Worms
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 1:37 am
It seems like we have been battling Hendrix's digestive issues for a long time. Finally, about 2-3 weeks ago, sh*t hit the fan. He had a major case of dire rear in a rainbow of colors. I knew something was up but couldn't figure out what was going on. Many restrictions and a few courses of chicken and rice later and I thought we had a handle on it. The vet deals with my frequent calls and tells me it's all fine. The problem, which they didn't seem to be seeing at the time, was Hendrix was as skinny as a rail in my opinion. So I continued on, playing with food ratios, bland diets, and more simplified diets. His food had already been switched once before, and I could only wonder if maybe he really was super sensitive to Orijen, which his breeder swore wasn't the case. I was at a loss - I upped his kibble and he got the runs again. I reduced it and he was fine-ish. I fed him more and more chicken and beef as snacks to try to get his weight up, hit a high calorie ratio that didn't seem to give him dire rear, but nothing was working. He still remained skinny. Multiple fece analysis I had the vet run showed nothing. Then, just a few days ago, the multi-colored poo tour returned with some new additions - green junk coming out of his sheath and foamy poo.
Finally the vet agreed he needed to come in. We go in earlier this week and they start at how skinny he is. At 5.5 months he's 36.8 lbs, a whopping two pounds since I had brought him in 3 weeks ago. Not a bad weight but he's tall and you can count his ribs, his hip bones are sticking out... I know they're giving me the evil eye as they interrogate me on his meal plan and how much he eats. I can see they're stunned by the sheer amount of food he eats daily. Some of the vet techs knew my stories and calls about his GI problems. So they take him back and I hear them running expanded cytology panels on him… vet comes back and says, besides a bit of bark in his poo, really all they found was a minor bacteria overgrowth in his stool. So they hand me the antibiotics and give me the chance at a dewormer - which I took - and say if that doesn't help then maybe we're looking at Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency.
So out of chance I start him on the dewormer first… and within twenty four hours his stool is normal (still a bit off color) and there's these tiny tiny TINY white things in it… Of course we loose the beautiful normal-ish stool to the poo fest dewormers are associated with. We're now on day four and the minor redness on the sides of his eyes, which I have become accustomed too, and thought were perhaps due to our dusty climate, have disappeared. This is on the dewormer alone. I can see him putting on weight every day - even people comment that the difference is visually significant from last week to this week.
I don't think I've seen any big worms, mainly small white ones, and they're very very very tiny. Whatever he had was apparently so illusive tests were missing it and it makes me wonder how long he's had worms, if not a bacterial infection that went unchecked because the vet wouldn't listen to me. I supposed the tests did support their theory of "it's just what puppies do" but at the same time… There's a reason I'm calling multiple times in the past 3 weeks.
Now, he is on a heart worm preventative, Heartguard Plus. I'm wondering if anyone else has had something weird happen with their pups on this? Maybe he caught the infection in between doses? Should I be considering switching? I should have taken in one of his worm-y poos and had his vet analyze it to see what worm it was… but I didn't think of it until now.
Finally the vet agreed he needed to come in. We go in earlier this week and they start at how skinny he is. At 5.5 months he's 36.8 lbs, a whopping two pounds since I had brought him in 3 weeks ago. Not a bad weight but he's tall and you can count his ribs, his hip bones are sticking out... I know they're giving me the evil eye as they interrogate me on his meal plan and how much he eats. I can see they're stunned by the sheer amount of food he eats daily. Some of the vet techs knew my stories and calls about his GI problems. So they take him back and I hear them running expanded cytology panels on him… vet comes back and says, besides a bit of bark in his poo, really all they found was a minor bacteria overgrowth in his stool. So they hand me the antibiotics and give me the chance at a dewormer - which I took - and say if that doesn't help then maybe we're looking at Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency.
So out of chance I start him on the dewormer first… and within twenty four hours his stool is normal (still a bit off color) and there's these tiny tiny TINY white things in it… Of course we loose the beautiful normal-ish stool to the poo fest dewormers are associated with. We're now on day four and the minor redness on the sides of his eyes, which I have become accustomed too, and thought were perhaps due to our dusty climate, have disappeared. This is on the dewormer alone. I can see him putting on weight every day - even people comment that the difference is visually significant from last week to this week.
I don't think I've seen any big worms, mainly small white ones, and they're very very very tiny. Whatever he had was apparently so illusive tests were missing it and it makes me wonder how long he's had worms, if not a bacterial infection that went unchecked because the vet wouldn't listen to me. I supposed the tests did support their theory of "it's just what puppies do" but at the same time… There's a reason I'm calling multiple times in the past 3 weeks.
Now, he is on a heart worm preventative, Heartguard Plus. I'm wondering if anyone else has had something weird happen with their pups on this? Maybe he caught the infection in between doses? Should I be considering switching? I should have taken in one of his worm-y poos and had his vet analyze it to see what worm it was… but I didn't think of it until now.