Thank you!

[jadedjennifer]

I've been lurking for a while, and just want to thank this group for how helpful and generous they are with their knowledge on this crappy (literally) illness.

I'm sharing to both vent and help someone else in my same situation. My chihuahua Piglet (11.5) has been battling *something* for years. I always assumed it was a chicken allergy, but tried hard to get him poultry-free kibble. He still had flare ups and I accused my children of feeding him banned substances lol. Within the last 6 months, he went from periodic upsets (grass eating, jellied poops, tummy rumbling, bathroom emergencies) to distinct weight loss and continuous soft-serve all day long, suddenly STARVING and land-sharking all the time. I took him to our long-time vet right before Thanksgiving who correctly ran a pancreas lab on Piglet and gave him Metronidazole (which as you can guess, made things worse). Vet wanted to wait for test results before RXing hydrolyzed food, but Piggy was losing weight like crazy (down to 4.7 lbs) so I got some via other channels. A week later I had to call for results and Vet said it was inconclusive and to come in for more testing $$$. I should have asked for the test results and I kick myself now for just taking a wait-and-see approach with the HP kibble since it seemed to be helping a tiny bit.

Piglet had another flare up last weekend and seemed like he'd lost whatever ground he'd won and felt super light, so I weighed him and he was down to 4lbs even. This dog does not have a lb to lose! He is super bony now. Monday morning, I called the vet's office to have them email me his results so I could take him to another vet. While waiting, I started googling new angles to these symptoms. I came across you wonderful people. All of the info here convinced me he had EPI. Later that day I got his lab report. It wasn't inconclusive!! The lab very clearly wrote he has EPI with 2.8 ug/L and high end of normal Folate for the bacteria overgrowth (probably from the abx). His b12 was 457, but again, he had gone from holding steady with flareups all his life to suddenly going sideways late summer.

I bought him some Panatex enzymes off amazon, which he started a few days ago. Already I see old Piglet coming back, not land-sharking or begging all day and finally looks like he can just rest comfortably in his blankets. I started slippery elm last night to help with the poops and this morning his poop looked miraculously normal. I can't even thank you guys enough, you have saved my dog's life when the vet failed me. I was preparing myself to have to make the Choice! He is on the older side, so i'm not sure how much damage we have to overcome, but for now at least he seems stable. I am going to weigh him again this weekend, but he eats so little now (like he used to) that it might take a while to even get that Lb back he lost due to vet incompetence.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

PS the only question I have right now is, he seems to have lost the inability to hold his bladder anymore (so we have diapered him up) because he will randomly stop and pee in the house. He was always very good about letting us know when he had to go out. Anyone have anything similar happen, and did it improve with treatment?

[Olesia711]

oh my goodness....i am SOOOOOoooooo sorry that your little piglet (and you) had to go thru all of this.... but thankfully you thought "outside the box" and now have a positive diagnosis for EPI..... and thankfully you took matters into your own hands and ordered enzymes online!!!!!

and yes, Slippery elm can be like a miracle tonic! so glad it is helping... what slippery elm is doing to addressing SID/SIBO/Dysbiosis that all dogs with EPI have, to one degree or another. We don't knwo how to get rid of it (yet) but we do have a bag full of trick to manage it as best we can!

You are dong a great job.

NOW... that excess peeing.... we see/hear that a lot.... when the enzymes are implemented. some pee lakes with no control, while others have to tinkle more often. The good news is that this will be sort lived... anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. and then it will subside. I suspect it is just the body getting acclimated to the enzymes. but like i said this is short-lived. The ONLY caution i have about this is if it continues for more than 3 weeks, then have the vet check for a UTI or possible Diabetes, just to err on the side of caution... but 9 times out of 10, it's the enzymes and this too shall pass

[Tuckaboo Pam]

Hey Jennifer! Welcome to you and Piglet, and the long line of pet parents who have figured out what was wrong with their dogs!!! I am a proud member of that club. Googled the symptoms & he had all of them except for food in his poo.

Vets are amazing. We were at the office this morning with one of our non-EPI dogs, and that vet spent 45 minutes with us, trying to help us figure out why she occasionally vomits. BUT, they are not with our pets 24/7, as we are, and so it's common to have a hand in diagnosing them.

Back to you and Piglet. The only thing I see is her B12 is low for an EPI dog. We want that at 600 or above, and I wonder if someone else in the group can help you address that, considering her size. For all I know, maybe smaller dogs can get away with having lower B12. Somebody will know.

So glad you found this forum! Please stay in touch, because at some point you may be able to help another new person & their dog.

Take Care---Pam

[jadedjennifer]

You guys are so awesome. Thank you both!

Olesia - Thank you for all of the info, and for founding this incredible site. You've been a huge help! The random pee puddles around the house was happening prior to enzymes but within the last month or so... i had assumed due to his uptake in water when the soft-serve started. One morning, I was putting on my shoes to walk him and he couldn't wait and just peed. I hope he doesn't have diabetes... poor lil guy.

Pam - I appreciate you! My dog didn't have any undigested food in the poo either. I had read several of your comments on other threads about the B12... I did buy the wonderlabs recommendation from the site here and wasn't sure if I should inundate him with a third food additive yet. I can certainly try it. My pup's journey has been kind of zigzaggy so I would love to be of help to anyone in my shoes. It's so scary to see them wasting away and be up all night pondering next moves.

With regard to kibble.... I have seen some responses that perhaps food allergies were EPI in disguise. I am not sure which food I should be giving him. Piglet's brother Huckleberry has the opposite problem with senior-onset occasional bouts of Pancreatitis. They had been on Acana Red Meat kibble for a few years without issue, but after doing some research I think I determined one of the contents was too high. Fat or protein, unsure. I've had them on multiple Hills Science diet bags, TOTW Salmon, etc since then. I would really love not to have to spend $56 on a 7lb bag of HP I will have to do more googling about how chicken allergies present, since some sites suggested most of the time it was just itching and redness.

[Tuckaboo Pam]

Fromm is a good company for dogfood. I believe my daughter's mini poodle eats a small dog canned recipe. It's fine to feed piglet canned food, but the ratio of enzymes changes a little. You can feed her lots of things, as long as the grain stays low & the food is enzymed.

I'd also think looking into a UTI is a good idea.

[jadedjennifer]

Small update... Piggy was doing really good on his enzymes and wet food, had even gained back 0.9 lbs on the scale and looked much better. And quickly too.
However, in my haste to find a non-chicken, low-fiber wet food I must have gotten him a high-fat wet food and he had a complete back-slide to below his lowest weight. I think we flipped from EPI to Pancreatitis!
So, we're starting over again with trying to gain weight - his energy and appetite are good again in the last few days. I do think the sudden inability to hold his bladder is due to his inflamed pancreas. He's definitely walking around with a pronounced back arch which I read is them trying to relieve some of the pancreas pain.

I'm determined to save this little guy!

Thank you all for keeping up this wonderful resource. !!

[Olesia711]

if he was doing fine on chicken...... then let him have chicken !

Some dogs develop a sensitivity to chicken because the dog food and supplement industry uses so much chicken... that i think they sometimes develop an intolerance to it.

SO..... if he was dong fine an whatever food you were feeding him before... maybe go back to it?
So sorry to hear that the too much fat really upset little piglet!

[Chance]

What symptoms were you seeing when trying the higher fat food? Unless pancreatitis was an issue in the past, it shouldn't be now. While pancreatitis is possible in an EPI dog, it's less common?

Does Piggy have a known sensitivity to chicken? Both of my EPI dogs eat a wide variety different meats, including chicken.

Regarding fats....that should be okay too (unless you have a history of pancreatitis). However your might need a slightly higher dose of enzymes. Lipase digests fat. You might just need a slight boost in enzymes to get the little extra lipase required.

[jilbert57]

Dr. Penny Watson is a well known pancreatitis specialist vet in the UK. Sometimes she answers questions here. She told me a long time ago that just because Mickey was on enzymes didn't mean it was a free for all on feeding him fat. In otherwards, he had chronic pancreatitis and despite enzymes she still told me to keep his DWM fat % under 10%. Mickeys pancreatitis never turned into Epi.

Jill

[jadedjennifer]

Hey all and thank you,

What symptoms were you seeing when trying the higher fat food?

With the prior diet of Acana Red Meat kibble, maybe a year ago both chihuahuas (11yo) started having pancreas-related issues that the vet couldn't pinpoint. My other chihuahua was doing the praying position a lot and had to be dosed with pain meds for his episodes, and Piggy started having way more jelly poops. So I took them off Acana and started trying various other things that really seemed to make Piggy's GI issues worse. If the low-fat food causes any more issues i'll ramp up the enzymes like you suggested. I'm beginning to wonder if he has some underlying issues

For those of you who came to EPI diagnosis later in your dog's life, did you have these intermittent bouts with GI symptoms that ramped up?

My daughter weighed him yesterday or the day before and he was up about .4 of a lb.

Thank you for the info on Dr. Watson, Jill - that makes sense to me.