Loose poo and metrondizol? - Page 3

Going off topic here with your comment Hundmutter:

My vet lays the bill to me everytime I walk in there. No need for double earning. ;)

He is good though and honestly I don't think he charges enough in most cases. Putting up with their patients owners should be a tax in it's on right. I love listening to some of the questions and comments everytime I'm in there. Like the last time I was in there with 3 dogs and a cat.

"Do you have a high quality roll up leash? -- my 12 lb dog just pulls me all over the yard I can't hold him back and he broke the one I bought from walmart."

"How can I get my 9lb dog to take these pills? I've shoved them in hot dogs, lathered them in peanut butter.. I tried those expensive pill pockets (4 bucks a bag).." The vet tech explained how to position the pill at the back of the throat and push it down.. "OH MY GOODNESS I WOULD NEVER TREAT MY DOG THAT WAY"...

I wanted to ask oh so you will feed him a pack of hot dogs trying to get him to take his comfortis pill?

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/09/24/pets-gi-inflammation-treatment.aspx?e_cid=20120924_PetsNL_art_1



Story at-a-glance
Inflammatory bowel disease, IBD, is a condition in which there are high numbers of inflammatory cells present in the lining of the digestive tract. This inflammation causes structural changes in the lining that result in poor digestion and absorption of nutrients in food. Causes of IBD include diet, gut bacteria, environment, immune system function, GI parasites, and certain drugs. Many traditional vets attempt to treat symptoms of GI inflammation with broad spectrum dewormers, antibiotics, and/or steroid therapy … often with little success. Symptoms of IBD vary depending on what part or parts of the GI tract are inflamed, but the most common signs are intermittent bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. Treating IBD often involves a bland diet to start, followed by a novel protein and novel carbohydrate diet. Appropriate supplements are also tremendously beneficial.


Maybe this will help. 

Hundmutter, I would say it's not so much about lining their pockets (though there are crooks in every field) as perhaps being either stuck in a rut or just plain uninformed about metronidazole. It's typically been a very popular drug to give because it works on a broad spectrum of disease causing bugs and nasties, and can also calm the gut. However, because it's so broadly applicable it seems to rarely help with diagnosis, and it's sometimes not the _best_ drug to give for whatever is causing the diarrhea. It also can cause a sort of rebound effect with certain bacteria reappearing and causing diarrhea again or damage to the gut, I'll have to find the study again to see the specific ones... Either way, I always ask _why_ metronidazole as a first drug.

we do usually twice a day when we prescribe it.

Since it wasnt determined what actually caused the loose stools, I would have wanted to start at the lowest dosage to see if it worked. Why overdose a dog? Too many vets overdose imo and I would have preferred a lower dose.  One never knows until its tried. Ive had more than my share of dogs on flagyl and I personally think its overused as a "treat all- we dont know what the dog has" drug. Ive also had two dogs with EPI and initially they cleared up then got it again, only worse.

I took back a pup from an a$$hole that got the pup at 8 weeks and then changed
the pups diet 5 times in the 5 weeks they had her to totally different dog foods.

I am not saying that you are anything like this person, please just excuse me as I am trying to make my point (and vent a little),
                                                          I learned a lot from this Lady :(
   The lady,(female human>doesn't deserve to be called Lady..Oops..)
brought the pup to the vets and complained about loose stools....
Soooo, the vet starting prescribing all the pills you guys have mentioned, after checking for all sorts of parasites and giardia and EPI and found nothing and to boot put the poor pup on Hill's prescription diet dog food...:((
  The lady(female human>doesn't deserve to be called Lady..Oops..)
had complained to me about different things, and finally it dawned on me that, she didn't want a GSD, she wanted a lap dog!!!
  She already owned a small lap dog, and as the GSD pup started getting bigger she would call me & complain saying the pup was walking funny or the pup had loose stools.
  I told her I would give her a complete refund of what she had paid for the pup and to bring the pup back to me, she was like, Wow, really....OK.
   The lady (female human>doesn't deserve to be called Lady..Oops..)
brings back the pup & tells me..I haven't fed her since Wednesday cause I didn't want her to have an accident in my car, granted it was Friday!..
  I wanted to SLAP the b-otch in the face, but have great restraint, so I smiled politely and handed her money back.
   The lady..(female human>doesn't deserve to be called Lady..Oops..)
..had given me all the pills and crappy dog food and I later donated the dog food to the local food pantry.
  I fed the pup right away then had my son take her for a walk with a poop bag, he came back with normal looking poop, so I think clearing her system did the trick, but she shouldn't have needed such a drastic move like that if she had stayed on the same diet all along.
   OH...and did the vet remind the owner that the second set of puppy shots were due, no, lets just do everything but!

Lesson learned...some vets see you coming & will drain every cent you have.
    Never sell a pup to somebody that can't show up themselves and instead send other family members to pick the pup up.
 Puppy was rehomed to a young couple and is a healthy beautiful adult GSD with no problems!

With GSD's less is better in the way of vaccines & prescriptions

I have a vet friend who just last weekend mentioned that one of her dogs had had diarrhea and that she had given it Flagyl because that is what she always does when her dogs have diarrhea. 

Sitasmom, I can't stress this enough....RUN BLOODWORK! One of my girls as a pup had loose stool, meds (including metro) would work temporarily but it would always come back. Sample after sample came back inconclusive. She was thin, sluggish, eventually shaky until she began seizing one night and we nearly lost her. Bloodwork came came back with very messed up sodium and potassium levels (likely from her chronic diarrhea)- and a high white blood cell count. After a round of antibiotics, we had our happy, bouncy puppy back, and I will NEVER make the mistake again of not exhausting every option to root out the problem. Our best guess is she had some kind of infection in her GI that eventually started shutting her body down.

How wise you people can be !  Seriously worried that I am becoming addicted to PDB;  the quality of comments
can be excellent, no matter what sometimes gets said about these sites.
Its great to learn so many of you do have good, careful and non-grasping vets you can trust;  like I said, we hear
so many stories about the opposite on here.

I'm lucky in that the vet practice I use is excellent, and not exhorbitantly expensive.  Even though it is now a very
large practice, with quite a few trainee and 'baby vets' coming through, the Partners are brilliant, and there is good
24-hr cover.  
In the context of this thread, one of the plus points is that they normally only use metro. as a second stage choice. 

That's a great site reference for GI / IBD /IBS info, Eldee.  What I meant when I said the OP should be prepared for
more trouble was the recurrent nature of Irritable Bowel problems.  Even when treated carefully, using the dietary
& supplemental method suggested, rather than chucking medicines at it,  we had to be constantly careful thereafter
with a particular dog where I used to work, because of this.  We would get him 'right' ... and then almost before we
could draw breath he was off again.  Not easy.  Having dealt with this for some years with this dog I was motivated
to take my own GSD in to the Royal Vet College to give blood a couple of times, as they've asked for people with
Sheherds with healthy guts to donate for sampling in their research into this condition.  Lets hope they can come up
with new information and / or effective treatments. [ I think they might still want dogs, so if anyone in the UK wants
to PM me I can supply the contact details.]

Re Hotdogs etc - yes I agree !  1) VERY strange people would rather get their dogs fat stuffing them with whole packs
of meat, just to avoid pushing a pill down their throats.  2) Unfortunately that type all too often want a cuddly lapdog,
but then go and get something like a GSD.  3) And yes, they are exactly the sorts of owners who can't cope when an
under 20pound dog pulls 'em around on the leash.  Makes me tear out my hair - but what to DO about it/them ???

"Re Hotdogs etc - yes I agree !  1) VERY strange people would rather get their dogs fat stuffing them with whole packs of meat, just to avoid pushing a pill down their throats.  2) Unfortunately that type all too often want a cuddly lapdog, but then go and get something like a GSD.  3) And yes, they are exactly the sorts of owners who can't cope when an under 20pound dog pulls 'em around on the leash.  Makes me tear out my hair - but what to DO about it/them ???"

Well.  Guess I need to divest myself of my GSDs and get me a lapdog, then.    'Cause I DO use hot dogs, peanut butter, plain ol' butter, and more when I'm treating one of my dogs repeatedly. Why not, if it makes it more pleasant for the dog, and doesn't do it any harm?

While I'm certainly more than capable of manually pilling a dog, I also recognize that it's not something some clients feel comfortable doing, if for no other reason than the large teeth inside the dog's mouth.  Yeah, sure, dog pills like a dream for me at the clinic, the vet tech who has never taken any crap from them, but for their owner, not so much.  And I've had a few foster dogs in my time that didn't care for being pilled, and had to learn to tolerate it--but I'm not afraid of having my knuckles scraped up by the back molars of a dog if they initially think they can win their intial dissent.

Most owners would prefer to avoid that. I've got no issue if they want to pill their dog using hot dogs, cheese, pill pockets, liverwurst (my favorite for very strong-smelling, bitter-tasting meds like cephalexin & doxycycline)--as long as they are getting the medication into the dog on the schedule prescribed, I don't much care how they pill their dog!

But I do agree that metronidazole is far overused in recent years, and too many people are becoming complacent about the drug.  It should be remembered that (a) the drug is NOT approved for use in animals, at any dose and for any purpose, so all uses of it are extra-label and are REQUIRED to be done only under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian; (b) it is not very effective against the protozoal organisms that are often implicated in persistant problems with loose stools in dogs; (c) it has some pretty damn serious side-effects, especially in immature animals. It's not just a rather benign 'wormer' like piperazine or pyrantel pamoate.