Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
I posted previously about my Weimaraner who has been suffering with bouts of diahhrea and bloody mucous. He is 3.5 and otherwise healthy. Anyway, we switched our big boy to Eukenuba Fish and Potato, supposedly to test for food allergies as the cause of his diahhrea and gastric bleeding. That was a week ago. I convinced the vet to go this route because, as many of you know, I am trying to avoid the stress of putting him through a colonoscopy, he's a very anxious dog and I fear that he would do very poorly under that stress. On the day we started the Fish and Potato, before he even had the food for the first time, he had severe diahhrea again, so the vet sent us home with 5 more days of Flagyl when we picked up the food. All progressed well for the next 5 days. The Flagyl ended on Monday and by yesterday afternoon, the diahhrea was back, even with the Fish/potato. This was just the same as the last time we stopped the Flagyl after 5 days, symptoms were back within two days. So, the vet called in 30 days worth of Flagyl and said that it is her belief that this medication is safe for his use long-term. I am hoping someone here could give me some info. about a couple questions I now have. First, is the Flagyl really okay long-term? Second, since the Flagyl seems to stop the problem, does that help us in understanding what the real problem/cause of his symptoms might be? Third, I'm starting to think that food allergies might not be the problem because of a number of things, one of which was the lengthy information packed message posted to my earlier thread by Cerry. It dawned on me that Oliver never showed any reactions to his food immediately or in the hours following eating. His symptoms always came on at 4 - 6 am, which would have been 10 to 12 hours after eating. He never had any skin reactions, and Weims are sensitive to skin allergies. This all sort of makes me think that food would be an unlikely cause, but I'm no expert, just a concerned mommy. So, I'm here to ask for your advice and consultation once again!
Re: Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
Assumiing you posted on another board other than your original one here, don't know what else was said to you.
I will ask this again, did your vet do a fecal culture?
I will ask this again, did your vet do a fecal culture?
..........Traci
Re: Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
Sorry, I posted here and on another board. Yes the vet did fecals and said they were negative, both an immediate test and a "floatation".
Here is a copy of my prior post on this board. Sorry to repeat....
"Oliver (my 3.5 year old male Weimeraner) had been having some odd and troubling symptoms for about a month. It started in with a roaring, gurgling, loud sound from his abdomen at night while we were sleeping. Sometimes, he would sleep right through it, other times, he would vomit a little yellowish (bile?) liquid.
Never vomited his food, only on an empty stomach. We took him to the
vet and she said that she wasn't real worried because he wasn't
losing weight and to switch from 2 to 3 meals per day with a Pepcid AC
before bed. She also did a fecal test and that came back negative. Seemed to work for the last two weeks. He only got sick once and that was when a dogsitter was spending the night, and he is a super nervous dog so we chalked that up to bad nerves.
However, his appetite started to decrease (it was never terrific
anyway) and we were having to put some people food on his Nutro Natural Lamb and Rice to get him to eat. Very oddly, he has had 3 episodes of shivering, as if he was cold, but when he is indoors and the room is warm. He was having occassional blood in his loose stools, nothing mayor though.
Well, things with Oliver deteriorated yesterday. He had the rumbling starting at 7. I got up with him and he went outside and urinated. When he came inside, I gave him a bland milkbone, thinking that the stomach acid was bothering his empty stomach. He didn't want the bone, nor his breakfast. By 9, I had him out in the yard and he had lots of diahrea. By 10, he vomited a small amount of dark blood, then went out into the yard and blood literally shot from his rear end, like someone was standing by him and emptying an entire bottle of red wine. We rushed to the 24 hour Vet Center. The doctor did Xrays and bloodwork. Because he is so large, and because of his very deep chest, she could only get side Xrays not the lying on the back type. The side Xrays didn't indicate any obvious obstructions. The bloodwork indicated moderate dehydration, slightly elevated white blood cells, but most importantly, a high level of some intestinal enzyme. This enzyme could indicate pancreatitis, either as the primary problem or as a result from other GI stress. Unfortunately, she couldn't do a sonogram, since she didn't have the machine. So, her diagnosis was bleeding ulcers in the stomach and perhaps further in his GI tract. He is on an ulcer medication called Carafate and Flagyl. The vet recommend a sonogram if he didn't improve in 4 -5 days. So, he completed the 5 days of Flagyl and 8 days of i/d diet. He seemed to do worse (ie soft stools, sometimes with a little blood) after the Flagyl ended. As I said below, the uncanny part of this story is that his stomach settles within 10 minutes of being fed. So, the gurgling starts at 4 am, and if we get up and feed him (assuming he will eat) immediately, he does fine. I called the GI specialist last night and she still is pushing the ultrasound and colonoscopy. I asked her what she thought the ultrasound could show since she felt that he didn't have an obstruction and that a malignancy was unlikely given his age and his behavior (which is 100% normal, he doesn't act "sick" at ALL). She said that the sonogram would show any lymph nodes that might be enlarged and that she could then aspirate those and test the fluid. This seemed odd to me based on his symptoms. I said that I really suspected inflammatory bowel disease and she said that Prednisone would be her treatment for that, and she wouldn't prescribe without scoping him. I said that I understood that there are other, safer treatments and couldn't we try something first, because he will really not do well with the scoping - he will totally stress out and I want to protect him from anything not absolutely necessary (plus it is $2000 for the scope). She didn't seem to get what I was saying, but finally said we could try a "diet trial" for six weeks using z/d. I mentioned that his primary vet wanted to put him on duck/potato but she insisted that her preference was z/d. So, I was super confused, I really want to do the right thing for him, and don't just want to line someone's pockets while subjecting him to unneccessary tests. So I was finally able to get his breeder on the phone last night and found out some interesting stuff. She tells me that IBD is not uncommon in Weims and that 3 other dogs (that she knows of) out of her line are being actively treated for IBD. She felt that the colonoscopy was unneccessary and that he should be given a special diet (like fish/potato) and some short term prednisone. Plus, he should be fed a meal just before bed, since his symptoms only manifest at night. I felt that her approach made a lot more sense to me, at least it seems worth a try. My regular vet agreed to treat Oliver with a Fish and Potato diet for a couple weeks to see how he did. Well, before I even got to pick up the new food, he had another pretty bad attack this morning. I heard his stomach rumbling at about 6am, but couldn't convince him to eat something (which has stopped the rumbling before). So, by 7:30, he had one normal stool, followed by alot of diarrhea, mucous and some blood. When I went to pick up the new food, the vet also sent me home with some Flagyl based on this morning's events. So, if I don't feel he's getting better over the next week, I guess I will have to relent and have him "scoped". The Flagyl really helped before, so, it might be hard to tell what's going on if it helps again. Plus, I guess he can't be on Flagyl longterm, so that also presents problems. AND, he doesn't seem real interested in the dry Eukenuba Fish and Potato, where he really scarfed down the i/d.
Here is a copy of my prior post on this board. Sorry to repeat....
"Oliver (my 3.5 year old male Weimeraner) had been having some odd and troubling symptoms for about a month. It started in with a roaring, gurgling, loud sound from his abdomen at night while we were sleeping. Sometimes, he would sleep right through it, other times, he would vomit a little yellowish (bile?) liquid.
Never vomited his food, only on an empty stomach. We took him to the
vet and she said that she wasn't real worried because he wasn't
losing weight and to switch from 2 to 3 meals per day with a Pepcid AC
before bed. She also did a fecal test and that came back negative. Seemed to work for the last two weeks. He only got sick once and that was when a dogsitter was spending the night, and he is a super nervous dog so we chalked that up to bad nerves.
However, his appetite started to decrease (it was never terrific
anyway) and we were having to put some people food on his Nutro Natural Lamb and Rice to get him to eat. Very oddly, he has had 3 episodes of shivering, as if he was cold, but when he is indoors and the room is warm. He was having occassional blood in his loose stools, nothing mayor though.
Well, things with Oliver deteriorated yesterday. He had the rumbling starting at 7. I got up with him and he went outside and urinated. When he came inside, I gave him a bland milkbone, thinking that the stomach acid was bothering his empty stomach. He didn't want the bone, nor his breakfast. By 9, I had him out in the yard and he had lots of diahrea. By 10, he vomited a small amount of dark blood, then went out into the yard and blood literally shot from his rear end, like someone was standing by him and emptying an entire bottle of red wine. We rushed to the 24 hour Vet Center. The doctor did Xrays and bloodwork. Because he is so large, and because of his very deep chest, she could only get side Xrays not the lying on the back type. The side Xrays didn't indicate any obvious obstructions. The bloodwork indicated moderate dehydration, slightly elevated white blood cells, but most importantly, a high level of some intestinal enzyme. This enzyme could indicate pancreatitis, either as the primary problem or as a result from other GI stress. Unfortunately, she couldn't do a sonogram, since she didn't have the machine. So, her diagnosis was bleeding ulcers in the stomach and perhaps further in his GI tract. He is on an ulcer medication called Carafate and Flagyl. The vet recommend a sonogram if he didn't improve in 4 -5 days. So, he completed the 5 days of Flagyl and 8 days of i/d diet. He seemed to do worse (ie soft stools, sometimes with a little blood) after the Flagyl ended. As I said below, the uncanny part of this story is that his stomach settles within 10 minutes of being fed. So, the gurgling starts at 4 am, and if we get up and feed him (assuming he will eat) immediately, he does fine. I called the GI specialist last night and she still is pushing the ultrasound and colonoscopy. I asked her what she thought the ultrasound could show since she felt that he didn't have an obstruction and that a malignancy was unlikely given his age and his behavior (which is 100% normal, he doesn't act "sick" at ALL). She said that the sonogram would show any lymph nodes that might be enlarged and that she could then aspirate those and test the fluid. This seemed odd to me based on his symptoms. I said that I really suspected inflammatory bowel disease and she said that Prednisone would be her treatment for that, and she wouldn't prescribe without scoping him. I said that I understood that there are other, safer treatments and couldn't we try something first, because he will really not do well with the scoping - he will totally stress out and I want to protect him from anything not absolutely necessary (plus it is $2000 for the scope). She didn't seem to get what I was saying, but finally said we could try a "diet trial" for six weeks using z/d. I mentioned that his primary vet wanted to put him on duck/potato but she insisted that her preference was z/d. So, I was super confused, I really want to do the right thing for him, and don't just want to line someone's pockets while subjecting him to unneccessary tests. So I was finally able to get his breeder on the phone last night and found out some interesting stuff. She tells me that IBD is not uncommon in Weims and that 3 other dogs (that she knows of) out of her line are being actively treated for IBD. She felt that the colonoscopy was unneccessary and that he should be given a special diet (like fish/potato) and some short term prednisone. Plus, he should be fed a meal just before bed, since his symptoms only manifest at night. I felt that her approach made a lot more sense to me, at least it seems worth a try. My regular vet agreed to treat Oliver with a Fish and Potato diet for a couple weeks to see how he did. Well, before I even got to pick up the new food, he had another pretty bad attack this morning. I heard his stomach rumbling at about 6am, but couldn't convince him to eat something (which has stopped the rumbling before). So, by 7:30, he had one normal stool, followed by alot of diarrhea, mucous and some blood. When I went to pick up the new food, the vet also sent me home with some Flagyl based on this morning's events. So, if I don't feel he's getting better over the next week, I guess I will have to relent and have him "scoped". The Flagyl really helped before, so, it might be hard to tell what's going on if it helps again. Plus, I guess he can't be on Flagyl longterm, so that also presents problems. AND, he doesn't seem real interested in the dry Eukenuba Fish and Potato, where he really scarfed down the i/d.
Re: Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
This is just a thought. Years ago, I had trouble with my water pump system, and the plumber brought in some water from his mother`s farm. Every time I used that water, my dogs had mucous and blood with loose stools. The flagyll cleared and controlled the problem. Now I just give flagyll whenever there are symptoms. My dogs are in the creeks and runoff water every day. I think they sometimes pick up organisms from the water, but most are resistant. Check that there is no possibility of such infestation with your dog. Hope this is useful info.
Re: Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
I am no expert in anything- but I was thinking of the water itself, also. Far- fetched thought, but why not try giving bottled or different water for a few days and see? I know around here they clorinate the water. But maybe for some reason the water became different or is just not sitting well with you pup. Anyway- good luck.
Re: Long-term use of Flagyl questions.
Shelley, what you've posted about oliver is the exact same thing that is happening to my chloe (weiner dog). however, she is only 2 months old.. and she has the rumbling noise in her tummy, no vomit yet, but blood being shot from her rear end like red wine from time to time.
so was there an update on oliver? cuz my vet is now giving chloe I/D and she has great appetite. I have noticed that sometimes when she is laying on her back.. i see her tummy moving.. like a big lumps moving around in the same place. also, i see grooves on her tummy which looks like her intestine, but not sure.
please let me know if there is an update on chloe. i'm trying to get my vet to give her flagyl, but he doesn't think she needs that. i too, don't want someone else to line their pocket to give her test. we've done so many test already feces test, smear, and float, and all negative.
i was thinking about water too.. but right now we're giving chloe bottle water.. so it should be ok. but perhaps the breeder gave her tap water before.
so was there an update on oliver? cuz my vet is now giving chloe I/D and she has great appetite. I have noticed that sometimes when she is laying on her back.. i see her tummy moving.. like a big lumps moving around in the same place. also, i see grooves on her tummy which looks like her intestine, but not sure.
please let me know if there is an update on chloe. i'm trying to get my vet to give her flagyl, but he doesn't think she needs that. i too, don't want someone else to line their pocket to give her test. we've done so many test already feces test, smear, and float, and all negative.
i was thinking about water too.. but right now we're giving chloe bottle water.. so it should be ok. but perhaps the breeder gave her tap water before.