Vet visit for Zena with her irritable bowel
After ongoing problems for the past 3 years, with intermittent sickness lasting for days/weeks, and then finding a new vet who diagnosed irritable bowel and started new medication, 6 weeks down the line we went for a check up today.
She has been on one Metronidazole a DAY for 5 weeks now, and I have to say, since ending the first week's medication of Zitac, Zantac and Tetrocycline ab's which did absolutely nothing for her condition, the metronidazole treatment seems to be doing a great job on her.
She is a different dog, never sloping off to her bed feeling sick or having acid stomach problems, she never refuses food, she can drink water by the gallon if she wants, whereas previously, one mouthful could have caused her to have quite violent purges, it was horrendous to watch her sometimes, feeling so helpless
Anyway, this new vet seems to have been right with his diagnosis, because this treatment works and suits her fine. He spent a long, long time feeling her insides, squashing and squeazing her with his hands, and she didn't mind at all. Then he checked her heart and breathing, she stood still as a rock, then he put on a pair of gloves
OMG he's going in I thought and he did!
Now this girl of mine has been known to scream the house down when having a thermometer inserted into her back passage, but this man was allowed to put his hand in, and bring out a stool sample and tell me it was absolutely perfect, just what he wanted to see and Zena did not flinch or squeal or turn to snap at him once, what a little star she was, and I cannot quite get over just how accommodating she is for him, even though of course, I do muzzle her for the poor man!
Muzzle came off whilst I chatted to him. She has put on 2 kgs
I told him I couldn't understand this when for 3 years I had been force feeding her to keep a bit of weight on her. He explained that with irritable bowel, the intestines lose their coating and are unable to utilise the food passing through. Hence the yellow diarrhea we would sometimes get, because all the bile would be pushed straight through along with the food. It all made such perfect sense to me to stand there and listen to him (and no, I never once interrupted!). The metronidazole works a lot, lot better than steroids which he could use as an alternative anti inflammatory, so he suggests she stays on one a day for life if she can tolerate them which she seems to be for the moment.
He doesn't want to see her again, he wants me to ring him in a couple of weeks or so, or even better, he loved my idea of writing it all down and dropping it into the surgery for him to read at his leisure, because he said this could go into her notes like the last one I did for him has. I did mention the hiatus hernia that I have Googled about, but he says he's never seen one case, and IF we have problems again, then we should definitely do the barium x-rays just to check what might be going on, but he's almost 100% certain that she has irritable bowel. So, it would appear after having spent 3 years at an RCVS hospital without a diagnoses, we now have one for Zena along with the correct treatment, fingers and paws crossed of course.
We have another 6 weeks of this ab, plus a half hour consultation and instead of £200 bill which I would have come away with at the other hospital, my bill totalled £27!!!!! Can you belieeeeeve it?!!! I can't!
Lovely, lovely vet, not many would agree with me around here, because he has no bedside manner, BUT, he sure knows about dogs and that's all I care about really for my prescious girlie.
I forgot to tell him to look at her carpal pads but I got carried away with how good she was for him
Hey ho, I'm dealing with them nicely without his help anyway.