Stress Colitis, ick Options

[MaggieDog]

I'm finally home from a week long conference and get to deal with this fun stuff. Maggie developed stress diarrhea on Saturday evening. She messed her kennel horribly on Saturday night and the kennel called to see what I wanted to do first thing Sunday. They fasted her for a meal and gave her pumpkin on my request and she had a normal stool Sunday night, but she's had diarrhea throughout the day today and now that she's home she's asking to go out every 3 to 4 hours and licking her hind end frequently - thankfully the bit of blood I saw in the first go round once I picked her up is gone, but now the stool is green.

In the past her stress diarrhea has resolved in a day or two once she's out of the situation so I was planning on just watching her closely rather than going to the vet (she's acting normal and drinking fine, sleeping a lot but that's more likely due to lack of sleep at the kennel since that's common for her), but I don't recall seeing green stool before, so I'm a bit concerned. I may take a stool sample in to work tomorrow to have them look at it, but I'd really like to get some input from you guys on what you've noticed when your dogs have had stress related diarrhea.

She's had a few pieces of kibble but dinner was a tablespoon of canned pumpkin and about 1/4 cup of rice - if anything I'd expect her to have orange stool. Thoughts? Should I do a complete fast?

[SweetJordan]

I always do the canned pumpkin remedy as well, but I usually start with a complete fast first(24 hrs). Then I'll start with a very bland diet w/ pumpkin added. There can be multiple causes for her having a green stool. One is just that the stool is going through her too fast so it doesn't have the opportunity to change to brown. As long as she is acting okay and drinking enough I don't think I would be too worried esp. if you feel that it was just brought on by stress. Granted that it clears up within the next day or so. I know they always say to give rice, but I think that can be difficult to digest. I'd add some yogurt to her food if you don't already when you go back to her diet, and some enzymes if you are feeding kibble. Just responded because I know all about colitis. Hope that was some help. I'm sure others will offer suggestions.

[OurBoys]

If it's stress related, it should clear up in a day or two like you said. Pumpkin and yogurt is a good idea. Just don't give her too much yogurt in case she's lactose intolerant. As far as the green stool, did she eat any grass?

[Aquarius89]

Poor Maggie. I'd fast her for 12-24 hours, and start her on a little bit of pumpkin - no kibble.
Feel better soon!

[kelpiegirl]

If you fast- fast her for 24 hours, only water. Then, feed a bit of rice and cooked chicken. Make the digestion easy on her. If she isn't resolved soon, get her in to the vet. Jmo.
Julie

[MaggieDog]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think I'm going to have her skip food completely this morning and then reintroduce things tonight. I was up every 2.5 hours last night and she threw up 3 times as well - I'm going to talk to the vet at work about it and see what she has to say. Hopefully anything that comes out this morning will be more normalized, but I'm still going to see if I can work from home this afternoon since otherwise I'll be driving home every 2 hours. :\

[MaggieDog]

Vet appointment scheduled for 10:15 - there was way more blood in her stool this morning than I wanted to see. Plus side is I can go back to bed for an hour or so since my boss told me I could just come in after the appointment. So much for getting lots accomplished after a week away.

[kelpiegirl]

Good- I think that's a good plan- please update when you can.

[urge to herd]

uurgh, Maggie is sounding a lot like Buzz. He started showing stress related loose stools, that progressed to a bacterial overgrowth in his gut, clostridia perfingens. He had 4 nasty episodes in 6 months, pretty sick each time. He was very lethargic, ran a fever a couple times, vomited, bloody stool, wasn't interested in food or his human friends, and very restless, probably because his gut was so painful. My vet was ready to send me to a doggy gastroenterologist, but did one more stool culture - bingo, c. perfingens.

Almost any stress would set him off. Being kenneled, even though he ran around and played a lot and seemed to enjoy himself. My working long hours for extended periods, or too many visitors at home, well, you get the idea.

Just doing the bland diet did not help at all. He needed medication each time. I delayed getting him to the vet the 1st couple times, because I'd always been able to treat Sami's dire rear w/just a bland diet, but he'd get sicker quickly.

Fast forward a couple years, what is working for Buzz is to be on a prophlactic dose of flagyl 2x/week. He's only had one out break this year, and that was when I was out of town and he was kenneled 3 times in 7 weeks. When he goes to the kennel, he gets a half dose daily, and that helps too. This is all per my vet's diagnosis/prescription.

Good luck w/Maggie, please let us know what happens with her.

Ruth n the BC3

[MaggieDog]

Ok diagnosis is now bacterial coliis. She's been given an injection of antibiotics to jumpstart things and also has scripts for reglan BID, metronidazole BID, and diamycin SID. They wanted me to feed her SD I/D but she's sensitive to poultry so she's getting overcooked white rice and yogurt for the next few days, gradually switching back to her regular diet (CA Natural lamb). I'm also dosing w/ probiotics. Bah! Having a sick doggie sucks.

[kelpiegirl]

Good that you got her in then! Anyway- a side note- I had my Boxer on Reglan, and Metro-- and it really threw him for a loop- he behaved very oddly, I had to stop it. Just watch Maggie. I feed my kitty ID- it is a god send for her. Too bad Maggie is sensitive to chix- they should make ID with another protein source.

Ok diagnosis is now bacterial coliis. She's been given an injection of antibiotics to jumpstart things and also has scripts for reglan BID, metronidazole BID, and diamycin SID. They wanted me to feed her SD I/D but she's sensitive to poultry so she's getting overcooked white rice and yogurt for the next few days, gradually switching back to her regular diet (CA Natural lamb). I'm also dosing w/ probiotics. Bah! Having a sick doggie sucks.

[OurBoys]

Wow, this has been an interesting thread. I know stress can lower your immune system but I never knew it could actually create an infection! Thanks for starting this discussion, Erin!

[juliepoudrier]

Brenda,
Just a point of clarification. Stress doesn't "create" an infection. Stress just affects the immune response which then allows an infection to take hold. In this case, it was probably bacterial overgrowth in the GI tract, where bacteria normally live, but because of the stress they were able to in effect "take over" where normally the immune system would keep them in check. Likewise, people and animals with compromised immune systems are more susceptible to infections. So a compromised immune system (whether from stress or disease) doesn't *cause* other diseases--it simply makes one more susceptible to them (in other words, the disease-causing organisms are all around, and some live on or within us--and when our immune system isn't functioning properly, then those disease-causing organisms can gain a foothold and actually cause disease). It's probably just a fine point, but I think it's an important one.

J.

[OurBoys]

It's probably just a fine point, but I think it's an important one.

I agree. It is important. Thanks for clarifying.

[SweetJordan]

Ok diagnosis is now bacterial coliis. She's been given an injection of antibiotics to jumpstart things and also has scripts for reglan BID, metronidazole BID, and diamycin SID. They wanted me to feed her SD I/D but she's sensitive to poultry so she's getting overcooked white rice and yogurt for the next few days, gradually switching back to her regular diet (CA Natural lamb). I'm also dosing w/ probiotics. Bah! Having a sick doggie sucks.

I came back to check and saw that things got worse. Hopefully she will be feeling better soon with the meds.
One of my girls took Reglan when she received certain chemo drugs, and she always did really well with it. And it worked well because she ate a ton and never threw up.
If she doesn't like the taste of her bland diet try adding some low sodium beef broth. Chicken would be good as well, but if she's sensitive to poultry I know you wouldn't want to use that. Anyway, it would give it some extra flavor and it would give her some extra liquids. Just an idea.

[MaggieDog]

Ok we've gone 8.5 hours w/ no poop of any kind after the shot of antibiotics and a dose of reglan with a lunch of yogurt and rice w/ added probiotics. She's going to get her first dose of one of the antibiotics tonight (metronidazole) with another meal of yogurt and rice, and will get the other antibiotic tomorrow morning since it's only SID.

I wonder if the stress diarrhea wiped out all the "good" bacteria in the GI tract, thus allowing the overgrowth to run unchecked. The vet did say if we didn't need to use all the antibiotics this go round that I could send them with her the next time she boards so they can catch this whole thing sooner. The way things are going it looks like she'll only need the antibiotics for 2 days or so - he said to give them one dose past when she stops showing tummy upset, yet gave us a weeks worth of tablets.

[BCjetta]

Hannah had a similar issue this summer (started the afternoon before we went on a roadtrip across 2 provinces). Wed am she was fine and ate breakfast. Wed 4pm had diarrhea. After that it progressed to vomiting 3-4 times and diarrhea every 2 hours all night (obviously she did not get fed dinner). I ended up taking her into work at 5am and giving her barium (it will coat the stomach sometimes and help the problem). Well, 7am comes and the barium comes out the other end with blood (picture pink milkshake....mmm). So I went back to work and talked to the Dr's. Got metronidazole, metacam and metoclopramide (reglan) and we left for our roadtrip from there (thursday). No more diarrhea after that, but, I did not feed her anything until friday night (so wed am was her last meal), and when I fed her it was 1 tblspoon of gastro food. Same thing sat am, 1 tablespoon. She didn't end up having a bowel movement until sunday morning. After that she was fine (no more diarrhea).

[MaggieDog]

Thanks for the additional info BCjetta - I was starting to wonder about her lack of bowel movements as she was out last night at 11 and still nothing (12 hours after the reglan), we'll see if anything appears this morning. I need to call the vet though because he had said I should only continue the antibiotics one dose past her tummy settling and I haven't even started the second antibiotic, yet this morning would be one dose past the dose when her tummy settled.

[luv2napp]

I was going on the board to ask a question about diarrhea and ran across this thread. I hope you don't mind me jumping in? Lacee has had two episodes of diarrhea in the past two months, both times requiring meds. Nothing was found in her stool or blood, so the doc said it is probably colitis. I've been feeding her chicken and rice to try to get her stools back to normal. Once they are normal, I start her back on her Innova with chicken broth. She now has diarrhea AGAIN! I really don't know what to do. I don't know how to handle colitis. Could it be the Innova? If it is, I don't understand because it's supposed to be the best. I tried to feed her pumpkin, but she won't eat it.

A friend of mine told me about a website called PHD products that make good dog food. Have any of you heard of this? It talks about raw diet also, but I don't know how to do that either.

My husband thinks it has something to do with the canine club I take her to. She runs so much and won't stop to rest like the rest of the dogs. She would keep going until she dropped, so he thinks it happens when she runs too much. I really don't think so, though.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[OurBoys]

Which Innova are you feeding her? If it's the one with grains in it, I would try the EVO. Are you watering down the chicken broth? But if she's developed an allergy to chicken, even watering it down might not help. Does she like yogurt? The active cultures in yogurt might help her.

BTW, Erin, did you get in touch with the vet?