Hi,
I am posting here to see if anyone has any thoughts on what could be going on with my dog. Please let me know if you have any ideas or require more info.
12 yo Female Shih Tzu (spayed)
- On 6/20/22 I took her for a routine vet visit and had her bloodwork done as a precaution. She was behaving normally.
- Blood test showed RODS infection and slightly elevated liver values (had those in the past and she is on Ursodiol and Denosyl).
- Vet prescribed Clavamox (which she had prior with no issues) but she threw up the next day.
- Discontinued Clavamox and took her to the ER - they gave her a shot of Covenia. When I took her home she was fine for 20 min and then her behavior changed for the worse (tongue hanging out of mouth, excessive sleeping, no interest in food, lying in one spot, generally spaced out).
- Took her back to the ER and vet said it was normal and should clear up within 24 hours - took about 3 days
Since then, she has steadily lost her appetite to the point where I starting giving her boiled chicken. This week she stopped eating the chicken and had diarrhea.
In the ~1.5 months since this episode, I have been to 4 different vets and 4 emergency rooms. No one can seem to point to a specific cause.
Today (8/15/22):
- She was admitted to the last ER/hospital I took her as her bloodwork showed elevated kidney values. She was transferred to internal medicine.
- They have her on IV fluids and lowered the kidney values.
- They did an abdominal ultrasound and found nothing remarkable.
- They did a heart EKG/heart Ultrasound and noticed a slight heart deformity (which was pointed out previously) and they rated her ACVIM stage B1 (no treatment but watch).
- They tell me she is "bright eyed and bushy tailed" but still will not eat; appetite stimulant did not have desired effect.
- She now has a feeding tube (along with the IV fluids which have been reduced to minimum to avoid any heart issues).
- Urine culture came back negative.
- They are pending results of a test to determine if she has pancreatitis. If so, the treatment is for her to eat.
Thank you if you made it this far. Basically the hospital specialists cannot find a cause and she needs to start eating.
Is there something else which would not be found in all these tests? Like a snake bite (I doubt this as we only have garter snakes which I only saw 2 in 22 years), bug bite, poison, etc.?
Thank you again - I appreciate any replies!