His bloodwork, other than when his ALT went up a few months back, is always completely normal.
Dr. Hall's report was briefly discussed...
Basically it was recommended by Iowa and Dr. Hall to stop everything and start from scratch again with diagnostics. When Mikey was really not doing well, I completely threw that idea out the window. If he is going to be weaned off immunosuppressive drugs and continues to have problems, I would consider endoscopy.
I don't know where else to look for infection. He's had cultures and blood tests, etc. and nothing ever comes back (although the occasional urine culture gets us something when he's having a bout with his urinary issues). We did the fungal stuff, too...
Mikey Man update (its been a while)...
Re: Mikey Man update (its been a while)...
JMM -- JaMi Maltese -- Dust Mops with Drive
Re: Mikey Man update (its been a while)...
Well this is where you'd be between a rock and a hard place....an endoscopy, with a sample taken for pathology, could be helpful in determining bacterial infection, but an endocrine profile +/- ultrasound would be less invasive.
..........Traci
Re: Mikey Man update (its been a while)...
Or we can do it all LOL I'd like to avoid anesthesia all together, but I'm not completely opposed to the endoscopy now...it took me a while to think it through.
JMM -- JaMi Maltese -- Dust Mops with Drive
Re: Mikey Man update (its been a while)...
Well...we had an interesting visit.
She is not as concerned about his lack of weight gain as I am. She feels if he is maintaining at 5 1/2 lbs, then that is pretty good. She went through his previous blood panels again and does not feel like we would gain anything from repeating the GI bloodwork or fungal panel, etc. We did a superchem today to check his pancreatic values (pancreatitis) and all. He had a CBC last week which was normal.
She has some Zofran and will bring it in tomorrow for us to try. It is about $40/tablet, but if it works for him and I can cut up the 8 mg tablets, it is $115 for a 3 pack of 8 mg tablets and his dose is 1/8 tab once a day. I'm looking into pricing to see if I can find it any cheaper and price the liquid, too. Anybody have suggestions of where to look?
She also had another new Royal Canin fish based diet and he likes it! We're trying that. She said if I could get him eating a soft food, then we could to a diet consult, but since he doesn't eat cooked or soft food, to stick with kibble for now.
If the Zofran helps his nausea and he feels good and I can get the drug, I'll stick with that. Otherwise she said we can go to Cornell and they will want to cut him and repeat everything or we can do endoscopy here with her and see where we stand. I'll think about it and see how the new diet and Zofran work. She feels he would be okay with anesthesia for endoscopy since his liver values are so good and he is pretty stable. She shares my concerns about doing invasive surgery, but if it was that or put him down, it should be a careful consideration.
She says we've treated him for every form of IBD and he's had antibiotics and such that should have addressed other problems. He either just is not responsive to treatment or he has something that we just can't test for easily and it may or may not show up on repeat biopsies.
She is not as concerned about his lack of weight gain as I am. She feels if he is maintaining at 5 1/2 lbs, then that is pretty good. She went through his previous blood panels again and does not feel like we would gain anything from repeating the GI bloodwork or fungal panel, etc. We did a superchem today to check his pancreatic values (pancreatitis) and all. He had a CBC last week which was normal.
She has some Zofran and will bring it in tomorrow for us to try. It is about $40/tablet, but if it works for him and I can cut up the 8 mg tablets, it is $115 for a 3 pack of 8 mg tablets and his dose is 1/8 tab once a day. I'm looking into pricing to see if I can find it any cheaper and price the liquid, too. Anybody have suggestions of where to look?
She also had another new Royal Canin fish based diet and he likes it! We're trying that. She said if I could get him eating a soft food, then we could to a diet consult, but since he doesn't eat cooked or soft food, to stick with kibble for now.
If the Zofran helps his nausea and he feels good and I can get the drug, I'll stick with that. Otherwise she said we can go to Cornell and they will want to cut him and repeat everything or we can do endoscopy here with her and see where we stand. I'll think about it and see how the new diet and Zofran work. She feels he would be okay with anesthesia for endoscopy since his liver values are so good and he is pretty stable. She shares my concerns about doing invasive surgery, but if it was that or put him down, it should be a careful consideration.
She says we've treated him for every form of IBD and he's had antibiotics and such that should have addressed other problems. He either just is not responsive to treatment or he has something that we just can't test for easily and it may or may not show up on repeat biopsies.
JMM -- JaMi Maltese -- Dust Mops with Drive