Elevated liver enzymes

Hello, my moms dog had puss filled bumps after grooming appt and running a fever. Her liver enzymes were so high the dr couldn’t detect much. Is this normal with an infection? She was fine before the grooming appt. she also was walking up stairs slower than normal. Is high enzymes a detection of infection like staph etc? Thanks

Hello!  Where is the patient and what is happening now?  Did your vets suggest some form of treatment? I think you're saying that extremely high liver enzymes were found on routine bloods, which were taken to investigate pus-filled lumps and a fever (pyrexia), although I'm not clear where or what the lumps were (lymph nodes?  Skin bumps?  Something else?) High liver enzymes are not a normal finding with a typical skin infection; it is possible that the lumps were related to something bigger, ie, underlying disease.  High liver enzymes are not specific to infection; they can occur for a variety of reasons relating to damage to the liver from various different sources, but your vet will either have or be gathering clues to rule various sorts of disease in or out. Good questions to help you to understand the situation, include: What possibilities does your vet have on their differentials list (that is, list if things it could be) at this time?  How treatable are these conditions?  How can they tell them apart? Meanwhile, how is the dog getting on and what treatments are needed in what time scale? How serious do they feel things are? These are good questions to ask in order to get a clearer picture. Best of luck and please let us know how you get on.

There is a good article in our blog, entitled 'My dog has raised liver enzymes, what does this mean?' You may find it quite helpful.

Hello, my moms dog had a grooming appt and a day later she got a fever of 104. She now has puss filled rash type on her back and head. I was thinking it may be some style of post grooming furunculosis. Are you familiar  with that? They put her on antibiotics, liver support pills. I wasn’t sure if elevated liver enzymes on the blood work they did yesterday is related to an infection like staph or furunculosis. She’s never had any of these issues except after her grooming apt Sunday.

Correct Me if wrong, but I always thought if there was some type of infection possibly entering the blood like sepsis it can create elevated liver ?

I wonder why you are asking this? (Bear with me - this does become more helpful).  Is it that you thought it was the diagnosis but your vet disagrees, or you have read about the syndrome and are wondering if it fits what you've seen (and haven't yet told your vet), or your vet has described the syndrome but isn't sure about the high liver enzymes, so you are trying to figure out if that's a 'thing?' I'm afraid I can't answer this one for you.  I haven't seen your pet or the clinical notes or the bloods.  I can picture situations in which a dog with liver problems is therefore functionally immunodeficient and goes on to develop this syndrome more easily after grooming.  I can imagine situations in which severe furunculosis lead to an elevation in liver enzymes.  I can imagine a drug given to treat an early outbreak of lumps - particularly steroids for example - causing high liver enzyme too and exaggerating infection, too. Your discription isn't enough for me to be sure that the lumps are caused by the syndrome at this point, and not eg demodex secondary to some kind of infectious liver disease. However, your vet who has seen the patient will have a pretty good idea. This is not a bad thing, just exposing the limitations of Internet chat to understand this particular problem.  A priority may be to have the vet treat the infection / investigate the raised liver enzymes.  There are many possibilities, but it sounds as though they need to figure out how it all hangs together in this particular patient and I am unable to work that out from here. I hope that's helped a bit; how are things progressing?  Best of luck.

Hello, thank you for reply. I’m asking to gain insight until my mom sees her regular vet Saturday. They had no earlier appts. They took her to another vet and sadly absolutely no info on what it could be. Only info they gave was it could be a tumor on liver. How does one go in for puss filled bumps and leave with the thought she may have cancer? They didn’t even mention this could be staph or anything. They supplied my mom with antibiotics. But even then, a culture should have been done to determine what bacteria this is to properly prescribe an antibiotic in case the one given is resistant to a bacteria. as for the elevated liver enzyme question. My question is to put my mom at ease. If it is post grooming furunculosis, or staph infection, in general, can these elevate liver enzymes if a dog was infected for days prior to getting antibiotics? this is a general answer of course, but just seeing if this can ever go hand in hand. Her labs months- a year prior were perfect. She’s 4 and a beagle.

Hello!  I wouldn't say never, but the idea of a tumour causing a massive increase in liver enzymes makes, generally, more sense to me than pus-filled bumps on the skin causing an increase in liver enzymes.  I haven't seen the latter, but I won't say never. It is not unusual to start antibiotics without culturing as cultures take time and cost money; in both the animal and human world it is common to make an educated guess at the sort of bacteria first time round. I hope this helps - please do take questions back to the vet about this, as well.  In general vets enjoy explaining sciencey stuff and lots of us appreciate it when owners show an interest!    

Thank you! I guess we are just kinda confused because she has never had any elevated labs and i personally thought infections can increase liver enzymes because body is fighting something off? we will find more info tomorrow. My friends dog had staph infection and her liver enzymes were elevated. I guess I was curious too, what in a staph infection makes enzymes increase as well?

here are the labs. Is the liver enzymes like dramatically elevated to a range of cancer or anything? I googled the number and an article said infection can cause elevation. Infection in general or a liver infection? Thanks

Update- liver blood work is back to normal and perfect :) so happy. Seems the antibiotics helped.