Chronic diarrhea suggestions

[devotedinhim]

Recently in the last month my GSD has had 3 very aggressive bouts of water diarrhea. Acting completely normal otherwise. Flagyl (Metrodyzanale) clears up his symptoms very quickly but only lasts for 7 days post running antibiotics. Today it came back and we are back on flagyl and Tynal because my vet has a hunch he may have an underlying parasite so we are going to run that with a fiber supplement and pumpkin puree. If this fails we will be moving food. He is currently on hills sensitive stomach chicken and barley blend for the last 2 weeks. My suspection is if diarrhea returns we can rule out a parasite and it will be on to food changes. I’ve been looking into moving him off chicken completely if we get to this point, specifically the hills sensitive D/D potato and salmon. If anyone has suggestions or similar experiences with a food that worked for them, I’m all ears.

 

[ateam7]

@devotedinhim I went through this with two of my GSDs. Hills Science Diet only aggravated the situation. When/ if you rule out parasites, it’s a long road to figuring out the sensitivity. We tried several grain free foods and the only one my second one did well with was the Rachel Ray brand. My vet advised that grain free can leas to long term heart issues so we slowly added other ingredients to see what she could tolerate. She’s doing great now but it takes a lot of patience.

 

[devotedinhim]

@ateam7 Have you had any luck with any sort of supplements to stop the diarrhea that isn’t an antibiotic? My vet feels that if it isn’t a parasite she thinks food is moving too quickly through the GI hence why we are incorporating pumpkin and a daily psyllium husk. She also recommended this “Bio sponge” medicine that can be used for flares. So I guess I’ll be checking that out as well as we work through figuring out what agrees with his stomach. I just don’t want to have to continue re upping on Flagyl because I know it’s not great for gut bacteria.

 

[ateam7]

@devotedinhim I am trying to remember with my first one, I think we tried colitis supplements such as aloe juice, pumpkin, and something else that I can’t remember. We went to a health food store if I recall.

 

[elfynity]

@devotedinhim Don’t know about medical but food was where I focused. After all over edges of room and so forth took all day to clean decided to buy expensive fresh frozen food. That was about 6 years ago. All the digestive problems stopped in about 2-3 days. Never ever had this happen to our Boy again. He’s 11 1/2 now and very healthy. In 6 years no vet bills for these problems.

 

[sozoeso]

@devotedinhim Wonder if it might be worth removing chicken from his diet. It's one of the most common allergies for dogs.

Our pup had the same issue. For us, weirdly, it happened cyclically, about once a month, for a couple days at a time. We wondered if it could possibly be hormonal, because why else would it be so cyclical? Consulted an animal nutritionist, they suggested removing chicken as a first step. We did and the diarrhea stopped entirely, Never had it again.

(fwiw, we were feeding high quality (& expensive!) Origen. Moved to Kirkland Salmon & Sweet Potato.)

(also fwiw...we had an issue with parasites, and used activated charcoal. No meds, affordable, and very effective)

Not saying chicken would be the issue for your pup, but it's a relatively simple thing to try.

 

[devotedinhim]

@sozoeso Out of curiosity, was there any other symptoms included with just the diarrhea? I notice now my dog does scratch his face a bit, but I don’t see any weird skin irritation and frankly all of this has caused a lot of anxiety so I hyper fixate on everything that could be normal behavior lol. I also don’t know if he could randomly 2 years in develop an allergy to chicken, up until early March he rarely got diarrhea so when he did a 12-24 fast always brought back solid stool. If this Tylan and extra fiber to his diet doesn’t work I think the vet wants to experiment with new food though. They basically told me they want to try different things exclusively so we can eliminate options otherwise the diarrhea comes back and we change too much we don’t know what isn’t working.The diarrhea he has recently is also not normal that is what initially sent me to the vet it comes out like a water hose.

 

[sozoeso]

@devotedinhim It happened on the same timeline for us. Seems to hit when she was about 2-ish years old. Weird!

At the time, no, we didn't really notice anything else but...later on, we realized she licks her paws & bottom (or vagina??) a lot. We thought it was just Shepherd boredom/obsessing, but she gets lots & lots of outside time with us, so that didn't seem right. Vet suggested Cytopoint injection for allergies (probably grass, etc, which is why we noticed paws & bottom/vagina licking, because walking & also squatting to pee/poop). And wow did it make a difference. All the scratching/licking stopped. For us, it seems to work for a few months at a time (longer in wintertime), which is good because it's expensive!

Also, our pup would get yeast infections in her ears. (omg she's such a fragile 97 pound creature. lol) I have a friend come over few times a year & put something in her ears & it takes care of it (cannot remember the name of the product, but if you want, I can ask her) Also, Banixx worked for the yeasties.

So I think our pup (maybe yours?) is just sort-of sensitive in the gut & systemically. Allergies, yeast infections, (we had a bout with kidney stones omg) etc. We have her on a probiotic & enzymes, along with fresh veggies (& no chicken, not even in treats, which requires some attention, bc so many have chicken somewhere in there!) We've also done activated charcoal (I mix a couple teaspoons in yogurt) when her tummy seems upset. (also good for parasites!!!)

On the elimination diet thing...if it were me, I think I'd ask the vet about starting with removing chicken. It's the simplest & most common allergen, and you'll know pretty quickly.

 

[devotedinhim]

@sozoeso Thank you for the response, he does do a little licking around his genital area, bit of face scratching but luckily no ear infections or paw licking. Once we eliminate the Giardia possibility I’ll mention moving off chicken which I’m hopeful is the issue . Mine is a pretty small boy but he’s maintained his 75ish pound weight over the last year so hoping it’s not EPI. Feel like over the last month we would see a noticeable change in his weight but luckily that’s not happening.

 

[sozoeso]

@devotedinhim Good luck! I hope you find a solution quickly.

 

[fl269fl269]

@devotedinhim Why is your vet checking for parasites by waiting to see if he has diarrhea rather than taking a sample in and paying for a definitive test?

 

[devotedinhim]

@fl269fl269 We already did send out a sample. It came back negative, but the issues I’m having she had a year back with her own dog. She spent over 500 dollars to do another test sending out a sample to Texas A&M after having a negative test locally her A&M test came back positive. The stool test’s she said are not very conclusive unless we want to send it out to A&M. Instead of spending 500 dollars to verify we can try out using Tylan for a month since there is no harm, he is a young strong dog. Her thought is there is a good chance he may have Giardia which sometimes doesn’t show on local fecal samples.

 

[irishcanadian402]

@devotedinhim Did you test for giardia? My boy had them, hard to get rid of those buggers.

For the diarrhea you can add a tablespoon of psyllium husk powder (with water) to the food.

With diarrhea of course look at enough (but not too much because electrolytes) water intake and add some electrolytes. I think pumpkin "soup" might basically do the same trick as Moro's carrot soup, but for the especially long cooked carrot soup I know the track record and studies. We were recommended this combination by our vet in addition to the medication against our giardia problem.

But first - check for all the parasites because if it's them they need somewhat aggressive medication to go away.

 

[devotedinhim]

@irishcanadian402 Doing pumpkin and Psyllium starting today going forward. We’re currently running antibiotics for a longer duration to eliminate parasites from the question. That doesn’t work onto food elimination. I may also get him tested for EPI for the peace of mind. Although my vet said he doesn’t have any of the symptoms other than diarrhea present for it.

 

[dialogues]

@devotedinhim Poor baby. Our dog finally kicked persistent Giardia about a month ago. Our vet is big on probiotics so we were doing a lot of supplements. I think what finally worked was a combo of Azithromycin and Drontal. Good luck and I hope for a speedy solution.

 

[devotedinhim]

@dialogues The feeling is that is what is going on with my boy. He’s a day off flagyl for the third time still pooping solid. Both of the other times 6-7 days later diarrhea returns so we have added Tylan for about a month to hopefully kill it off. It’s crazy how persistent the bug is.

 

[devotedinhim]

Update: Guess I’ll post this for anyone curious or if others are having same issue and stumble upon this thread. We are now 14 days diarrhea free (7 off metro, the lucky number). I’m going to assume Moose had Giardia. He’s responding fine to his chicken food so can rule out allergy, and he’s Maintained his weight extremely well over the course of this month plus long battle so likely not EPI/SIBO. He may have been slightly deficient on fiber though, I noticed his poops have always been slightly wet and the addition of Psyllium and pumpkin puree to his breakfast has really made his stools significantly more solid and healthy. We are going to continue using Tylan for another month and wean him off to see what happens. If it comes back he is going to stay on Tylan long term with the thought he just has IBS. Super relieved it didn’t end up being EPI.