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Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis ( HGE )

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#1 · (Edited)
Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis ( HGE ) - Update Post #21 :)

Well, we've had a rough weekend :(

Diesel's poops on Friday started to get a little soft so I wasn't shocked on Saturday morning when his first poop of the day was diarrhea. I didn't notice anything unusual & always take a peek at his poop as I scoop. He had breakfast, I crated him (too chewy still to be left alone uncrated!) went out for a couple hours & when I came back took him out of his crate & he didn't make any signs that he had to go out ASAP, but he looked a little odd in his demeanour.

I was just putting groceries away before taking him out when he suddenly crouched for a poop in the kitchen - he has never pooped in the house before. I felt bad for him because I knew he had diarrhea & knew he felt bad for pooping inside. As I was cleaning up I noticed bright red blotches in his poop. Bloody poop is not something I ignore. Regular vet was closed (of course) scooped the diarrhea for a sample & took him to the emergency vet.

As soon as we got there, he pooped again on their mat, less poop came out but still bloody. Few minutes later he vomitted his entire breakfast then almost passed out. The only things ruled out by Emerg were no parvovirus, a quick rectal exam was normal & according to the xray no obstruction. They said if it were an obstruction there would have been more vomit vs diarrhea. As we were with the vet he tried to make a bowel movement & nothing but blood & mucous came out - no fecal matter.

So he was diagnosed with HGE & is now back home after a 24hr stay with IV & meds - I have to administer drops of Metronidazole every 12hrs & he's on Medi-Cal Gastro (canned) food for the next day or so then I can slowly reintroduce his regular food. If he vomits or has bloody diarrhea I am supposed to bring him back in.

The Emerg vet needs to work on their bedside manner, they seemed pretty vague about answers no matter how persistent I was & kept reiterating that he was doing better so it's not that serious & gave me the "we'll never know what caused it" answer & said he could come home. I only gave up with my inquiry because they charge SO much money & our regular vet is open again on Monday.

Tonight I started googling HGE so I can be more informed when I speak to our regular vet, but I am wondering if anyone else has gone through this & can offer any advice? Like if you were able to pinpoint the cause of your HGE case & how did you do it?

I will be asking about his potassium & sodium levels as it can indicate whipworm or Addisons, I need confirmation that Leptospirosis (he was supposed to get his first vacc of this Monday), Coronavirus, worms, parasites & any pancreatic issues have been ruled out as well. I will need to know what his RBC & WBC are & I may insist on an ultrasound just to be absolutely sure there isn't something wrong with his spleen or other organ.

Right now I can't sleep a wink, but Diesel is alot sleepier than normal & a little wobbly I assume lack of food & probably still a bit dehydrated & anxiety, he is alert (when called) & his regular happy go lucky self, but given Labs are famous for being so stoic I am skeptical at times... this was really scary :(
 
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#2 ·
Jasper went through this only one month ago and he too was admitted for 24 hours to be put on a saline drip and antibiotics !

I still have no idea what brought it on so cannot add to what you already know but dogs manage to eat all sorts of things without you noticing and that's what they put it down to. I know how scarey it is watching them throw up and defecate blood.

Suffice to say that after his antibiotics had finished he is now in rude health one again !
 
#5 ·
I'm so sorry about your boy! You're lucky that you caught it early though, we just had a dog (a chocolate lab actually) spend two days in our ICU with HGE.

Unfortunately there really is no definitive cause for HGE. It has been attributed to dietary indiscretion (the lab I saw ate a bunch of "human food" he doesn't normally get at a party), an overgrowth of a certain bacteria, and for just no apparent reason at all. We do know that dogs that have had one episode of HGE are more prone to have another, so we always recommend a strict diet and careful monitoring in the future.

I hope Diesel continues to feel better :)
 
#7 ·
We have been through something very similar with Jenica this May. She went very quickly downhill and was transferred to the emergency clinic for a couple of days. They were not able to find anything in her fecal that could have caused this, but Diesel got sick just a day later and they found Chlostridium and Giardia in his fecal. So the general suspicion is that they both had the same thing, but that is as close as we could get to a diagnosis.
I hope Diesel will recover quickly.
 
#8 ·
Gosh! There seems to be a lot of our JL dogs coming down with similar G.I. symptoms.

Puff had something similar (but without blood -- she had diarrhea and stools covered with mucus) and I took her to K-State's CVM Small Animal Clinic Sept. 3rd.

She was diagnosed with Clostridium Enteritis and put on antibiotics 2X/day for 8 days as well as a bland diet [cooked white rice & chicken breast + Hill's Prescription Diet I/D (for intestinal disorders)].

There's been no return of the diarrhea but her stools are still too soft (IMO) so we have a return appointment tomorrow @ 11 AM for further evaluation.

I was instructed to keep her on the bland diet through that time. Her appetite has been fine through this episode. That's a big relief after going through the repeated treatments to shake the Heterobilharzia Americana (H.A.), since that often involves a loss of appetite, even anorexia, and I sure would like to avoid another infestation of H.A.

I'll post what we find.

I do suggest that all dog owners whose dogs are battling these G.I. symptoms read the sticky at the top of JL's Lab Health & Nutrition subforum so that you're aware of the H.A. symptoms. VERY few vets north of the Gulf states ever consider H.A. infestation as a possibility. IF your dog does have symptoms that match those for H.A. and the treatment your vet is giving is not working, it may be worth the expense ($85-100) to have a fecal specimen sent to Texas A&M for the PCR test for the presence of H.A. DNA. Untreated H.A. (or treatment for other disorders with similar symptoms but not specifically for H.A.) is fatal.

 
#9 ·
Oh goodness, poor Diesel and poor you! That sounds like such a harrowing experience. I sure hope that he's on the mend now. Good thoughts for you!
 
#10 ·
I had small terrier a number of years ago who had what the vet described as "doggie crohn's disease." I had to be extremely careful what she ate, and even then she would occasionally have a bout of it (bloody diarheah, vomiting etc.) with no clear reason why. The only time my previous Lab had an issue it turned out to be pancreatitis. (emergency situation) It was extremely unusual for her to be sick so when she started vomiting etc. we got her straight in to the Vet. She was already starting to get dehydrated. After that we were very careful with her diet (kept it really low fat) and she didn't have this issue again. Of course the symptoms that they had could have indicated any number of things, but that's what they turned out to be with my dogs. Best wishes to Diesel. I hope he's feeling 100% soon.
 
#12 ·
Hi all, thanks for your posts & well wishes :) I've had about 3 hours sleep in the last 24 hours as I am a worry wort, anytime I closed my eyes I would have horrible nightmares about Diesel taking a turn for the worst so I opted to just stay awake but obviously that took a toll & I did have to sleep! Power snooze & a chat with our regular vet has put me a little more at ease.

We discussed in detail all the test results she answered all my questions from my internet research. Unfortunately, as with what a few of you have posted there is no answer & at this time no point in pursuing any further testing. What she did say though was that they've had an unusual surge of cases in the last 48 hours - 4 at their vet alone so clearly there is something in my area that the dogs are passing around. So it may not have been something he ate himself as HGE could be a virus of some sort that could have been passed sniffing snout to butt or even snout to snout.

I will look into the info that Bob Pr. posted re H.A. just in case, but Diesel is doing really well :) He's happy, alert, staying awake a bit longer now, anxious to eat & keeping it down, still hasn't had a bowel movement but the vet said he'd been emptied out & not getting his regular feedings so it could still take another 24hrs before he has one. She said not to panic if there are still flecks of blood in his poop as he is still healing but the same amount I first discovered or obviously any more then I need to get him in ASAP, at which time I would definitely run the gamut of other tests.

So I'm staying home until at least Wednesday to be with him 24/7 or until I see his next poop, as she did say the reason he was discharged from Emerg so soon (24hr stay) was because I acted so quickly & got him in ASAP. I did pop out for a quick errand to the pet store & got another one of his favourite toy that he recently destroyed & it was SO exhilarating to see him just totally perk up, wag his tail & smack his chops trying to get it out of my hand! :)

Will keep you posted with an update once he has his poop & is in the clear!
 
#16 ·
Glad to hear he's on the mend, I hope things continue to improve.

I know how scary that is - when he was younger (less than a year old), Toby had several episodes of explosive (and sometimes bloody) diarrhea and vomiting that were completely inexplicable. Two of them landed him at the emergency vet, though thankfully neither was for overnight or longer. We never did figure out what caused them, and he apparently outgrew the problem though we do still have to monitor what he eats. Good luck.
 
#20 ·
Glad to hear he is feeling better. Dixie and Grace both had similar problems earlier in the summer. We never did find the cause. Dixie had to stay overnight on an IV, but we caught Grace's a bit earlier because we were looking out for it more. I hope he continues to feel better and is back to normal soon!
 
#21 ·
WOO HOO!! We got poop!! LOL

Never thought I be so happy to see dog poop! He had one late afternoon yesterday but I didn't want to say anything yet because it was still diarrhea-ish with just a bit of blood that the vet warned me of. But this morning he had an almost completely normal poop :) I'd say about 90% solid, there were maybe a few flecks of blood left.

Got the strangest looks from passersby as I knelt down to inspect the poop before scooping it with my hand wrapped up in a poopy bag! A sight I'm sure only a dog owner can understand!

He's still a bit sleepy but definitely on the mend as he started rooting through his toybox today :) Thanks again for all the well wishes & support!

Roxy & Diesel
 
#22 ·
We just went through something like that, without the blood. I walked into the house and the smell about took me off my feet. Poor Gussy boy was so sick, explosive diarrhea and vomit all over his cage. He was shaking like a leaf, he was more afraid of being in trouble. Of course he wasn't, he was sick. So I got him out of his cage, we headed outside, vomit, vomit again... oh no, Gus out, please. I clean up a little, go check on him, he seems ok just tired. We come back in. Diarrhea all over the carpet, well I'm replacing it anyway, he is far more important at this moment back outside. I let him have a very small amount of water. Do you know in comdy movies when the guy throws up but you know it's a hose of water and no one could ever throw up like that... GUS! That was exactly what happened. He finally settled enough I felt comfortable putting him in the car. We got to the vet without incident, oh thank you so much!

There was nothing at all wrong. I limited his food & water intake so he didn't take too much just to lose it again. But the next day he was right as rain and by the second day you would never had guessed he was so sick 48 hours before. No one had an explanation, no antibiotics, no nothing... just a very big, very sick baby.

I'm glad Diesel is feeling better!!! Only best wishes that he keeps getting stronger & healthier!
 
#25 ·
Went through pretty much this exact same thing a few months ago with Abbey - she was pooping out pure blood and was completely dehydrated. We did blood work and some of her values were all over the place. The problem with this is that you really have to act quickly.. and by the time you've treated the problem, you don't really even know what it was. GE has literally dozens of possible causes, so to this day, I still have NO clue what caused it.

Good thoughts and prayers for a quick recovery for Diesel. I had to get diapers for Abbey because she kept leaking stuff all over the house and didn't realize it :(
 
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