Hello friends! I have another update on Crowley. It’s been a while and stuff has changed, so i figured i would post on here again to share my experience and maybe help someone who might be looking for answers.
So spoiler alert our story didn’t end with the correct antibiotic prescription.. As soon as we took him off of medication he went back to diarrhea and we couldn’t keep him stable. So I’ve decided to go to the vet i used to go when i lived in Chicago previously and on the appointment we were recommended to go see the internal medicine specialist since we tried everything and more with no success in the long run.
The internal medicine specialist first of all said that it’s good that we didn’t do biopsy because it was never needed (the one that’s very intrusive), that it can be done through another “entrance” if even needed. Second, she looked at all of the paperwork we brought and said that the gut bacteria reports are fairly new thing and not everyone fully understands what exactly that means so do not put all your money on it, but based on his whole history she settled with dysbiosis diagnosis. She said he can never be cured fully, the best case scenario is for him to have diarrhea episodes but manage to stop them on his own with no medications involved and suggested we do fecal transplant twice. She explained that it doesn’t always work if you do it one time.
So we set an appointment for fecal transplant and got it done in either end of july/beginning of august. It was bad. Diarrhea didn’t stop for almost 2 weeks just in time for his second appointment in late august. After that he still had diarrhea but!!! He was able to come back to “normal” within days.
As of right now he has been medication free since 2 weeks before the first procedure so 7 months. He is very regular, he holds his weight and then some lol even if his tummy doesn’t feel well it last maximum half a day.
His diet is merrick lamb and brown rice/open farm lamb (we mix 2 foods because I’ve heard great things about open farm and saw merrick put on a list associated with dcm, but too scared to switch his food fully) and baked sweet potato every morning added to the meal.
Treats- he gets bully sticks, duck feet (dried raw), honest kitchen treats and beef liver treats regularly, and on occasion he gets carrots, dog bone broth, goats milk, green beans, different berries and in general id give him a piece of whatever is safe for dogs in small quantities and see how he reacts. So far no bad reactions (only to eaten toys that he throws up but that’s irrelevant). I also started supplementing taurine for heart health and continued supplementing beta glucan for overall immunity.
If you have any questions or suggestions, always welcome!
Here are some pictures of my chubby boy