Stoli, I have just gone through a simular incident as you but not as bad, Visited 2 vets and was on the same drugs as yours, Getting nowhere fast then after advice from the forum I suggested to the vet could it be Guardi and he said it could be, I then asked if i could treat both dogs with Panacu and he agreed, they are on a 7 day course with 2 days to go for compleation, he also advised i feed royal canin gastro intestinal nuts, they seem to be doing fine poo
has never been so firm no more getting up 3 times a night with the dogs having the run's,
if it was not for the advice i got on the forum i think i would still be in trouble,
I am not giving you advice just telling you what i went through.

ps when i was googling Gardia I found it wasalso carried by slugs and snails This hasbeen a good year for slugs & snails.
I do hope your dog gets well soon.

I honestly can't answer that one because they didn't do bloodwork with my dog for some strange reason (she's not the easiest of patients being a gsd), the last vet I saw said there was no need because the stool sample would tell him everything he needed to know, especially something which would be high with a parasite overload, which it was of course. As I said earlier though, mine was a more extensive stool sample testing, not the normal run of the mill £30 job, more like a £70 one where they checked for a lot of things.

It is very, very difficult to actually get a positive for giardia from a stool sample, nigh on impossible in fact, unless you do a fresh what they call "loop" in the surgery, or you take a fresh sample in every day for a few days, probably more like a week! Your vet will confirm this to you. I was one of the lucky ones, because we actually got a positive on one occassion, the last one thankfully, when she actually got treated for it. I had taken poo samples into the vets on several occassions for a whole year and everytime it showed up nothing, she got wormed every 6 months and yet we had a burden!! Go figure!!

All the best and please let us know the results, I would be very interested indeed.

Thank you guys. If the tests we are waiting on doesn't show us anything I will ask if maybe I could try the treatment for Giardia. She just ate some chicken (she's on an appetite stimulant) so I'm hoping she will keep it down, yesterday she threw it up. :/

A high white cell count is indicative of an infection but I don't know much about Giardia. I would expect it to be high with any infection.
I hope you get to the bottom of it soon xx

Yes, if only we could figure out what sort of infection! They did not find anything in the last two tests. I did email my vet about Panacur...will see what she says...

I have been told by a couple people now that the symptoms for Giardia are not severe like my dog's illness has been, and that they don't think that would make her that drastically sick...I'm still waiting on my personal vet to respond about the Panacur, but I'm feeling discouraged now that typically the only dogs who have severe symptoms from Giardia are puppies.

I would say it's pretty severe when they have multiplied enough inside your dog, to have what I eventually had with mine. I could go a whole week without her vomiting, and then she'd start the refusing food and vomiting, maybe I could go 3 weeks on some occassions, but all the time it was lurking and none of us knew it The problem we had with my dog was the fact that from the intermittent times she would slope off to her bed feeling sick, out on a walk she'd act totally normal, running around, healthy, but she was getting to be a bag of bones so we had to find out why. Even though she would vomit something up, I'd usually be able to replace that later on in the day or next day when things were fine, it was all so very, very strange.

I don't think anybody who hasn't had a dog WITH giardia can say what those other people have said there. You must do what you want to do, I can only offer advice from my own experience, and if you went back to some of my threads on here, especially at the beginning of 2012 when we finally got that diagnosis on Zena you might get an idea of what I went through and bells might ring with you? It would also be a Zena being sick again thread or similar!

Good luck, you really must talk to a vet you know.

ETA: Have your vets thought about Leptospirosis???
QUOTE: "There are typical symptoms that veterinarians associate with leptospirosis. But because no two cases proceed exactly alike, not all of the typical signs are likely to be present in any one pet.

The most common signs are fever and depression. These pets are cold, shivery, and stiff. They may carry their tummies tucked up do to pain. Some drool and vomit and most loose their appetite. Fever causes many dogs to drink excessively.Later in the disease, a few pets will develop eye inflammations (uveitis), nervous system abnormalities or pass red-tinged urine. As the disease progresses, the pet may become dehydrated due to the fever, vomiting and disinterest is drinking. A drop to subnormal body temperature is a very grave sign. A few dogs, particularly juveniles, will die suddenly before many of these signs occur.

When the liver has been damaged, the pet’s skin may take on a yellowish tinge (=jaundiced = icteric) and show all the symptoms of hepatitis. When the kidneys have been severely damaged, the pet may show the signs of uremia. These organ changes can be temporary – or permanent.

How Would My Veterinarian Diagnose Leptospirosis In My Dog ?

The symptoms that I discussed above, along with a history of your dog being exposed to places were leptospirosis lurks, might make your vet suspect this disease. Leptospirosis sometimes occurs in outbreaks, and your veterinarian may be aware that it is presently occurring in your community. If your veterinarian zeros in on leptospirosis on the first examination, you are very fortunate. Because symptoms vary so much between pets and because most veterinarians only see a few cases from time to time, it is common to miss the diagnosis on the first examination.

To make the diagnosis – or rule it out – your veterinarian will order blood tests (CBC & Chemistry). One of the typical signs found in blood tests as leptospirosis progresses, is an elevation in the number of white blood cells in the pet’s blood. The cells that tend to go up in leptospirosis are the neutrophils. However, very early in infection, white blood cell numbers can be lower than normal. There are often other chemical abnormalities that suggest leptospirosis – changes in liver enzymes, blood-clotting cells (thrombocytes) and kidney health values (BUN/creatinine). Evidence of damage to the pet’s kidney’s would also be reflected in abnormal urine analysis results. " unquote

I know they've tested for pancreatitis, but when my collie Bessie was alive she kept getting ill and we couldn't get to the bottom of it. She was tested for pancreatitis on numerous occasions which always came back negative. To cut a long story short, she did indeed have chronic pancreatitis and had done all along. I don't know why the tests came back negative but once we knew what it was we fed her accordingly and she was much better.

Sorry to hear about your girly. What is her gum colour like? Are they nice and pink or are they a white/grey colour or just very pale?
Really hope your vet gets some answers soon if not perhaps ask for a refferal to a specialist.

I am certainly not ruling out the Giardia, just discouraged after being told it would be the most severe case they'd ever seen...its been a month and she has lost 1/4 her body weight and barely wants to move right now. If she starts improving with the metronidazole that might give me a hint too. I have not heard of the leptospirosis! I could bring that up too.

How was the pancreatitis treated? What were your dogs symptoms? But yes, she has been tested twice already...

As for her gums, they were normal previously but I have not checked them again lately, though the vet may have when she was in a few days ago.