened and sprinkled on morning meal
Chemeyes pre and probiotic powder - https://chemeyes.co.uk/product/probiotics-for-dogs/ - we were doing a level scoop with every meal but are having a bit of a break at the moment as we've run out/waiting for next batch
Dorwest Slippery Elm - https://www.dorwest.com/products/tree-b ... s-and-cats - again a level scoop with every meal, we only started this recently.

I'm so glad you're seeing improvement so quickly with Taylor, it is amazing and such a relief when you find out what's wrong and the meds start working!

[KLKEAR]

Thank you both so much for your replies and for your knowledge and apologies for the delay in responding! I'm not sure how to turn on notifications if that is a thing?

Taylor at a healthy weight was 34kg but has dropped to 29kg although she's definitely looking less boney after a week of enzymes with every meal and we have followed the advise on here and are now feeding her 150% of what she would normally be fed for her desired weight. We've currently got her on tripe and butchers tins as this combination actually made her stools firmer than cow pat consistency (apologies for too much info) between bloods being taken and prior to getting the diagnosis confirmed. It was still yellow and softer than it should be though without the enzymes.

The vet had gotten us protexin pro-enzorb which has turned her stools brown and firm - yay! But the cost just wasn't sustainable long term due to her having 6-8 capsules per day so we have ordered HS powder from Chemeyes along with the B12 as I read on here about the intrinsic needing to be present too.

Taylor has always been great at allowing me to pop worming tabs etc down her throat so I thought that the enteric coated tabs being filled by us would be a much more cost effective process and would take away the need to pop powder into her food 20 minutes before meals etc.

I want to thank you all for the wealth of information that you share here, what started as a very scary diagnosis feels manageable and Taylor's playful personality has started to reemerge and for that I am so grateful.

[Patsy]

So glad that you are seeing an improvement. It’s such a steep learning curve and so upsetting . Very few uk vets see epi, so they can’t offer the practical advice you need to live with the condition.. if something works, stick with it . Even giving innocent treats , without enzymes, can cause a setback.
Epi dogs react differently to differently meats. . Butchers make simple recipes, favouring beef, chicken and tripe, no grain and is sold everywhere at a sensible price. My current non-epi dogs can’t cope with it for more than a few weeks, why I don’t know. A lot of epi dogs don’t cope with chicken, so Marti ended up on fish and sweet potato soaked kibble . I found Skiners wet working dog food at an agricultural merchants and my now dogs haven’t had a problem for 18 months. I order it online. Viovet are very efficient and use DPD with one hour slot. Like Butchers, it’s about £1.30 each . It’s horrific how much the trendy foods cost, £3 a can!
One alternative we get easily in the uk is chopped raw pigs pancreas to add to food instead of powder or pills. It’s in frozen packs from Durham Animal Feeds. Not for the squeamish , and perhaps needs an extra freezer section. You can’t take it out travelling with you either..
Whatever works, stick with it . Keep it simple. Relax!! Every solid poo is a present!

[scoozle]

That's great Kate that you're seeing an improvement already! It's so lovely when their personalities come back!

Just to clarify, the powder from Chemeyes doesn't need to sit on the food for 20mins, you can just sprinkle it on, mix it in and serve, super easy! I confirmed this with Chemeyes because the website wasn't 100% clear.

Fingers crossed you get some solid brown poops soon!