Desperate! Help with One Question Please

[KonaGirl2020]

Greetings,

This website is a blessing! Although my Kona is not doing well, I'm able to find ideas to see what else we can do to help her.

Kona GSD- 4years old
Healthy Weight - 88lbs
Diagnosed 2/16/24
Weight on:
2/15/24 - 67lbs
2/25/24 - 61lbs
2/27/24 - 60.9lbs
PancreVed Tablets Prescribed 2 to 3 per meal
Serving 3-4 crushed, incubating for 20min in room temp homemade chicken broth

Tried the pancreas last week, she LOATHES the pancreas.

For those of you in SoCal, try Totally Raw in Colton they have beef pancreas you can order and pick up or shipped for free. https://happeedawg.com/?gad_source=1&gc ... XUEALw_wcB

In the last several days, Kona has REFUSED to eat anything. She was prescribed Entyce on 2/27 and the B12 will be arriving at my AmazonFresh store by 10pm.

We are forcing her to eat using a turkey baster syringe and she is NOT happy.

She is so weak that her hind legs shake and she's having problems staying upright. I'm about to try the egg white with banana, but I have one question - HOW many Enzyme tablets should I crush into this mix?

[Eddiespaghetti]

It depends on how much eat white and banana you are feeding. I would do 1-2 tablets per cup or equivalent. Though if this is the only thing she is eating I would recommend to add some yolk. When Eddie was sick and we feed him eggs to give him some nutrients, the neurologist recommended 50 percent ratio for yolks. If you feed two eggs one yolk is good.

[jilbert57]

Eddie is correct in saying we need to know what food you are feeding and how much food at each meal.
A lot of people find the enzyme tablets do not work as well as the powdered enzyme.

Please let us know how much you are feeding. You might need to try plain ground turkey gently cooked mixed with some plain pumpkin.

This is from our founder Olesia for tablets:(Pancreved)

"1.the enzyme tablets that you are giving,.... does it say 425 mg on the bottle? if so... you are under-dosing and most likely not giving so that it is most effective. Each pill only has 9,000 USP units of Lipase. We typically give approximately 71,400 USP units of Lipase (powder)per 1 cup of food . Of course there is a lot of leeway with this, but not this much .

~Giving 1+1/2 cups of food would suggest giving approx 12 crushed pills of 425mg of Lipase pancreatic pills... (i suspect you could probably do fine with less than 12 pills, maybe 8 pills..... but i am sure you can see the disparity ?)
~Giving 1+1/2 cups of food would suggest giving aprox 107,000 USP units of Lipase with powdered pancreatic enzymes. (1+1/2 tsp of powder)

2. Next... when giving pills, they often don't work UNLESS they are crushed into a powder and then add an extra or more pill to the mix. IN the end. the pills appear less expensive, but by the time you use and crush and incubate as many pills as needed.... you'd be much better off buying the powdered version. BTW. PancrePlus is an excellent product- - just go with the powder, not the pills"



Jill

[KonaGirl2020]

I am giving Kona 4 pills for 1/2 cup of blended chicken, egg white, 1tbsp of purée pumpkin, and four syringe meals because she REFUSES to eat. I put the crushed pills in 3 tbsp of warm chicken broth for 20 minutes. Should I give her 6 pills per 1/2 cup?


Today is day 3 of the Entyce and she still has no appetite whatsoever. I gave her two B12 pills, opened in the syringe and put in her mouth.

Her hind legs are giving out on her and today she peed and then fell on the ground. She looks disoriented and confused. My poor poor girl. She is so depressed and I’m desperate.

She pooped three times, each was about three inches long, nice and shapely.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?

[jilbert57]

I think for 1/2 c food you are giving a good amount of tablets, especially since the poop was well formed.
What was the last thing your pup ate that he really liked?
Are you giving any medications that cause inappetance?
Does your pup like sweets? Maybe try drizzling the food with a little honey. Mashed potatoes are good. Plain yogurt, plain applesauce. Also plain baby food is usually yummy.

Jill

[Jane&Clyde]

I may have misread your post, but it sounded like you are crushing the pills then just mixing them with liquid for 20 minutes. The enzymes should be incubated while mixed in with the food. It probably won't make a difference, but some dogs do better this way. The temperature should be room temp to lukewarm. I loved Jill's suggestions. The honey idea particularly caught my eye because not only would it make the food taste better, but it would provide quite a few calories, which Kona desperately needs. You could also add a small amount of oil, maybe starting with 1/2 teaspoon, for the calories. Watch the poops carefully so they don't get loose if you do this. You could also consider beginning to mix in a little dog food. Would she lick up some peanut butter, or could you add it to her food (tasty and high in calories)? Basically, get creative in ways to entice her to eat and add calories.

[KonaGirl2020]

Yes. I’ve been putting the enzymes in lukewarm broth for 20min then mixing it all together. It takes me 30min to feed her with a syringe. So, everything sits together for at least 10min before I can try to put it in a syringe.

Kona hates the pancreas and banana. I tried rhe peanut butter with the B12 today and she wouldn’t have it.

The only med she’s taking is the Entyce to give her appetite.

I think she likes the egg white, but I’m concerned it’s too much.

Even before Kona was diagnosed, she was a very picky eater. She didn’t like bacon treats, beef always gave her the runs, and refused to eat lamb bakes. So, needless to say, kitchen food is nowhere near her list of enticing foods. I tried giving her some freeze dried chicken treats soaked in enzymes, which she ate for one day and the next, it was a no go. Is it possible she’s too depressed?

[Olesia711]

Kona's mom,

I am so so sorry to hear that Kona (and you) are struggling so......

First, with the egg... give the whole egg, yolk and white with mashed banana.

Next.... her poos sound fine, weight is going down....,...so i a going to focus on "Her hind legs are giving out on her and today she peed and then fell on the ground. She looks disoriented and confused. "

1. First question, has she been checked for diabetes????? if not, can you call the vet ASAP and have her checked for this today?

2. Next, another possibility could be that she is also dealing with serious dehydration...... that too can cause these symptoms plus make them not want to eat/drink..... it is a vicious cycle..... if you have a grocery store or drug store near by, please go out and get some children's unflavored Pedialyte and give this to her, if nothing else it will help rebalance her electrolytes.

3. And last, talk to the vet today, regarding possible Diabetes, but also that her legs are shaking, the peeing, falling down and being disoriented..... ask the vet (if this is not Diabetes) about doing enteral feeding with her now... have them set it up so that once the tube it in you can take care of her at home......


and PLEASE keep us posted.

[Eddiespaghetti]

You might be in my domain now. The hind legs being weak, are they both hind legs or more so of one side? Are the front paws stable? Ataxia is sadly a pretty common symptom. That being said, my sweet boi has this happen every once in a while.
The long term fix is to get them to put some muscle and fat on, but as we both know not super simple.
The short term might be Prednisone. Now, you do want to make sure they aren't dealing with diabetes as those two things can cause havoc.
Eddie had meningitis a few years back where his right side locked up. Not paralyzed but the other way. His muscles were just super engaged and he couldn't release them. Nowadays, his left hind leg is weak. We can actually see it slide out from underneath his. He lost a lot of muscle mass before we got the EPI diagnosis and was doing really well until the end of December when he had a huge set back. We are unsure if he got into anything, but he didn't eat for like 5 days or so. We are building the muscle mass back. It's just a slow process.
You can look into muscle building powder as a last resort. Or a first resort. It's up to you. Hopefully, less issues with feeding if you replace most of the food with fat/protein powder.

[jilbert57]

I had good luck with Myos powder when Kiya had some muscle wasting in her hind quarters due to a long vestibular incident.

https://myospet.com/collections/frontpa ... 5-oz-pouch

Jill