Devan was always a healthy little puppy, full of energy and a good weight. But then in June of 2014 right after she turned 1, we noticed that she was starting to lose weight and was having diarrhea. Okay pretty easy fix or so we thought. We took her into the vet and were prescribe wormer, giardia meds, and anti-diarrhea medication. All total the vet visit was $162.00. A few days into the meds Devan's stool become better, but her appetite was increasing, and she wasn't looking any better.
Ten days later after all the meds were gone we noticed the diarrhea was back and Devan was continuing to lose weight! She was now down to 37lbs from her healthy 45lbs. At this point all she did was eat and sleep. She had no energy and was looking worse and worse daily. Back to the vet we went this time with a stool sample in tow. We were prescribed a prescription food, more anti-diarrhea meds, and a fecal test that got sent into the lab. The food was $30.00 for 7lbs for the dry and $2.00 a can. Not bad until you stop to realize at this point we were feeding her 4 cups a day just to try and satisfy her hunger. Plus her stool never really got better, she still had loose almost diarrhea stools. The fecal test was $50 plus we had the meds and re-exam. All together we were looking at $154.00 for this visit.
A few days later we had our answer on the fecal test. Unfortunately the fecal came back completely clear of anything. Our next step was x-rays and a full blood panel. The blood panel came back normal and her x-rays showed that the stomach was full of food and was huge like a dog with bloat. As I stood in the room with the vet looking at her x-rays the vet looked at me and said " She is literally starving to death in front of us and we don't know why" Those words almost took my breath away. I was watching Devan fade away in front of my eyes as she has lost more weight as was down to 35lbs. That was 10 pounds in just under 3 weeks!
From there we scheduled a fasting blood test that would test her pancreatic levels and B12. We had to fast her the rest of that afternoon and into the morning. It was heartbreaking to see her search and search for food and not understand why we were not feeding her. The x-rays, more meds to make her food move out of her stomach faster, and the blood work came to $466.00.
All the while I had been frantically researching everything I could on the internet. All of her symptoms were pointing towards Malabsorption, but there are multiple causes and I didn't have a clue what was causing her issue. At this point I made the decision to take her off the prescription food and switch her to a pre-packaged raw diet. Everything I was reading said raw is much easier to digest. Off the local pet food store I went and $148 later I walked out with 12lbs frozen food, and a package of dehydrated raw plus some supplements. I was so grateful for the staff at the store. They were such a big help in helping me decide what the get!
And finally the next day we had some answers! Her blood work came back! Her B12 was low so we stopped and picked up some shots for that for the next 12 weeks we would give subq. to help increase her vit. B12 level. Thankfully the shots only ran us $15. Not too much later in the day the rest of the bloodwork came back. It showed her Pancreas wasn't producing enough enzymes to digest her food. FINALLY...we knew why she was starving to death. It was Friday evening of course so we had to wait to till Monday to get the enzymes we needed. We also had to put her back on an antibiotic to combat SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth)
I went home and starting researching her condition and discovered it was called EPI (Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency) It was almost unheard of 10 years ago, but is becoming more and more common.
Come Monday we felt a huge weight lift off our shoulders when we finally got to pick up her enzymes. We finally had a way to make her better! It did come at a cost though. The enzymes were $203 for the bottle and the pharmacist told us to expect them to last 30 days. Now we faced the fear of wondering if we could afford to keep her healthy. Her food was $39.00 for 6lbs and she was eating almost 9 lbs a week and now the cost of the enzymes! Thankfully in my research I discovered where to get the generic enzymes and those were only $48. a month. That was a huge relief! We ordered those right away too so that when our first batch was gone we had them on hand so we didn't have to worry about shipping.
Adding up all the costs from when we first discovered something was wrong to finally getting her diagnosed and getting her first bottle of enzymes we paid a total of $1,264.00. I am so very thankful that we could afford to pay those costs, cause I couldn't imagine if we had to lose Devan due to money. I hope that if someone reads this, it will help them have the proper bloodwork done sooner to help save them time and money.
I would love to report that Devan made a complete turn around, but that is simply not the case. She is still struggling. We are currently starting another round of antibiotics to see if that will help her gain some weight. She is able to digest most of her food as her diarrhea has stopped. She is currently eating 4lbs of raw food a day and is only 31.5 lbs. I hope to someday have her back up to 40lbs. I have joined forums and support groups online and have registered her with the college that is researching this scary disease. She does have energy and her B12 levels are back to where they should be!
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| Devan |
