Irritable Bowel disease

Talk to me about this and diet.

Here`s my problem. We suspect Tank may have this--or old dog glitchy gut. AND due to his allergies, there are just a ton of things he can`t eat which rules out ALL the vet diets.

Currently, he`s doing okay on tapioca and fish (yes, I know, disgusting, but working). But I`m looking for something with a bit more nutrition--although I may be barking up a dead tree on this.

He`s been on a low dose of flagyl for weeks which helps, but I`d like to wean him off. He`s already on a low dose of prednisolone and I`d like to avoid increasing that if possible as he`s got a number of health issues caused by the years when he was on a high dose.

He can`t have dairy, eggs, any grains that one would normally use for IBD or glitchy gut.

I could move to potatoes, but given his arthritis, I try to avoid the potatoes (and given his yeast, I`d like to avoid the stuff that converts to sugar)--but I also realize that I may be unable to avoid this. We may have to trade itchiness for lack of diarrhea.

I`ve been giving him a probiotic--and there are arguments for and against giving probiotics with IBD or if there is a bacterial overgrowth. I`ve also started adding L-Glutamine.

So anyone have any experience with this.

poor tank-er

My tigger has been a little that way all his years with me.. .and we finally insisted on the vet kibble (I dare not even write the name!)... The store that sells the OTC version of it almost would not give it to me! Made me try two others, and I finally went to a store where no one knows me and insisted upon it!

But none of that helps you and the T-man (altho "they" do have a "sensitive" stomach version)... I have no idea... short of going raw, which you sort of have...

If you are stumped, it's going to take the EXperts to fix it!

for you and T.

ayleash wrote:poor tank-er

My tigger has been a little that way all his years with me.. .and we finally insisted on the vet kibble (I dare not even write the name!)... The store that sells the OTC version of it almost would not give it to me! Made me try two others, and I finally went to a store where no one knows me and insisted upon it!

But none of that helps you and the T-man (altho "they" do have a "sensitive" stomach version)... I have no idea... short of going raw, which you sort of have...

If you are stumped, it's going to take the EXperts to fix it!

for you and T.

He's been raw fed--I mean really raw fed--for most of the years he's been with me. I took him off the raw because I was concerned that we were maybe dealing with an immune system issue and I wasn't sure the raw wasn't part of the issue--maybe too hard on his gut.

I'd love to keep him on raw, but not if we can't get the diarrhea under control with some consistency. For now, I feel like I need to give his gut a break

Poor Tank. My dog, Mac, has been dealing with IBD for years and is now end stage. A vet dietician created a diet for him that involves turkey, pasta and a nutritional supplement. It is called Canine IT, and is a powder that you add to the food. It can be found at: https://secure.balanceit.com/marketplace2.1/details.php?i=5&cc=

Mac is to get 2 scoops a day. However, he is so sick that I don't know if this diet will help him much, but he does like it a lot. He is also on steroids and cyclosporine to help get his disease back under control. Maybe adding this powder to whatever is working for Tank would help increase the nutritional balance of the fish and tapioca.

Thank you! I will give it a try. But for his multiple allergies, whipping up a diet wouldn't be such a struggle--and we don't, for sure, know that it is IBD--but it seems like it. Could just be old dog sensitive gut--but he can't have dairy, chicken, turkey (any poultry of fowl really), eggs, any grain, etc, etc. which makes creating an "gut easy" diet harder.

And with all the beef recalls up here right now, I'm very hesitant to try ground beef with him.

If he can't have rice, could he have water that rice has cooked in? The starch can be binding. It was the only thing that cured my grandmother's diarrhea back in the 1930s.

Pumpkin is also not something he could tolerate?

Imon wrote:

Pumpkin is also not something he could tolerate?

When Jewel was dealing with this, the vet had said that pumpkin was too hard on her intestines. At that point, she was not even eating chicken/rice. The vet had me offer various baby food meats to get anything into her body.

Rebecca and the Pugs wrote:

Imon wrote:

Pumpkin is also not something he could tolerate?

When Jewel was dealing with this, the vet had said that pumpkin was too hard on her intestines. At that point, she was not even eating chicken/rice. The vet had me offer various baby food meats to get anything into her body.

He might able to tolerate pumpkin--I just have to be careful with it as it does make him itchy as it converts to sugar and feeds the yeast. He's eating--that's not the issue. Thankfully. When he stops eating, I know we will be in a world of hurt as he loves his food. I don't know how he'd do with rice water as I know he reacts to rice.

I'm wondering about trying Quinoa.

Quinoa is an interesting idea-- it's certainly high in protein, but I don't know how it is on the gut. I know it's used in one of the Honest Kitchen foods, so it's not untested in dogs... just in Tank. How do you think he'd do with garbanzo bean flour? I know that Lisa Mak uses it as an ingredient on some of her treats, so perhaps that might be another source of something-other-than-fish. I have no idea where you buy it, but I'm guessing that Lisa would share her secrets. Or chia seeds? I'm completely just brainstorming here.

Sounds like he's on the Dr. Who diet (fish sticks and custard, #geekjoke). Honest Kitchen does use quinoa and my guys love it - its in their chicken recipe so you'd do it yourself of course with the fish. My guys are grain-free except for the Thrive, for some reason they tolerate the quinoa without issue (its more of a seed than a grain but for food purposes is called a grain).

HK makes a supplement called Perfect Form which is basically a natural alternative to Flagyl and safe for every day use (slippery elm + papaya and a couple other goodies). I can send you samples of it or you can contact HK directly - I think they send samples up north. Because of the neuro side effects of flagyl I try never to use it for more than 1 dose and have recommended PF to a lot of folks with good success.

As Ginger said I do use garbanzo flour in my grain-free treats...its high protein, high fiber. You can get dried garbanzo's cheap at the supermarket and use in your food prep...my dogs also like garbanzo's straight out of the can if I'm opening one up (they're kinda weird).

Thanks Lisa--
I've asked my local Global Pet Supply to get me the HK Perfect Form. I'm also going to see how Tank does on the HK Zeal. Worth a try at this point.

Dicyclomine was what worked for my foster with IBD, we tried EVERYTHING else, raw diet, Orijen, Ziwipeak, prescription diets, homecooked, flagyl, pred, panacur, dexamethasone, antibiotics, cobalamine injections, anti-anxiety drugs, probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes....nothing could cure the constant diarrhea. In desperation I found a few references for dicyclomine and asked the vet to prescribe it. He had never used it before. I had to have it done at a compounding pharmacy. It worked. It worked well enough that the young pug that the rescue vet wanted to put down was adopted and now three years later is still doing well.

Look it up, the forum won't let me post a link.

It is definitely worth a try.

If you have not already tried the standard treatments for chronic giardia (often mis-diagnosed as IBD) then I would go there first:

Again the forum won't let me post a link, but the Great Dane lady has a great article on treating chronic giardia.