Choya was stricken by a bout of diarrhea. I mean, dogs get the runs once in a bit. She has had a few of those in the past few years, but they weren't a big deal. (Not after those early laosai years.) This time, it was. The first runs weren't too concerning. But the second set of runs barely four hours later worried me. She hadn't been great for the past three weeks — she reacted badly to a root (bupleurum) in some TCM-cooked pack of food, and wolfberries in another pack of treatos. Those gave her gastroparesis. She has also been licking too much and sniffing too much, eating too many flies and weird things of the floor.
On a hunch, I took her to the clinch for an expensive blood test, fecal float, and a Giardia test. Now, paying money for tests wouldn't give me conclusive answers, but the results help me eliminate reason and causes of this bout. The expensive clinic visit reassured me that she doesn't have Giardia, worms/parasites, leptospirosis, poisoning or pancreatitis.
Choya hasn't had diarrhea this bad for almost 3.5 years. Her stomach couldn't fight the bug with probiotics and Direa alone. She was purging twice a day for three days — full torrents of brown foul-smelling liquid. She held steady through the night. However, she was still bright and chirpy, eating and drinking as per normal.
The clinic issued antibiotics (metronidazole) on standby, to be given for 5 days if needed. I'm never inclined to use antibiotics, but one 6am purge convinced me otherwise. It was the worst of it, and likely with stomachache. The poor sweet girl refused to purge at home or in the estate, and insisted on being brought out. Woahhhh. That was PTSD. That purge had too much liquid, too much stomach sounds, and that terrible stench. I remember it well. It's reminiscent of a persistent bug that would be the start of purging every three hours if I don't administer antibiotics. If I insist on not using it, then we're looking at up to six purges a day for the next three days. I'm not putting Choya or myself through that. That made me crush the first table to feed her the first dose at 6.30am.
I shifted my entire schedule and pushed away as many commitments as possible that took me away from Choya. She's been extra sticky too. I'm reluctant to leave her unless it's absolutely necessary. Watching her also gives me a clue to her pain levels or discomfort. That would help me loads because the doctor ain't going to know, and I need every detail to aid their diagnosis.
Looking at how metronidazole worked after one tablet (½ in the day and ½ at night), I knew my PTSD is pretty much deja vu. After years of avoiding the assault of clostridium (dunno what strain), she kena again. WTF. The last episodes were from her daycare/school days.
Clostridium is sooooo annoying. It could be some sort of amoeba too, or things that don't show up in the limited range of tests we have. Ugh. This isn't an issue with food per se. Helloooo….. she has been eating the same base for years. Maybe the pack of toppers… It's also an issue with the environments she came into contact with, her constant licking and sniffing that's extra bad recently, and dunno-what-else lah. Dogs will be dogs. Arrrrrgh.
I will have to rebuild her gut flora. To rebalance it. I accept that she will always have some level of clostridium in her gastrointestinal system. The trick is to prevent it from over-growing and going BOOM.
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