My senior Lab has loose stool, weight loss. What are next steps?

The next step for Cody is an abdominal ultrasound. This is going to look at the architecture of the organs. If this was performed or nothing was found then I would recommend biopsies of the stomach and potentially intestines. Thank you for using PetCoch.

I would wonder if Shadow is developing some sort of food allergy or perhaps inflammatory bowel disease. I would recommend to talk to Shadow's doctor about a food trial for Shadow. This would be the best way to know if the diarrhea is related to food. I would also recommend to supplement him with probiotics more frequently as this helps to maintain a good GI flora. The doctor may also want to check blood values and maybe even an x-ray to rule out other causes of chronic diarrhea.

That sounds like a very difficult situation. If the steroids are not helping Abby within about 72 hours, I would call your veterinarian to let me know, so they can decide what to do next based on the results they have so far. It sounds like your next option would be to do intestinal biopsies to try to figure out exactly what is going on in Abby's gut. Other options would be a consultation with a veterinary internal medicine specialist if one is available in your area.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding Nova. A diet change seems like a reasonable next step. I would try a prescription food that has higher fiber such as Purina ProPlan Veterinary Diets EN Fiber Response. If this does not solve the problem, then I would recommend a blood panel to assess pancreatic values as well as cobalamin and folate levels. This are vitamins that are used in digestion. Severe GI will cause changes in these values. She may need an abdominal ultrasound as well. I hope this information helps

With a normal stool sample and blood panel, the next steps are experimenting with diet - specifically a hypoallergenic prescription diet (such as Royal Canin Ultamino, which is definitely the most expensive option, but also the one that seems to work best in diagnosing food allergies. It takes eating ONLY the prescription food for about a month to see if it helps, and then if it does help you can certainly experiment with less expensive foods. If you she would having signs of food allergy you'd need to do a full 3 months, but for intestinal issues, you should see a response in just a couple weeks) OR a high fiber/easily digestible diet (such as Hills Fiber Response EN). Some dogs need continual probiotics to keep normal stool. Treating any underlying anxiety (if present) can also help. Finally, a gut biopsy, which is much more invasive and costly can be done. Since she isn't yet spayed, I would consider doing a gut biopsy when/if she is spayed because that would be minimal additional expense or trauma for her while she's already have an abdominal surgery. I hope that helps! Wishing you the best with this difficult issue - It can take a long long time to get to the bottom of things

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!

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Part of her not gaining weight could be due to an intestinal malabsorption issue. Your veterinarian could consider further advanced diagnostics like an abdominal ultrasound and a GI panel to check for something like that. I do suspect that her skin issues are possibly due to allergies and that probably plays a role in her quality of life. It really comes down to figuring out what is causing her allergies so that they can be treated or the specific allergen avoided. There are many things that can cause allergies though in most cases they can be broken down into 3 big categories: flea, food and environmental allergies. Allergies are usually worked up in a stepwise fashion starting with flea allergies as this is the easiest and cheapest to take care of. If not on a flea preventative, then it would be a good idea to get started on one. If already on one then it would be a good idea to change to something else (there are many new products out in the market). If not improved in 1-3 months then it is time to move on and check for food allergies by switching to a novel diet (new protein and new carbohydrate). If that does not seem to be the issue then you are left out having to check for environmental allergies which require blood and/or skin tests. Allergies can be very frustrating to deal with at first but so rewarding at the end when we are able to treat them effectively!