Food for dog with IBS? Vet rx Science Diet

StefandTodd

Hi there, back in July my dog (a 5 year old male Vizsla) got sick with diarrhea that we were unable to help relieve with a special diet, medication, etc.  They ultimately did an ultrasound and diagnosed him with IBS and put him on Prednisone and Science Diet (my husband has described it as a special protein blend meant to make the protein not distinguishable to his gut).  It's $95 for a not so big bag that lasts us not very long and it's inconvenient to only be able to buy it during the hours our vet is open, at their office.  Our vet is somewhat new to us, and I don't want to sound untrusting...but I was wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on whether it seems completely necessary to keep him on this food?  The vet says it is, my husband plans to ask some more questions about why, etc when he next goes in for more food.  Does the vet likely make money off selling us this crazy expensive food?  I thought I had heard that Science Diet isn't really a great food, vets get kickbacks for prescribing it, etc.  At the same time, it took 3 full months to get our dog back to healthy poops, so I don't totally want to mess with that.  Just don't want to be naïve or taken advantage of either.  Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

aggiebug

In dogs, many times IBD is caused by an allergy to a food. The diet they are talking about is a prescription diet z/do which you can get at petsmart with a prescription. When doing a true and good diet trial feeding z/d is a good place to start. It will practically eliminate all possible dietary allergies (there is a very slight possibility a different prescription diet would work when z/d doesn't). It is extremely important you do a true trial for 6-8 wks with NO treats other than the diet to make sure you are eliminating all possible allergens.

Once your pup's symptoms resolve there is a good possibility you can switch to a limited ingredient diet that will be more cost effective for you and still control his symptoms. Unfortunately if you try and skip around from diet to diet you are much less likely to get symptoms under control and figure out what does and doesn't work for your pup, and the more you try the more difficult it will be to find a diet that works.

The vet doesn't get kickbacks for prescribing or selling the food. They make a very nominal amount on food sales, many times they are equal in price to petsmart who is happily making money on any diet you purchase.

What are you doing that has resolved the soft stools? And what food are you currently feeding? The goal of treatment is to resolve symptoms and it sounds like you have that under control using the least amount of drugs possible.

StefandTodd

Thanks for your response.  The vet has told us repeatedly that he does not think this is in any way an allergy thing.  He said that his guts can't handle recognizable proteins..?  And that this food makes the protein unrecognizable.  He is still taking the prednisone (but in a lesser dose, thank goodness because the starting dose was HORRIBLE...he was losing weight, ravenous, couldn't get enough water, peeing in his bed overnight...just horrible...it's much better now that we're at a 1/2 dosage of the starting, and continuing to work down to get him off it completely), and the Science Diet food.  We are trying to be really careful he doesn't get any human food (I have a 1 and a 3 year old, so this is harder than I ever expected it would be, ha!).  But his symptoms are much better.  Our hope is that when he is completely off the Prednisone, we might be able to slowly transition him to another good, quality food.  But we aren't in a hurry.

StefandTodd

We've also been trying to get our vet to help us understand how this came to start and he says it's just a syndrome.  That nothing happened and it's not an indication of an allergy, but just something random that popped up...?  It's so strange.  I wish we had a more definitive answer =/

 

Dignity100

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the diets vets sell.  Many vets actually do not know much about pet nutrition and have not been educated on it (nutrition is a very unpopular elective at most vet schools).

I've started using Wellness Simple; Wellness is not my favorite food company, but they're still very decent.  I buy my food online because it is cheaper.  I use Mr. Chewy - free shipping on orders over $49 and it usually comes in 2 days with where I live, they have excellent customer service as I've received items that were damaged and they replaced them without any questions.  In full disclosure, I do have Amazon Prime and I prefer Chewy over Amazon, prices tend to be better and I've had Saturday delivers on some of Chewy's items.

Other food brands you could look into:  Earthborn, Fromm, Acana or Great Life (I have no experience with Great Life). 

If they truly feel it's IBS, I would stick with a limited ingredient diet.  If you prefer a vet's recommendation, I would look for a holistic vet to see what they would recommend over a traditional vet as they are likely to have more nutrition training.

aggiebug

The diet is called z/d and the goal of the diet is to make molecules so small the body can't have an allergic reaction to it.

IBD is most commonly associated with a food allergy in dogs but can be caused by various other reasons. Many of which are ultimately unknown besides the cause doesn't always correlate with a treatment.

Has the vet done a TX Gi panel? What other blood work and mess have they tried? Have you gotten a biopsy or is this a presumed diagnosis? (I can't recall if you mentioned this in op)

I don't recommend rotating through various foods without a plan it may make it worse and also can lead to you missing a solution.

StefandTodd

I will have to go back and look at all the paperwork for exactly what bloodwork and meds we tried prior.  He's had at least 2 fasting blood tests that I can recall, as well as stool sample tests, and this diagnosis came after an ultrasound where they ruled out any tumors and noted that his bowels were extremely enflamed.  We plan to keep him on the z/d until at the very least he is done with the predisone and then possibly would consider a slow transitional switch...but not sure what would be best/safest to switch to.  I hate to be suspicious of our vet, but I thought maybe it'd be in his better interest to keep recommending this particular food, but sounds like that's not really a fair assessment.  So far, these meds and this food has been very successful in making him better (although the first week on the Predisone was absolute hell, but we got past that, thank goodness). 

 

Thank you for your responses, very helpful

aggiebug

Good luck if you have any more questions I am happy to help. I love nutrition especially to manage and prevent chronic disease. Give z/d 6wks and at least 3 off prednisone before switching foods.