For the most part I try and find the humor in the situations I find myself in. With these two dogs, you sort of have to. 🙂
Who you calling senior?
But sometimes we have to talk about some serious issues. After all both of my dogs are considered seniors.
You may recall last June when Delilah had pre dental blood work we discovered she had slightly elevated liver levels. Since then we’ve tried a number of different supplements, and treatments to bring those liver levels down, but with no luck. My vet wants to do a liver biopsy and I’m really not comfortable with this.
Jodi Chick recommended Dr. Peter Dobias, a holistic vet in Canada. Jodi swears by Dr. Dobias’ liver cleanse. I e-mailed Dr. Dobias and was thrilled when he responded to me. He suggested a liver cleanse for Delilah and to continue her on the supplements she is on.
Naturally I wanted to run it by one of the vets in my practice. I spent a good 20 minutes talking it through with Dr. Atz.
This may sound weird, but my gut is telling me, the whole issue with the elevated livers is in Delilah’s gut.
Think about, this dog eats anything. For heaven’s sake, Sunday she ate dog shit!
When I shared my theory with Dr. Atz he agreed. I said I just picked up The Microbiome Diet and the premise is a good portion of disease begins in the gut. And do you know what my vet said? He said, “I agree, the gut is the root of all evil.”
So then I ran my idea by him.
My plan is to do a liver cleanse with Delilah and then add in a good probiotic and a good multi-vitamin.
Typically when a dog is diagnosed with elevated liver levels, the levels are quite high. Often times in the 800 range. Delilah’s are currently under 300. As of this writing, Delilah has no symptoms of liver disease. In fact, as Dr. Atz reminded me we wouldn’t even know there was an issue going on if we hadn’t had the pre dental blood work run. Dr. Atz and I agree, this gives us time for experimenting.
Because we feed raw, I try to keep the dog’s treats grain free, but that doesn’t mean we don’t slide occasionally. Since I have been diagnosed with food allergies, it’s crossed my mind perhaps Delilah may have them as well. I’m going to be very strict about the treats she gets and do my best to control what goes in her mouth.
Do any of you have experience with food allergies and how would I go about having her checked for them? For me it was a simple blood test. Can it really be that simple with dogs too?
From what my boss had researched on the different food allergy tests they really aren’t very accurate so we don’t even recommend them. We do a diet trial with prescription hypoallergic diet that you can only get at at vet as that way you are sure the food is truely hypoallergic. So IMO I would save your money on testing and just do the food trials. They also have to be on the food for over a month to really know if it’s working sometimes it can take 2-3 months.
I haven’t had to deal with any of this yet but I just wanted to say I hope you are able to get it figured out!! <3
I don’t know much, but I do know that Vets can run a series of tests to find out exactly what ingredients a dog is allergic to. Another option, which you could do from home would be to try and exclusion diet, where you cut out everything and then slowly try new foods to find out if there is a reaction or not. However I don’t know if that would work if you aren’t looking for a physical change when she eats a food she can’t have (for example Mity has something he shouldn’t, he gets the runs. My uncles dog has beef, starts to scratch)
We are so lucky no such issues here. We are very grateful for that. Have a terrific Tuesday.
Best wishes Molly
Wow, no idea. Thankfully, none of us have any allergies of any kind. Mom has allergies, but not with foods. We are all confused about arthritis and have a million questions there with Katie, but nothing on food. So many dogs seem to have food allergies these days, I’m sure some readers will have some good advice.
Wish I had some words of wisdom. Just so disappointed that Delilah’s problem has not gone away 🙁
Usually I hear of trial diets to diagnose a food allergy. You may want to contact a vet that specializes in allergies and get their input. It might be worth the price of a consultation appointment. Hope you can figure it out.
Glad your vet is on board. Hope Delilah’s level fall to normal. Jodi Chick knows her stuff!
Looking forward to seeing how the liver cleanse goes. The gut sucks.
I’ve always heard that a food trial is one way to go with determining food allergies but it’s a very long and daunting process weeding one thing out at a time.
I think you have a great plan for Delilah. Ive never heard of allergies causing liver issues in dogs, though Id be curious to know. As you know our Ping has elevated liver values. Currently her liver values are good but her cholesterol is sky high so we are working on figuring out whats causing that and if its liver related
retro rover
All mom could say is pet insurance. We watch my liver levels all the time since I tske Atopica
Lily & Edward
I’ve been very lucky and have not yet had a dog with allergies (knock wood). But I can tell you I’ve gotten excellent results working with a holistic vet.
If your regular vet thinks you’re on the right track, the liver cleanse and supplements might really help Delilah.
Good luck figuring everything else out.
Don’t you wish she could talk?
Years ago, I had my dog, Shadow, allergy tested. It was a simple blood test. It was not cheap. I believe I paid around $600 for it, but it revealed a lot of what she was allergic to – food and plants. It helped a great deal so that I could find a food she could eat without all the itchiness and also helped me determine what kind of plants I had in the yard that were causing her flare ups. Back then, there wasn’t quite the variety of foods that there is now so it was more of a challenge, but I did end up finding a couple to choose from. For the treats – I ended up just learning how to bake those on my own because the treats available then had at least one of the ingredients in them she was allergic to.
I wouldn’t do the biopsy either. I think the liver cleanse sounds interesting – but I’m not really sure I’d even go that far – especially if she’s not showing any signs of being ill. What exactly does the cleanse entail?
I love my vet office, but I’ll never forget the time I took Shadow in and they saw her urine was really clear and were really concerned about it. They came in and told me her kidney values were a little off (very slight) and her urine was too diluted. I admit I burst into tears right there in the office (my first thought was over the top, “Oh no! She has kidney cancer!). Once I got home I had some time to think it over and spoke with them again and told them she’d always had very diluted urine. They wanted to run some test on her that would require her to be at the vet office for at least 24 hours and included depriving her of water. I think they suspected she had a rare form of diabetes. Anyway, because of her personality – I knew she’d flip being there for that long without me, so I refused to put her through that. Thankfully, they were really understanding and I believe the vet I saw at the time tried to reassure me (and probably himself) that Shadow was just, “Unique” and didn’t have a serious illness. She lived to be almost 14 (healthy for all that time) and oral cancer got her in the end. I know vets have our dog’s well-being in mind – but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to put them through recommended tests or surgeries we don’t feel are necessary or beneficial.
You might try testing it yourself first. We completely cut all proteins for Jack – gave him single protein (salmon) everything, food, treats, etc. That cleared up his allergic reactions and his pre-IBD. Chicken is in EVERYTHING so it’s not surprising many dog’s grow an intolerance too it. Try cutting it completely.
There is a blood test for food allergies in dogs too. Different vets have different opinions on this. We did it with Jasmine and than ran with the results. It worked out well for her.
Knock on wood, we haven’t dealt with dog food allergies (I deal with my own, that is enough). We did deal with a true liver disease once though. It was tough. I hope you find the answers you are looking for soon.
I’m sorry to hear about the elevated liver enzyme levels. As for food allergies in dogs, my vet has a protocol for trying to find out if a dog has an allergy to something they’re eating. She has you switch to a food that has a protein that your dog has never eaten. In case of this eventuality, she asks, when you dog first comes to you, that you try to “reserve” certain meats that your dog will never eat unless allergies are ever suspected. She said that, for dogs who haven’t done this, there is a kangaroo-based food that many dogs can use. I’ve never gone through the whole protocol but my understanding is that the dog eats only that “new” food for some length of time, and tests are done to see if the symptoms clear up. In the cases where we’ve discussed it, my dogs have had recurring skin and ear issues. In your case, I guess it would have to be a blood test. I don’t know about whether food allergies can cause liver problems, but I’d guess that anything is possible.
Good luck with solving this! (have you tried milk thistle? it’s said to help protect and heal the liver).
Interesting! Hope the liver cleanse works!!
Sounds good that her liver levels are not as high as the 800s! It’s good your vet is on board with a little experimenting. Hope you find a fix. As for allergies, luckily we haven’t had to deal with that. We feed grain-free too, but that’s from having dealt with cancer. (Cancers supposedly thrive on grains.)
Love the pic of Delilah getting her teeth brushed in the prior post. Oy on the poop eating though. Luckily Rita is not too bad with that sort of thing. Other than eating some dead gophers, she’s never really eaten anything weird. It’s good that she’s ridiculously fussy!
I think you’re going in the right direction for Delilah. A liver biopsy should be a last resort, if done at all. My daughter (especially) and I have food allergies too, and our diets have changed exponentially because of what we found out through blood tests. The result is that we feel so much better and many symptoms have cleared up (some things I didn’t even realize were symptoms!), so we know it’s right for us. It’s sounding more and more like animals are dealing with similar gut issues, probably because the grains in dog food are filled with GMOs and pesticides, besides the fact that grains aren’t natural for dogs anyway. We haven’t looked into canine blood testing yet, but we are thinking of going to a holistic vet as well. I think you’re doing the right thing.
Chester is a senior and his liver levels were a tad elevated last time we checked too. My vet said that is common for dogs on a raw diet (especially senior ones). Did anyone mention that to you? I am just curious because now you have me wondering if I SHOULD be concerned.