vomiting immediately after eating? - update page 6

NicoleS

LOL @ the chicken broth.  I thought about just buying a can of low-sodium broth, and diluting it.  He was hungry enough this AM to eat a decent amount of rice, even while DH was cutting up the chicken.  Not nearly what I thought he would need for calories for the day, but he's a food hound so he must be doing OK with what he's eating.

  Nicole, you may want to try ground chicken; I use ground turkey for Jessie. After boiling it, I break it up into fine pieces with my fingers and it mixes into the rice so that they can't pick it out.

Janice, you mentioned ground meat before; I'll look for ground chicken.  Does it come in "grades" like beef and turkey -- percentage lean?  I don't recall seeing ground chicken much before, honestly, but then it's not something I would look for.

Do you think boiling 93% ground turkey would be good enough to get rid of fat?  The 97% is harder to find but costco sells the "7% fat or less" ground turkey -- ie, 93% lean or better -- for pretty cheap, $2.29/lb.  I always have a giant pack of this on hand, since we eat a ton of it in place of red meat. I could add a bit of that for a while, or go to feeding turkey in place of chicken,.  Right now we're working more on bland rather than limited ingredient, until we get his bloodwork rechecked.

We've been sort of shredding the chicken and it's been working pretty well; he's been eating much better the past few meals.  Either that, or he's really hungry   He chased down each grain of rice yesterday, and I even gave him some more.

He's gone a whole week without vomiting!  Yay!  His stools are still not "normal" -- but he is on two antibiotics, probiotics when I can give them far enough away from antibiotics (at least once a day, sometimes two), and he did change to chicken and rice only on Saturday, so I'm sure he's still adjusting.  We'll do a recheck of the pancreas enzyme levels on Saturday.

NicoleS

He's gone a whole week without vomiting!  Yay! His stools are still not "normal"

 That's great!!! His stools may not be normal until you add calcium to the food to balance the phosphorus. That was my experience with Jessie; calcium firms the stools. You need a food scale to weigh the meat after cooking, and for every three and a half ounces of meat, you add 250 mg of calcium. I use NOW brand calcium carbonate; one teaspoon has 1250 mg. You'll find it at health food stores.

NicoleS

Do you think boiling 93% ground turkey would be good enough to get rid of fat?  The 97% is harder to find but costco sells the "7% fat or less" ground turkey -- ie, 93% lean or better -- for pretty cheap, $2.29/lb

  Monica thought either 93% or 97% would be good, so the 93% should be fine. I can't find grades of ground chicken around here either but haven't worried about it since Jessie's allergic to chicken. I hope you get better test results Saturday.

Good point about the calcium, I hadn't really thought much into balancing it since we weren't sure if this was going to be longer than a week.  I actually have some calcium here, I ought to go look at it, or grind up some egg shells for a temporary fix. 

Thanks for the good thoughts!  I can't wait to get back test results, just to see what's going on.  He seems good, so it's a start in the right direction.

So I got a call this AM -- what is with both vet offices calling me during the same meeting, on Monday mornings?  Good thing the one Dr I had the meeting with found irony in the fact that I work on pancreatic cancer, and my dog has pancreatitis   So I could answer the call...

 Anyway, Sammy had his follow spec cpl test -- so we did the first one, and went a week with really no changes, other than being on the z/d, but then went a week of chicken and rice, and tested.  He started at 392, this time he was at 205!

Now, that's not "perfect" -- anything under 200 is "normal" -- anything over 400 is "pancreatitis" so technically, both times he's been in the gray middle ground, but we're much, much closer to normal!  He's also been nearly two weeks without vomiting. 

We have the OK to transition him to a low-fat kibble, or get a diet formulated that is low-fat.  I think I'm going to wait until we see if his paws clears up when we finally have a frost to try to ascertain if he has environmental issues, and decide if we want to do a food trial, before I have a diet formulated.

For those of you who have worked with someone to formulate a diet -- how does it work?  Do you ask for certain ingredients, like a turkey-based diet, and tell them you need it for a dog with pancreatitis?  What if you later find out the dog has issues and needs something different -- either allergy, or another condition requiring different nutritional requirements? 

Thanks for all the advice and support!  I'm glad we're much more closer to normal, and that over time, his values continue to decrease (the vet didn't recommend any specific timeline for re-testing, but we'll probably go back in a while just to monitor what we're doing).

NicoleS

For those of you who have worked with someone to formulate a diet -- how does it work?  Do you ask for certain ingredients, like a turkey-based diet, and tell them you need it for a dog with pancreatitis?  What if you later find out the dog has issues and needs something different -- either allergy, or another condition requiring different nutritional requirements? 

When I had Pirate's made, I gave her a list of specific ingredients Pirate could/could not have. She also has us fill out an extensive questionnaire, and email it back. She asked about raw/cooked/commercial preferences, veggies vs. meat, supplementing nutrients vs. getting them from varied ingredients, and on and on. It also asked about health issues (pancreatitis would go here!), medications, supplements, allergies, etc.

When I purchased the formulation it came with 6 weeks of 'support' so that I could work with her and make changes, but after that you'd have to pay if you needed to make changes.

 I did the same thing as Meg. I filled out, oh.... 3 or 4 pages worth of info on the dog, her lifestyle, my preferences, HER preferences, whether I wanted to include this or that or the other (RMBs, canned fish, vitamin supplements, etc etc), PLUS she emailed while formulating to ask if Emma would eat something (can't remember what it was, though?). I had four weeks, after the initial consult, to tinker with the diet.

NicoleS

Anyway, Sammy had his follow spec cpl test -- so we did the first one, and went a week with really no changes, other than being on the z/d, but then went a week of chicken and rice, and tested.  He started at 392, this time he was at 205!

  That's great; way to go Sammy!!! I hope his numbers go below 200 soon.

NicoleS

For those of you who have worked with someone to formulate a diet -- how does it work?  Do you ask for certain ingredients, like a turkey-based diet, and tell them you need it for a dog with pancreatitis?  What if you later find out the dog has issues and needs something different -- either allergy, or another condition requiring different nutritional requirements?

  My experience is the same as Megan and Jennie. The questionnaire you fill out will give the nutritionist the information they need to formulate the correct diet. Also, Monica reformulated the diet so it would have less phosphorus and sodium when I learned Jessie may have very early kidney disease, so she's now on a diet for pancreatitis and her kidneys. Not an easy thing to do for a dog that's allergic to seven different foods.

I don't know Mordana (Sabine Contreras) but a lot of the folks *here* do because she used to be really active on here.

I've known Monica Segal for years so she's the only one I have experience with.  The questionnaire is HUGE .. and Monica will work with the vet if need be.  She wants to know ALL the medical history (i.e., you don't tell her "I need a diet for a dog with pancreatitis that's turkey-based";).  You tell her everything (and send her vet records if you can) ... and then she will tell YOU what you need to have in the diet.

See -- that's the point of these -- you honestly can't make the determination of what needs to be IN the diet.  She will.  She may come up with ingredients you never thot of. 

In my case, we additionally had to work with the fact that I'm in Florida with a house where my air conditioning didn't work at the time.  i.e., baking ANYTHING in the oven just wasn't possible (not in a 105 degree summer!!) So she really will consider all aspects of what needs to be done.

I love Monica dearly (she is a personal friend), but Mordanna is every bit as good.  I honestly think BOTH of them have the dog's best interest at heart.  Monica is as comfortable with raw as she is with homecooked.  Her bottom line is just getting the dog fed with something that will **work** for THIS dog at THIS time. 

Both are just really nice women.  Now, beyond those two I dunno.  But I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either one of them -- now, Monica is a bud and I love her dearly.  *grin*  but I'd be a faithless cad if I said anything less than that LOL.