Second warning. Only start this post if you have lots of time and a drink nearby.
Short form: Fraser may have colitis. Might be cancer of the colon. Frequent attempts to poop all day, evening and overnight with not many results. Usually a few drops of bloody mucus. Occasional soft mound of thin diameter poop, mostly overnight. I'm not getting much sleep as he asks to get outside at least twice in the small hours. Looking for ideas to help with his situation. He's already on alternate days prednisone and an antibiotic when vet can get an order in. Fraser eats hypoallergenic food, gets a couple of tsp. per day of a stool softener and pumpkin with each meal. Also probiotic pill. So that's the summary if you look at the length of the post and decide you don't have the time. I certainly understand.
Long form.
I was looking over the last thread I wrote on Fraser's gut issue (and mouth problem) and last post was so ago the site suggested I start a new thread. The mouth issue seems to have been tonsillitis (didn't know dog's had tonsils, but why not) and resolved with antibiotic. Residue is that now Fraser won't let me look in his mouth which was a problem about two weeks ago when tried to eat some food smelling bit of plastic and got it stuck in his teeth. Visit to vet to remove. Jeez.
But the more important reason for this post is that two years after his ultrasound in Vancouver and advice from that vet to have him on Piroxicam and more roughage and local vet to put him on hypoallergenic food, his gut issues have got worse. Conclusion at that time was that the anal polyp was the probable cause for blood in stool and possible underlying colitis. Since then it's been checked regularly and hasn't grown. But, gradually Fraser started to poop up to 5 times per walk. And then lately, strains multiple times to poop, most without result except for a few drops of bloody mucus. So, off to vet for Xray, full panel blood tests, fecal and urine tests. Xray showed a lot of gas in his gut and the rest of the results were perfect. My vet even sent the Xray to a specialist radiologist who also didn't see anything significant. So, he needed an ultrasound, but that's when I stepped into the new world of major shortage of vets. My vet contacted the Vancouver specialist clinic to get him an appointment and they were supposed to get back to me. After a week with no call, I got back to my local vet office to discover that there is such a shortage of vets in BC (Canada?) that it's almost impossible to get an appointment for specialist screening tests. After phoning around, I was able to get him into the emergency vet in Vancouver who had treated his chocolate incident of two years ago and they did an ultrasound within the week. Thanks goodness as the first vet clinic called to say they could see him for an assessment (not an actual ultrasound) in June!
Results of ultrasound showed thickening in an area of his colon that is hard to get to surgically. Questionable whether that would be advisable. Could be an effect of colitis or cancer. Further test to see whether cancer would be colonoscopy or CT scan. So, after talking it over with the specialist vet, I've decided if he has cancer, I am not going to put him through chemo and radiation at his age (he's now 13 years old). If it is cancer, then it will reveal itself in time and he'd get palliative care. If it's colitis, vet has put him on long term prednisone and an antibiotic. But, and now you're up-to-date with the current situation. Fraser is trying to poop multiple times per day, evening and overnight. He's on a stool softener, so when he finally does produce something, it's a soft coil, small diameter. The bran buds suggested by the vet for roughage two years ago weren't doing much and he also gets pumpkin. And, I'm getting very poor sleep as Fraser asks to get outside at least twice in the small hours which he never did before. He comes back to bed and falls asleep. Usually I can't as it was too long of a wake time to easily resume sleep. At a couple of weeks in, I'm exhausted from lack of sleep. Fraser's fine, he's getting his sleep, but trapped in repeated attempts to poop. In the morning, I discover little coils of soft poop all over the garden due to his night time attempts. Frustrating part is he produces very little in his daytime walks. I asked the vet if there was some way of swinging his pooping to daytime instead if overnight so I can get some sleep. And I'd like to use a natural roughage source rather than the stool softener as it's made of polyethylene glycol. Was thinking of maybe trying psyllium fibre but in my reading through the colitis threads here, saw some warnings about psyllium choking dogs. I also need to get him pooping during the day rather than overnight, but don't know how to turn that around. I can't go on with such little sleep. So that's the detailed story. As always, I'm drawing on the collective wisdom and experience on this board. I did ask my vet about slippery elm and he seemed to think it wasn't supported by any evidence, but willing to experiment as both dog and I need help that the vet can't seem to provide.
