EPI/SID Greyhound Questions
Posted: 25 Jan 2022, 17:20
Hi everyone.
My senior greyhound girl (11.5) was recently confirmed as having EPI and SID/SIBO. Since she was younger, she had a number of bouts of pancreatitis and stress colitis, and in June of 2021, suffered from a severe bout of HGE that had her hospitalized for a few days. She had since fallen in the "SIBO cycle" as I refer to it - bouts of diarrhea and GI distress that would come and go every few weeks, usually knocked out with a probiotic and metronidazole. This last bout, we have been unable to get her over the hump with two rounds of metro coupled with a bland chicken adn rice diet, and that's when the additional blood work confirmed EPI and SID.
She is right around 62 lbs, and was never heavier than 65 her entire life, so thankfully, she is maintaining weight despite all the issues. She also suffers from laryngeal paralysis which thankfully hasn't affected her too much outside of exercise fatigue, a change in bark, and some slowly progressing hind-end weakness.
Her current protocol to address the EPI/SID is:
-B12 injection once a week, just receiving her second injection yesterday
-Tylosin powder, 1/8 tsp 2x daily
-1 tsp PancrePlus enzymes, currently soaking about half of the kibble in it beforehand (1 1/2 cups of kibble)
-Transitioned from Hills Science chicken and rice formula to ProPlan HA Hydrolyzed
-20mg omeprazole 2x/day
-Visbiome probiotic, 2 capsules 2x/daily
She started on the Tylosin and PancrePlus Thursday evening. At this time, she was on a mix of boiled chicken and rice, and kibble (chicken and rice had been in her diet for just over a full year, as it was the only way we could supplement her food to make her eat after grieving from the loss of her littermate sister).
Up to that point, she had yellow, but soft/semi-formed poops. On Friday, her gas and the stomach gurgles were pretty severe, with "wet peanut butter" consistency to her stools. On Saturday, her gas was room-clearing, and she had pure liquid yellow-grey diarrhea. At the recommendation of both my local vet and another very knowledgeable greyhound vet, they proposed stopping the chicken and rice and limiting to the HA kibble only on the basis that she may have IBD as well and developed a chicken sensitivity, which is very common with greyhounds.
By Sunday evening, her poops had returned to the "wet peanut butter"/soft serve consistency, albeit still yellow. Although the gas has subsided considerably from an all-day assault to only the occasional poof/stomach gurgle, all subsequent BM's seem to be stagnating at this consistency with no further improvement over the 6 day period, and I would say are not quite at the pre-treatment level yet.
Does anyone have any recommendations as to how to proceed from here? The current plan is to watch and wait for about a week per my local vet provided she doesn't regress further or have any accidents (none so far), but most literature I've stumbled across so far saw significant improvement within 72 hours from the Tylosin use. I'm wondering what others experiences are for how quickly they respond to the medication/enzyme introduction, thoughts as to why she may have regressed after starting, or any suggestions on what to consider moving forward.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
My senior greyhound girl (11.5) was recently confirmed as having EPI and SID/SIBO. Since she was younger, she had a number of bouts of pancreatitis and stress colitis, and in June of 2021, suffered from a severe bout of HGE that had her hospitalized for a few days. She had since fallen in the "SIBO cycle" as I refer to it - bouts of diarrhea and GI distress that would come and go every few weeks, usually knocked out with a probiotic and metronidazole. This last bout, we have been unable to get her over the hump with two rounds of metro coupled with a bland chicken adn rice diet, and that's when the additional blood work confirmed EPI and SID.
She is right around 62 lbs, and was never heavier than 65 her entire life, so thankfully, she is maintaining weight despite all the issues. She also suffers from laryngeal paralysis which thankfully hasn't affected her too much outside of exercise fatigue, a change in bark, and some slowly progressing hind-end weakness.
Her current protocol to address the EPI/SID is:
-B12 injection once a week, just receiving her second injection yesterday
-Tylosin powder, 1/8 tsp 2x daily
-1 tsp PancrePlus enzymes, currently soaking about half of the kibble in it beforehand (1 1/2 cups of kibble)
-Transitioned from Hills Science chicken and rice formula to ProPlan HA Hydrolyzed
-20mg omeprazole 2x/day
-Visbiome probiotic, 2 capsules 2x/daily
She started on the Tylosin and PancrePlus Thursday evening. At this time, she was on a mix of boiled chicken and rice, and kibble (chicken and rice had been in her diet for just over a full year, as it was the only way we could supplement her food to make her eat after grieving from the loss of her littermate sister).
Up to that point, she had yellow, but soft/semi-formed poops. On Friday, her gas and the stomach gurgles were pretty severe, with "wet peanut butter" consistency to her stools. On Saturday, her gas was room-clearing, and she had pure liquid yellow-grey diarrhea. At the recommendation of both my local vet and another very knowledgeable greyhound vet, they proposed stopping the chicken and rice and limiting to the HA kibble only on the basis that she may have IBD as well and developed a chicken sensitivity, which is very common with greyhounds.
By Sunday evening, her poops had returned to the "wet peanut butter"/soft serve consistency, albeit still yellow. Although the gas has subsided considerably from an all-day assault to only the occasional poof/stomach gurgle, all subsequent BM's seem to be stagnating at this consistency with no further improvement over the 6 day period, and I would say are not quite at the pre-treatment level yet.
Does anyone have any recommendations as to how to proceed from here? The current plan is to watch and wait for about a week per my local vet provided she doesn't regress further or have any accidents (none so far), but most literature I've stumbled across so far saw significant improvement within 72 hours from the Tylosin use. I'm wondering what others experiences are for how quickly they respond to the medication/enzyme introduction, thoughts as to why she may have regressed after starting, or any suggestions on what to consider moving forward.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!