CockersOnline Forum
Cocker Specific Discussion => Health => Topic started by: Countrygirl on January 28, 2012, 10:05:21 PM
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My next door neighbour has asked me to ask if anyone can offer any advice for her friend.
Her friend has a 5 year old golden cocker called Lily. Lily has been struggling with gastroenteritis since the end of December. She was put on some more antibiotics this week but when she had only been on them a day the vet rang and said stop them immediately as her tests have shown she is in renal failure. I am sorry I don't know what the renal reading was. She was taken straight back to the vets and put on a drip. She has come home today and apparently pulled to get into the car but is very lethargic and refusing to eat anything apart from a small teaspoon of chicken and rice, but is drinking.
Her friend is pregnant after 3 miscarriages and can't believe that her world is falling apart again after she was so happy. She is convinced that she is going to lose Lily, she has to take her back on Monday for further tests. Does anyone know anything about renal failure caused (presumably) by gastroenteritis and if so do the kidneys recover.
Thank you to anyone who has any advice.
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Our previous cocker was diagnosed with renal failure when he was 11 and a half, but had been ill previously with pancreatitis brought on by the effects of Metacam for arthritis. He was put onto the Royal Canine Renal food and eventually needed steroids and other medication to manage his condition. Your friend's cocker is much younger than Jake was when he was diagnosed so I would imagine it will depend on her renal readings to know what her prognosis is. Hopefully through a renal diet and medication her condition can be controlled for some years to come, but her vet is the best person to discuss it with.
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Hi sorry to hear about your friend, given the right support and providing the cause of the failure is delt with,the kidneys can improve,gastroenteritis in itself is unlikely to be the cause of the failure, more likely to be the long term treatment given for the enteritis,any further help or advice do not hesitate to ring me at anytime on 01449767822.I do hope your friend gets the help she needs and our thoughts are with her! kx.
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Thank you Siam and Kaycee.
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Acute renal failure is a life threatening illness in which recovery is possible but in all reality may be very slim. I only have personal knowledge of chronic renal failure with older dogs but basically the disease symptoms are very similar.
I do know that parsley and honey both help with kidney function and the longer the dog can survive passed about 6 wks the greater the chance of a recovery. I know you know, I believe in herbs and have had success myself using this infusion with my own dog with chronic kidney failure (in CKF there is no chance of recovery only buying time).
I shall pm you the know how.
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As with humans kidney failure can follow acute diarrhoea, when the body loses so much fluid that there is none to go through the kidneys then it can cause kidney failure. A human would probably undergo dialysis.
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I know how much faith Bluegirl has in herbs etc and I know the results she has had. If she can help, then take it xxxxxxx
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Thank you so much to everyone who has posted. My neighbour is very touched that people care about her friend's dog, she just doesn't understand COL does she! Unfortunately I don't really know how bad Lily is, I only know what my neighbour Barbara tells me. I do know Lily is going back for a blood test tomorrow and Barbara will keep me informed so I can let you all know.
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Hiya,
Just seen this thread and wondered if the following may be of any help. Its a reply to another thread about kidney failure I posted some time ago about my old dog, Penny.
When I first learnt of Penny's Kidney Failure I really panicked and thought we wouldn't have long and it couldn't be reversed but the good news is that it was the opposite. Penny's levels came down from high to normal over the course of a year. :blink: In the end we lost her to cancer (unrelated) :'( .
The food she was prescribed really didn't agree with her. She didn't like it, and when she did eat it, it made her ill. If you look at the ingredients it really isn't great (derivatives/powders/pulps of this that and the other) and marked up at a really high price >:D This is the ingredient list of Royal Canin Renal that Penny was prescribed:
Rice, maize flour, animal fats, soya protein isolate, maize gluten,hydrolysed animal proteins, beet pulp, minerals, egg powder, fish oil, Fructo-Oligo-Saccharides (FOS), vegetable fibres, soya oil, Larginine, potassium citrate, taurine, green tea extracts, marigold extract, L-tryptophan.
On first look into a homemade diet, a low protein diet (chicken) was recommended BUT this didn't agree with her either, and after reading appears to be the wrong thing to do.
So, I did LOTS of research and found that a low phosphorous, higher fat, good quality protein was the way to go. On this advice, we gave her a good quality cooked lamb mince and pudding rice. She also had the odd egg white, and ground egg shell. We used to cook little mince patties in the oven, binded together with the egg white and parsley and froze them and made the rice fresh each time. It was good quality food and convenient to!
The parsley infusions (recommended by Bluegirl) also worked well, we simmerd the parsley in water and added honey and she'd drink this or have it on her food.
This website was invaluble: http://www.dogaware.com/health/kidney.html
If you need any help/pointers just let me know. Penny's last blood test before she passed away from the nasty cancer showed her levels right back to normal (after a gradual reduction over that year) so it definately did the trick and she looked forward to her yummy dinners to :luv:
The other thing I found really helped Penny when she was ill at the start of her diagnosis, was, strangly, digestive biscuits. The vet suggested them. When her tummy was upset and she really couldn't manage anything else she would always take some of these as a bit of a pick me up to get her back onto her normal diet.
Really hope Lilly picks up soon. The poor lady has really been through it. Lots of positive thoughts going her way xxx
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Thank you so much Hollyd443. That is really interesting. I will print it out and give it to my neighbour to give to her friend. Thanks again.