Epi4Dogs

Hi everyone,
I am so appreciative of this site and its community.

Our dear sweet 19 mo. old long coat GSD, Chekhov, had intermittent loose stools his whole life, but seemed happy, healthy and strong, steadily gaining weight as he grew.

We are lucky in that he got worse suddenly and was diagnosed quickly: A couple weeks ago, he had extreme diarrhea for one week and lost 7 pounds. Vet put him on antibiotics and bland diet. When he didn't fully get better the second week(stools still loose), the vet tested for EPI so we found out fast. Lucky to have appt with a recently retired, very experienced vet who was filling in for someone! I've read a lot of horror stories when they don't think to test for this.

We are now waiting for the presctipion pancreatic enzymes to come in the mail. While waiting for the test, I went ahead and bought some inexpensive porcine pancreatic enzymes, that are extremely low in dosage (Dr. Mercola enzymes for cats and dogs). As an example, one of the enzymes is 8750 units (per tsp) compared to 388,000 in the recommended, prescription type! But weirdly, they firmed his poop up noticeably — and when I doubled the dose, the poop was even more firm. Looking almost completely normal!

Wondering....do these low-dose enzymes seem to work because the dog is JUST getting serious symptoms recently? Or, that his TLI is out-of-range but not extremely low? (it is 2.9)

Any thoughts or comments are greatly appreciated!
And what is it about these EPI "heart" dogs? This guy is the most loving, affectionate dog I've ever had!

Many thanks,
RMM

I don't have a good answer for you (though I'm sure several of the EPI veterans will chime in with their voice of experience). I do have a similar situation and will be very curious to hear those experienced observations from others.

My EPI dog, Trixie, is on a minuscule dose-- just 1900 mcg a day, split between two meals -- of pure freeze-dried pork pancreas from Allergy Research Group. It just happened to be what we already had on hand for human use when our puzzled, but perceptive, vet suggested trying pancreatic enzymes.

It worked -- and very fast. And it's still working perfectly six months later.

So while this is a different substance than yours, the small miracle is nearly identical. I don't understand why such small amounts of a substance would work when common EPI wisdom says that much more is needed.

And it's not like we're dealing with "mild" cases of EPI (if there is such a thing). Trixie's TLI was less than 1 and your dog was obviously very sick.

Hi Chekhov's human care-giver..... smart proactive thinking on your part. Great move!

Almost all EPI dogs will need full strength pancreatic (pig) enzymes at the beginning of treatment.... HOWEVER..... whenever a dog has to go without the proper enzymes, we recommend getting other enzymes, plant or anything, to supplement in the meantime.... to hold them over.

Based on what you mentioned... i am assuming these are plant enzymes...

PLant enzymes work on some (temporarily) but will not sustain the EPI condition.... as time passes, what will happen is that SID will all of a sudden will get out of control....so you will want to hang on to these enzymes cause theydo have a positive effect on CHekhov, but no, you do not want to give him this instead of the proper animal (pig is preferred) enzymes. To answer your other question.... that 2.9 is just a hair's breath out of "clinical" EPI range - -so you can "assume" that his pancreas is atrophying....... and your vet is correct in ordering the proper pig enzymes for your dog.

2.5 or less = clinical EPI
3.5 thru 5.7 = not clinical EPI but possible pancreatic acinar cell destruction (EPI) developing. Re-test in the near future.

If you want..... in a year... retest... but if you see Chekhov responding well to treatment, i personally wouldn't bother retesting.

What you will want to do though, is once you receive the proper porcine (pig) enzymes.. is start with 1 level tsp of enzyme powder per 1 cup of food (if dry food /kibble)... if serving wet food (canned/home-made, ground up raw) then start with 1/2 to 3/4 tsp of enzymes added to the food. Add just enough room temp water to moisten the food enough for the enzymes, mix let the enzymes sit for 20 minutes (you can try les if you want, but this is just what we typically recommend) and then serve.

Once Chekhov has nice solid poops for at least 3 weeks..... THENNNNNNNnnnnnn.... you should try reducing the amount of enzymes given with the food. What we suggest is to reduce the enzymes by 1/8 of a tsp for about 5 days.... if the poos remain solid.... then reduce by another 1/8 tsp for another 5 days..... you keep doing this until you notice that the poos start getting sloppy again. ONce that happens you know you have reduced the enzymes by 1 increment too much and go back to the amount of enzymes that maintained good poos for Chekhov.

Hope this helps!