colitis

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so... i will quickly summarize logan's story... one snow day in january, there was a major snowstorm and logan refused to poop for a day or two... not uncommon. when he did poop, he strained a lot, and a drop or two of blood came after the poops. he continued bleeding for three days, and we took him to the vet. vet had him skip a meal, put him on a meat (ground chicken or turkey) + rice homecooked diet for three days, and metranidazole for ten days. he was on a mixture of 50:50 chicken soup:canidae at the time the first bleeding occurred... i was switching him to canidae because he had been itching his mouth for months on chicken soup, which i assumed to be some kind of allergy. anyway, the bleeding cleared up, we stopped the metra, and put him back (slowly, of course) on the chicken soup/canidae mixture. about a week and a half after this, right when we reached 100% canidae, he had major, flow blown colitis... ie major mucous in stools (almost like a plastic sheath), blood ON the stools, a gargly tummy, farting, smelling really bad, licking his anus all the time. so on my own, i switched him to meat + rice (chicken or turkey) as before, for three days, and finished up the metra i had leftover. we then put him on nutro lamb and rice large breed... he had been on this food for about 1.5 years until we switched to chicken soup. after a week and a half, he started bleeding on nutro... so we went back to the vet.

vet put him on meat (beef) + rice for a month or so, initially with no meds, unless we thought we needed it. well, after being on beef + rice for one week, the bleeding did not stop, and so we started up metra again. it was also at this time that he began to bleed only AFTER pooping... so while sleeping at night, the next morning we would see a stain of blood around his butt.

he was on beef + rice for one month... and the symptoms slowly disappeared... he licked occasionally, but that was the only symptom we saw. vet wanted to switch to canine i/d (chicken by-product based) because it is an easiliy digestible food. immediately logan started to stink, licked his bum, has some brown stuff leaking out of his butt. vet encouraged us to decrease the dosage by half, and all the symptoms got worse. so we stopped down that path.

so my idea all along was to switch to a novel protein and carbohydrate, in case of a food allergy. so my vet gave me the okay to switch him to natural balance sweet potato and fish (salmon). we stayed on metra from the time of meat and rice thru natural balance. he didnt show many symptome besides the occasional lickage right before he needed to go to the bathroom. btw, he has been pooping lots more on natural balance, but i assumed that was b/c of the fiber. these were the least symptoms we had seen in a while, so we started decreasing the dosage. 1/2, then, 1/4, then off. he was off the dosage for one week without symptoms, and he ran around on tennis courts one day. next day, he began to bleed. the vet began to again believe it was some sort of sustained injury, and put him back on metra. he said keep him on this for about 6 months at some low dosage, then think about taking him off it again.

problem was... his regular dose of metra did NOT stop the bleeding anymore. on my own at this point, i tried a couple fiber trials, by adding pumpkin (mostly insoluble fiber), or oatmeal (more soluble fiber), eliminating certain foods, blah blah blah. nothing worked. the vet upped his dose of metranidazole, but the bleeding has yet to stop. btw, metra has always stopped the bleeding within three to four days.

this whole time we have had varying colors in blood staining, varying amounts of mucous, sometimes no mucous, really just a surprise every day.

a week or so ago, he was running around a lot one day, and the next night he had an AWFUL BM. it was APPLE RED with mucous intertwined. not juicy, just RED and gross. i waited til the next BM, which had a little maroon blood on turds, then the next BM was clear... back to staining around the anus. however, his overall symptoms on natural balance have been much reduced compared to other foods. i looked this up in a journal of nutrition article on colitis in the large intestine (has to be the large intestine b/c the blood is bright red). they of course said that elimination diet trials are crucial, and so is drug therapy. they found that two important factors in the health of the colon are omega 3/6 fatty acid balance (preferred ratios of 5:1 to 10:1) and a good balance of soluble/insoluble fiber. they recommend a moderately soluble fiber like beet pulp.

anyway, i was thinking that the salmon is probably really helping out on the fatty acid end, and the sweet potato is about 50:50 soluble:insoluble fiber... which may be why he is doing "okay" on this food compared to others.

to summarize... we initially thought it was an injury, then a food allergy, then an injury, etc.

this vet is sort of sick of this, it has been six months since it all started. yesterday i took him for a second opinion at his puppyhood vet, who is very good, just 1.5 hrs + away.

he listened to everything we had to say, i had the medical records faxed over from the other vet. he asked lots of questions, etc... he said the other vet was on the right path, but seemed to miss a couple key things... this new vet felt logan all around, inside the rectum, colon swab, ran a bunch of fecal tests, urine tests, total health blood chemistry profile, T4-ED (some immune test?), heartworm test, xrays on front and side, lots of stuff/ ($500 worth!). his organs and colon look fine, but they found blood in his urine and rod-like structures in the poop. he watched us as we took logan for a BM outside, to see what he looks like when he poops, and what the turds look like. he is going to run the rest of the tests and call me... he also said this is a special case, he is going to survey the literature, talk to ppl, etc.

next step would be to stick him on corticosteroids, but this vet does not want to condemn him to a life on steroids without a colonoscopy. i agree. so, if nothing comes up in these tests, off to colonoscopy we go ($800-1000).

the vet said this could be an immune-remediated disease... maybe an allergy that developed into a chronic problem, with immune system attacking the colon. this can only be diagnosed with a colonoscopy. he will have to refer us to an internal specialist for that.

he said everything we have tried is good, he gave us some more metra (he didnt want to change anything just yet), de-wormed him again (once before during this time, he was dewormed by the old vet), and stuck him on antibiotics for his urinary tract.

he said the blood in urine is strange, but not uncommon, and may just be a secondary infection.

as you can probably tell bythe tone of my post, im pretty exhausted with this topic, but i think we are headed in the right direction. i think i have already spent $2k on stuff since this started, so a few short, expensive episodes may be well-worth it in the longterm.

god forbid if he develops cancer (which they are testing for) or something else b/c we leave this to be a chronic problem.

vet did say over and over how beautiful he is, how healthy he looks, and that he is in great shape. no sign of a sick dog externally.

any ideas?? lol... ill keep you guys posted.

[linnie]

Please do. My girlfriend had a dog that was the same and it was a long and expensive excersise for her to work through.

It really worries me all the changing of diet. I notice at one stage you had it under control until the vet suggested a change in diet.
Sometimes we know our animal better than the vet JMO.