Inflammatory Bowel Disease

[Paul Allison]

Join our free community today.

Connect with other like-minded dog lovers!

Login or Register

Sorry for the grim sounding topic, but my 3 year old whippet boy Jim has been diagnosed with this condition after a long period of stomach upsets. He was always upset by bought dog food as a puppy so we switched to a home cooked natural diet (lamb and green veg) with added slippery elm from Dorwest Herbs. We did pretty well for a while until several major upsets led to lots of tests. He's now on Hills z/d ultra, which is hypo-allergenic but is still getting upsets. The next step appears to be steroids, but we aren't very keen. I've done the trawl of the net looking for advice but thought a post on here might bring some practical advice from someone who has been through this too. There do appear to be herbal supplements available in the States which can be used in conjunction with the vets prescribed diet, but no one seems to stock them over here.

I'm not very up on using this posting system, so what I intend to do is keep logging in over time to see if any of you have any advice. We'd be grateful for anything you might be able to say.

Thanks

Paul and Debbie

 

[jayp]

Sorry for the grim sounding topic, but my 3 year old whippet boy Jim has been diagnosed with this condition after a long period of stomach upsets. He was always upset by bought dog food as a puppy so we switched to a home cooked natural diet (lamb and green veg) with added slippery elm from Dorwest Herbs. We did pretty well for a while until several major upsets led to lots of tests. He's now on Hills z/d ultra, which is hypo-allergenic but is still getting upsets. The next step appears to be steroids, but we aren't very keen. I've done the trawl of the net looking for advice but thought a post on here might bring some practical advice from someone who has been through this too. There do appear to be herbal supplements available in the States which can be used in conjunction with the vets prescribed diet, but no one seems to stock them over here.
I'm not very up on using this posting system, so what I intend to do is keep logging in over time to see if any of you have any advice. We'd be grateful for anything you might be able to say.

Thanks

Paul and Debbie

Hi Paul and Debbie, Welcome, sorry your boy is not well. I have a very good friend whose whippet bitch has had this from 12 weeks of age, she was so ill they thought she may not even survive. My friend suffers from severe allergies herself so was very well informed on all things diet related, she tried absolutely everything dietwise for her bitch including all the herbals such as slippery elm, treebark etc, the only food the bitch can tolerate is RAW lamb which she has in the form of ribs and necks to give bone content. Even on this diet which took months to sort out she had to have steroid treatment, this did save her life and she is now on a very low dose of 1/4 tablet per day. She is not able to wean her off completely as she will relapse if this very low dose is reduced further. She is however now 8 years old and leads a normal life

It all depends i suppose how severe the problem is, it can be hormone related, or stress related , im sorry i cant give you a miracle answer but just to say steroids can be a lifesaver although they can have their own issues with prolonged use, all you can do is be guided by your vet

Good luck

jan

 

[June Jonigk]

I had a whippet with IBD/Ulcerative Colitis, and she was very ill before we tried her on Hill's D/D which is hypoallergenic. I haven't worked in a vets for the last 9 years, and Z/D is a new addition to the Hill's range since I worked there. She was maintained on Hill's quite well, but the odd bout was treated with Sulfasalazine/Salazopyrin which does have side effects, but she used to pass jelly like motions with blood, and had a lot of pain - so we decided the risk of side effects was worth risking to give her a quality of life, and she did very well for about 5 years until she became ill with another disease which the vets thought was related to the bowel problems.

Good luck with Jim :luck: I hope he has a speedy recovery, and you are able to maintain him comfortably. Let us know how you get on.

 

[Paul Allison]

Hi Jan

Thanks for the good news that they can live a good life even with this disease. We were interested that your friends bitch had it so young. We think this was probably the case with Jim but it just kept being diagnosed as something else. Our vet is surprised at him having the condition at three, so your friends vet must have been very on the ball.There is information on the net where people think that the problem is cause by the multiple vaccines we give them, and certainly Jim reacted strongly and badly to his.

Best wishes

Paul and Debbie

 

[Paul Allison]

Thanks June for the reassurance over using steroids.

Paul and Debbie

 

[johns]

Thanks June for the reassurance over using steroids.
Paul and Debbie

My Rita has had ongoing gastric issues and ended up at the Royal Veterinary College and diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, an immune related condition that is apparently well known in whippets according to the specialists there. This was 4 months ago when she was only 10 months old. Previous to that, as she had been losing weight, she was on Z/D to see if that would stabilize her but she kept on losing weight and got very poorly. The advice I had was to transfer her to D/D and strictly enforce this diet, making sure there was no scavenging on walks, no treats or chews. D/D comes in various unusual varieties, in this case duck, and the idea is the novel protein source and rice means the gut does not react to the food and reject it. She also had a course of antibiotics. She very quickly put on weight - went from 9.5 up to 11.5 kilos and has been doing reasonably well since, but it is a lot of work to make sure she doesn't get hold of other stuff (including cat food, rabbit dropping etc etc)

After she put the weight on I have been advised to slowly introduce normal foods and treats back into her diet. I would add that all of this was after an endoscopy, ultrasounds, blood and liver tests (thank god for insurance - it ran into many thousands!). At no point did either my vet or the specialist at the RVC want to use steriods, particularly as she is so young. If you do try a new diet, it is important to introduce it very slowly so as not to trigger an immune response.

Good luck, it is a very worrying issue, especially with whippets as they have so little in the way of reserves.

 

[moonlake]

Hi Jan
Thanks for the good news that they can live a good life even with this disease. We were interested that your friends bitch had it so young. We think this was probably the case with Jim but it just kept being diagnosed as something else. Our vet is surprised at him having the condition at three, so your friends vet must have been very on the ball.There is information on the net where people think that the problem is cause by the multiple vaccines we give them, and certainly Jim reacted strongly and badly to his.

Best wishes

Paul and Debbie

If you do decide to go the steroids route (typically prednisolone) make sure that you are also giving something like Zantac to protect the stomach lining as pred can cause ulcers - best discuss this with your vet. There is a very good support group for autoimmune diseases http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/K9Auto-ImmuneSupport/ which I have found very helpful.

The breed clubs are currently trying to get a handle on what, if any, diseases most commonly affect whippets. Bad reactions to vaccines are not uncommon and of course, if there is an underlying problem, the vaccine is more than likely to trigger it - the vaccine manufacturers themselves say they should only be given to healthy dogs so once your dog has been diagnosed with an illness - no more vaccine or chemical flea treatments, etc . It is surprising how many vets disregard this and continue to vaccinate ill dogs - but then, they do have a vested interest in dogs with recurring problems.

Gay

www.moonlake.co.uk

Good luck with Jim