A bit of a blip!

[debih]

I'm really hoping that Millie is just having a bit of a blip this weekend but after weeks of not being sick, she has been sick four times in two days.

She was sick yesterday morning - you can usually see the reason why when clearing it up and it was obvious she had picked some bread up from somewhere - although I ask her and ask her the neighbour keeps putting huge chunks of bread out for the birds and if they blow over to our side of the fence Millie grabs at them. I wasn't too concerned yesterday as it was just a one off and there was an obvious reason for it.

Then this morning she was sick after her first meal. I wondered if I had perhaps made it too thick and that had caused it, although tbh I hadn't done anything any different to usual.

Then we went over to the farm to see our friends and she must have picked something up to eat from somewhere in the fields and was sick again.

Then I have just fed her again, using her special bowl as normal and she has been sick again. I did make it quite runny so I wonder if she managed to get at it easily and swallowed lumps of food.

I so hope that it is just a blip and that the stricture hasn't swollen up again. I'm going to give it a couple of days and see how she is and if it keeps on happening then it looks like a trip back to the vet.

I'm not sure what we will do if something is happening with the stricture. We still haven't heard back from the insurance company as to whether or not they will class it as two claims - they did say that it could take up to 12 weeks and that was about 6 weeks ago. The bill got up to £4300 and if they only class it as one claim we will owe the vet £300 but won't have any insurance left for more treatment. I don't think I could put her through more operations and if we don't know whether or not the insurance will class it as two claims or not I don't want to possibly run up a huge bill for us to have to then struggle to pay.

We've given her some antacid and I won't feed her again until at least 7pm to give her stomach chance to settle down. We know that her being sick is the worst possible thing as the acid will start to burn her throat, possibly causing ulcers and then causing the stricture to tighten up. She seems really hungry bless her so when I do feed her later I'm going to spoon feed her to stop her from gulping it down.

So I am just praying that this is a blip and not a sign of things going wrong.

[miasmum]

Oh Deb what a worry. These animals really put us through the wringer don't they.

I hope she eats her tea later and keeps it down and the sickness is a blip caused by bread and something else she has picked up.

Fingers crossed

[Diflower]

Oh no Debih
It seems as if it must be from her picking up food, if she had a great big piece of bread it wouldn't help.
I was just thinking back to the spoon when I read that was what you intended, presumably just give her a little and see if that's ok.
Will be thinking of you
x

[debih]

She's lost weight again this week as well.

Today she is 12.9kg, last week she was 13.85kg and the week before she was 14.5kg.

We were expecting her to lose weight as we have stopped the AD so we knew that her weight gain would slow down and that she would lose some before starting to gain again as her calorie intake has gone right down, but that was always going to happen at some point when we stopped the AD, be it now or when she got back up to 17kg.

Coming on top of the vomitting just makes it feel worse!

On a more positive note, I have given her some more food as she was obviously ravenous and she has kept that down, although it was spoon fed.

[Kaz]

Oh no, Debih I do hope this is a blip!!!!! Poor little Millie and what a worry

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[debih]

I've pretty much convinced myself it is a blip and that two of the reasons she was sick was because she found food on the floor and the other two times was my fault for not spreading the food properly.

I think both times I fed her when she was sick I added too much water to her food and because it was sloppy she was able to get bigger lumps of it.

She doesn't actually need to have the food watered down but out of the three flavours of food that we get in the variety box, the duck is always really thick and if she has it too thick she can get at lumps and that makes her sick. So I water it down slightly - both times I added too much water.

She has just had some more food (she is ravenous poor thing) and I added a drop of water and spread it really thinly around her bowl and she has been fine.

I think I became a little complacent and didn't smear it properly.

I will see how she goes on during the week - I will be extra careful at smearing it and so if she is sick I will know that it is something more sinister.

[Diflower]

Phew Debih that sounds promising xx

[miasmum]

It is easy to start being complacent though. I do it with Mowgli. He is supposed to have his tablet on an empty stomach and wait an hour for his food, it is rarely an hour though

[meriad]

Debih, only catching up with this. fingers crossed Millie stops being sick and that it was a blip caused by the food she picked up off the floor.

As a matter of interest; did she have such a sensitive tummy before the accident as well or is this all 'only' since then?

[debih]

Debih, only catching up with this. fingers crossed Millie stops being sick and that it was a blip caused by the food she picked up off the floor.

As a matter of interest; did she have such a sensitive tummy before the accident as well or is this all 'only' since then?

It isn't her tummy Meri, it's her throat.

She has an osophageal stricture. It was caused by acid from her stomach burning her throat and causing ulcers, which then caused scar tissue which then caused the stricture. We aren't sure what caused the acid in the first place - it could have been the trauma of the accident or it could have been connected with the length of time she was under anaesthetic after the accident when they were sewing her leg.

What happens is that when she swallows food the osophagus doesn't contract properly in one part of her throat and therefore lumps of food can't get through. So she chews the food, the stomach thinks that food is on the way and starts to produce acid to help digest the food, the lump gets stuck in the osophogus making her regurgitate and because the acid has started to form in the stomach ready for the food to appear, it can burn her throat on the way back up.

I shouldn't really say that she is being sick when it happens as it isn't actually vomitting, it is regurgitation as the food never gets to the stomach.

That's why when we feed her now she has tinned dog food (not the lumps in gravy type but more of a solid meat, like a thick meat paste (think Chappie dog food if you have ever seen it, that sort of consistency). I mush it all up and then it gets smeared around her special bowl. She can't actually get her snout right into the bowl (it is like a deep maze) so she has to lick the food from the sides, which means that she can't get any lumps out.

Every now and again I don't smear it thin enough and she manages to get a lump out, this then gets stuck in the osophagul passage and up it comes. Since February she has only actually regurgitated half a dozen times or so - mainly when she manages to pick something up off the floor or occasionally when I don't smear the food enough.

She has gone from a dog who ate anything that she was given/could find to one who is now very limited as to what she can have and can't have any treats (although we have found that she can manage doggy chocolate drops) and one that was very, very rarely on her lead to having to be on the lead whenever we go out in case she manages to grab a scrap of food off the floor. We rarely take her with us now to other people's houses just in case she manages to find food - as a Lurcher she is a typical sneaky thief.

But she seems happy enough and has been doing really well with the weight gaining. The last couple of weeks weight loss we think is due to us stopping giving her the AD which is a prescription only critical care food which is really high in calories. We knew that we were going to stop it at some point (she was on 2 tins a day - the tins are tuna tin sized - mixed with her normal food and cost over £1.50 per tin) and we just made the decision to stop her on it when the last case we bought ran out. So her calorie intake dropped considerably - but we knew that if she got up to her old weight of 17.5k and we then stopped the AD she would lose weight then for a little while.

99.9% of her meals stay down - I think this weekend has just been a blip. (Fingers crossed anyway).