Liver questions

[CoRayBee]

...not the edible kind...

 

I am hoping that someone on this board might have experienced this sort of thing before, because I'm stumped.

 

I had my girl (8 years old) in to my vet to get some lumps inspected. As I suspected they are just little lipomas so we made a date to have them excised. Because of her age the vet suggested we do prelim bloodwork before her general anaesthetic. I didn't really want to but agreed- after all, he's the vet- and as it turns out it's a good thing I did.

 

Everything came back normaler than normal except for Barra's liver enzyme count, which was waaaay high. Because she is a) not the sort of dog to get into garbage; in such good shape; and c) totally asymptomatic the vet thinks it is maybe the result of inflammation due to some sort of trauma (hit in the gut, landed wrong after jumping, etc.) I would very much like to believe it's that simple but of course the first thing I do is start to panic (ultrasounds, biopsies, etc, $$$- not to mention the possibility of actually losing my dog!!!)

 

My question to all is this- has anyone experienced this sort of thing before? I suppose it would be not unrealistic to think that injuries could happen at any time but particularly to a working dog that loves to play hard at home (wrestle, tug of war, etc.) She is on meds for 10 days to bring down any inflammation and then we will recheck. In the meantime any advice would be most appreciated.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Milk thistle is awesome for any liver trouble. Also, supplementing with "B" (I think it's B-6 specifically) helps metabolize ammonia in the gi before making the liver deal with it, letting the liver rest.

 

My old Greg dog, who lived to be 15, had trouble with his liver on and off the last year of his life. He was exposed to toxins on three different occaisions, and both times the milk thistle and B helped immensely. He was on meds but his values did not go down until I added the supplements. After the second time I just kept him on the supplements and his liver was healthy up (except for the third accident) to the end. He ultimately died of a stroke.

[donna frankland (uk)]

can i ask if she was fasted for 24 hours before the bloods were taken? if not this may affect the results as her liver will have been in full swing at the time...... i think, dont quote me on any of this though!

love

donna

[CoRayBee]

Rebecca,

I never even thought about milk thistle & vitamins, thank you for the suggestion. Any thoughts on the correct amount? There's no point in asking the vet- nice guy though he is, he's also TOTALLY allopathic. We have a "talk" about vaccinations every time I go in (as in I don't vaccinate any more but he thinks I should.)

 

Donna,

Yes you can ask if she was fasted (lol) and no, she wasn't. She gets fed once a day around 7 pm (kibble, not raw, if it makes any difference.)

 

Thanks to both of you

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

For the milk thistle I just followed the recommendation on the bottle. Look for guaranteed levels of silmaryn (sp?), which is the active component. I did try the silmaryn isolate and didn't think it worked as well, though that was very subjective.

 

For the B, I used a single dose B complex, and made sure I fed at night (ie, before bedtime). It is absorbed much better during rest periods.

 

Good luck! I hope it works out for you.

[Miztiki]

Just a thought, but since you're only feeding once a day, is it possible it's causing the liver to work overtime? You know, nothing all day and then WHAM, a whole bunch of stuff to process and filter all at once?

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

This is just my opinion, but I don't think it's like that. If anything were changed, it would be much more helpful to offer food which is less challenging. The vet gave us canned food the first time we had a problem, but the main ingredients were potatoes, cooked whole egg, very bland boiled chicken, salmon, and rice. I asked my vet if I could prepare something similiar at home (which didn't cost $1.75 twice a day) and she had no problem with it. And I've mentioned the Wonder Bread before - that was simply amazing, but the ingredients are very bland (except for the wheat) and it's high in B vitamins.