Hi All, I thought I'd take a few mins to post an update on my girl Roxy. So her diagnosis is 'Severe Chronic Interface Hepatitis with evidence of secondary copper accumulation'.
The first few days after collecting her from the RVC were pretty scary. It took Roxy approx' 3 days to rid the sedation drug out of her system entirely. The poor thing was as high as a kite. It didn't take long for her appetite to return which is fantastic. We've opted to give her a home cooked diet. Purely because she won't touch the prescription food and I can at least monitor what she is eating. She's eating better than us at the moment, with steak, chicken, cottage cheese and fresh veggies. She taking 5 different medications and some lactulose to reduce her encephalopathy. She's taking them all really well and she's having some added supplementation of some pure salmon oil and milk thistle and dandelion powder. Ms Florey at the RVC told us to feed her whatever it is she likes (obviously within reason) as the main thing is to preserve her remaining health and happiness. We'd rather she eat and be happy than to not eat (prescription food) and become bulimic or anorexic. She's currently maintaining a healthy weight of 10.5 kgs, she's a pretty pint sized cocker anyway. She's remarkably perky at the moment, enjoying her walks and almost back to her usual cheeky self. She's very needy still though and that's to be expected after being pulled from piller to post and poked & prodded. Her jaundice has subsided but it probably will never go entirely but the fact it has means she has goodish bile flow. That aside she's still got an "angry liver" and although she has hepatits is her diagnosis, we're told it's unlikely to be the actual hepatitis disease that has caused this. Unfortunately they are unable to determine the Primary cause as to why she has a hepatic liver as she is vaccinated against it every year. AS for the copper accumulation, after a bit of research it's found that cockers do suffer with this but probably not nearly enough to warrant a lot of research and documentation..........................For now we are loving, caring and enjoying each and every minute of this naughty, cheeky, inquisitive, loving girl and we're doing all that we can to preserve her quality of life. xxxx