My dog's bilirubin is high. What does this mean for their liver?

A single value alone without any other information/references doesn't really mean much. That said, if the home test showed any abnormalities, I would definitely bring it up with your vet. They may want to retest urine in-house with a UA, or suggest additional testing such as bloodwork that may pick up any other minute changes ongoing. If the value is abnormal enough, or other values also show as abnormal, your vet can then prescribe any treatment as needed for overall body health and support.

Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! When the liver suffers an insult (such as a toxicity) it can take some time for it to regenerate/repair and all values to return to normal. This process can take months. Typical supportive medications given to dogs with liver injury include Denamarin, Vitamin E, Acetylcysteine, and Ursodiol. A prescription hepatic diet (such as Hill's L/D or Royal Canin Hepatic) may also aid in decreasing any ongoing liver injury. Ursodiol is an oral medication, available by prescription only, that can add in reducing bilirubin by stimulating bile flow from the gallbladder through the biliary tree. It cannot be used if there is underlying gallbladder disorder, such as a gallbladder mucocele (gallstone). Your veterinarian will prescribe this if they feel this will benefit Tasha's recovery. You can certainly schedule a recheck with Tasha's veterinarian to discuss any additional medications or treatment options that may benefit her. The liver is a highly regenerative organ, and if given the proper support can make a complete or near-complete recovery.

I would be suspicious of a few things to cause these elevations, including: liver disease, or cholestatic disease (involving the gallbladder). Neoplasia also can't be ruled out here. I would highly recommend the next step here to be an abdominal ultrasound and a bile acid test to check the liver function. The ultrasound is valuable here b/c we can get a good look at the gallbladder and check for a mucocoele. I do hope that Bear's condition is able to be managed well moving forward. Best wishes and take care.

Jaundice is a sign that the liver is not functioning properly. This can be caused by giving the dog human pain medicine, a virus (leptospirosis and others), parsites, a liver abscess and many more. Jaundice is serious, and you need to take Shin Hye to a veterinarian for an exam and blood tests.

Bilirubin can be present due to a liver problem or rapid destruction of red blood cells. Blood work and an abdominal ultrasound are the two most commonly used diagnostics. Treatment depends on the cause. Liver disease is managed with medication and diet. Red blood cell destruction is managed with medications (depending on the cause). I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

Sounds like she had acute liver failure. I'm so sorry this happened. Unfortunately, liver failure can have any number of possible causes. Without a necropsy (autopsy) with histopathology of the tissues you will probably never know exactly what happened. I'm so sorry for your loss :( ( https://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/endocrine/c_multi_hepatic_failure_acute )

I assume when you say liver enzymes you mean ALT? There a few enzymes we look at and elevation in 1 value makes us consider different causes then elevation in another. ALT elevation is caused make liver cell injury and leakage of enzymes in to the bloodstream. As the liver sees all the blood of the body it can be quite a reactive organ. So the question is whether the liver enzyme is up because of something wrong with the liver/vessels to liver themselves (such as an infectious or inflammatory cause (hepatitis) or a shunt (more common in younger dogs)) or something the liver is responding too (toxicity, disease of over organs). Unfortunately all parts of sago palm are toxic to dogs with the seeds (nuts) being most toxic. And it can be quite challenging to know if this is the cause. If it is sago it depends on the degree of ingestion as to how severe the case is. Unfortunately the treatment for this is supportive as you have been doing. The values may continue to increase or hopefully may plateau off and remain mildly elevated or decrease again. Ultrasound will help to rule out other things going on in the abdomen, assess the liver for changes in texture (although a liver can appear normal on an ultrasound and not be functionally normal), and sometimes identify a portosystemic shunt. After the ultrasound then sampling either first by fine needle aspirate or with a biopsy (needed for many cases of hepatitis, some other issues) can be performed. Checking platelets and clotting times should be performed prior to liver sampling in patients whose livers are not normal to decrease the risk of bleeding from sampling. As shunts are more common in younger animals , if this is suspected, additional imaging may be recommended prior to sampling as ultrasound will not identify all shunts. There is also a disorder called microvascular dysplasia that can be found in the liver. This is best diagnosed by liver biopsy and the sample sent to a pathologist who specializes in liver pathology. I hope this has helped and not confused you more. It sounds like your vet has taken the appropriate steps thus far and has recommended the next best steps to try to rule out some other causes. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!