My dog's diarrhea and weight loss persist despite treatment. What now?

There are several things I try for diarrhea that is not responding to typical treatments - sometimes I give the medications for a longer duration, sometimes I'll try a different antibiotic, and sometimes I'll try a different diet (which it sounds like your vet is attempting with the EN). Your vet might also want to retest a stool sample - sometimes with diarrhea there just isn't enough actual feces to get a positive results. Chronic diarrhea can also be caused by inflammatory bowel disease which is a more severe form of IBS and ultrasound and special blood testing can help diagnose this. Corticosteroid medications and B12 injections are often the recommended treatments for IBD.

If Lexi is still playful and eating, and her stools are improving (even if they're not normal yet), then it sounds like you're on the right track. I would continue with her course of flagyl as your vet prescribed. If her stools don't continue to get firmer, you might want to ask your vet about adding a probiotic, or even consider the Hills Biome prescription food, which has been shown to be very effective for diarrhea issues. If the diarrhea worsens again, reach back out to your vet. We often start by treating diarrhea fairly symptomatically and supportively, but there are many other potential causes of diarrhea including Addisons disease, intestinal parasites, inflammatory bowel, food sensitivities, etc - so depending on the diagnostics your vet ran on Lexi initially, they may recommend further workup if this issue becomes recurrent. Hope this helps! Feel free to reach out if you have any follow-up questions.

This is a horrible situation for you and Joe. Many diseases can cause diarrhoea both in the gut and outside of it from othervorgans such as the liver. It is promising that the ultrasound was unremarkable but some subtle changes may not be noted. I would suggest asking your vet to perform a full blood profile including folate and cobalamun, bile acids and endocrine profile. If nothing shows up on these bloods the next step would be endoscopy and biopsies of the gut. For example he could have an inflammatory bowel disease that will only respond to steroids, or it could be a vit B12 deficiency, so It is important to get to the bottom of this.

Ths can be a tricky disease to get rid of. The diarrhea caused by Giardia can lead to colitis, an inflammation in the bowel wall, which can make the diarrhea worse and/or persist despite the treatment. You will need to make sure you are cleaning up all of Kenai’s feces daily so that he does not become reinfected. It may also be helpful to ask your veterinarian about adding a probiotic to Kenai’s treatment plan. This can help the diarrhea clear up more quickly. And finally, it may be worth retesting Kenai’s feces to make sure nothing else is going on. He may need an additional antibiotic to help clear up the diarrhea. I hope this helps. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Best of luck.

Hi and thanks for your question. If the diarrhea starts again after the metronidazole, it could any number of issues. If she was diagnosed with a parasite, like Giardia, or a bacteria, it could be she still has the parasite or bacterial present in her GI and will need another round of metronidazole. That is not totally uncommon. A viral infection may be another possibility as well as a food allergy or inflammatory bowel disease. I hope this helped!

That is a very difficult situation. You may talk to your vet about treating for giardia (even if the test was negative), IBD, food allergies, an aggressive dewormer, running a GI panel, or referral to a specialist in internal medicine. The next step may be biopsies through exploratory surgery or endoscopy. Many cats with diarrhea of unknown cause will respond to a prescription hypoallergenic diet.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding Remi. In the bloodwork that was run, did it include GI specific testing such as cobalamin, folate, PLI and TLI levels. These are values that will give information such as the location of GI disease (small intestine vs pancreas) and treatment options. I typically do this planel in conjunction with an abdominal ultrasound. This information with the ultrasound can give insight into conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, food sensitivities or as you mentioned cancer. The anti-inflammatory properties of the antibiotic she was on could help even with a tumor in GI tract, but there are so many other causes of diarrhea that would respond as well. I think it is worth pursuing further bloodwork and the ultrasound. If you can get a diagnosis, then a treatment plan can be developed. I hope this information helps!