04-27-2016, 11:38 AM
Hi all - I found this website about 2 months ago & can't tell you have grateful I was. The vet & internal medicine specialist have narrowed my dog, Sprite's, diagnosis down to IBD, lymphangectasia, (or possibly both IBD+lymph) or cancer. (We opted not to do the intestinal biopsy due to a number of reasons I will not go into on this post.) He developed a cough so we took him to our regular vet March 5 (from fluid collection around his lung) & to a internal medicine specialist in town March 9. We found out his albumin was low. He never had any diarrhea. His albumin got down to 1.3 March 10th and we started high dose prednisone March 18th (2mg/kg or 5mg twice daily - he is 10 pound 8 year old otherwise healthy bichon/poodle rescue). Five days after starting prednisone his albumin was 2.7 and is currently 3.6!! My dilemma is making a diet decision. I am proceeding as though it is not cancer. I started him on home cooked tilapia/sweet potato diet 1 week before starting prednisone (about March 11) for about 2 weeks. Then I was transitioning him slowly to the RC GI LF when one of the vets decided that without knowing if he has IBD or not that he should be on a hypoallergenic & LF diet. So I quit RC GI LF and started re-transitioning him to RC FP (white fish & potatoes) which is low fat but not quite as low as the GI LF. I noticed mucus develop in his BMs pretty quickly. The vet said this could be due to his colon not liking the higher fat or due to an allergic reaction. She also said the protein losing problem comes from the small intestine and the mucus development comes happens in the colon/large intestine. So now he is back on home cooked boiled tilapia & sweet potato/white potato mix & the mucus is way better/if not gone. The vet wants me to re-try the RC FP but I am reluctant to do that. If mucus happened the first time, why wouldn't it happen again?? We are one week into starting to taper his prednisone SLOWLY 25% per month is what they have suggested. Since he doesn't get diarrhea it is difficult to know if a food is not agreeing with him. I'm leaning toward trying the RC LF again but the vets scared me and said it could be setting him up for another face-plant. I was thinking I would get his albumin tested every 1 to 1.5 weeks while on the RC LF & if the food doesn't agree with him & he is still on prednisone we would more likely see a decline versus a face plant if it wasn't agreeing with him.... I know I could continue the home cooked fish/potatoes with the balanceit vitamins. I am scared to do that forever because I have found a few fish bones and am afraid one day I might miss one. The vet said trying out the different diets is part of the process but I'm trying to make the right decision earlier than later and it's hard to know what to do! 