Charisma, I don’t know if your dog has been diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis. With the diagnosis of IBD was there blood and mucous? I never could tell if the IBD, or pancreatitis was flaring up at times. Some dogs with pancreatitis show atypical signs. Mine refused to eat or even drink water so we would do a Spec-cPL test to measure pancreatic specific lipase. If that was normal we figured it was the IBD. Several times a year we would end up in the ER because the pancreatitis is so dangerous. Couldn’t tell what set it off, probably stress at times. It was very expensive, but the Specialist I finally found worked in collaboration with the UC-Davis Vet School, GI Department. I think they are doing the most research. My understanding is that they no longer believe prednisone causes pancreatitis. There are no studies about auto-immune pancreatitis in dogs, but it is present in humans. You don’t have intestinal biopsies to tell if your dog has eosinophilic enteritis. If there is an auto-immune component to the IBD there should be a response to the prednisone. They also use a drug called Budesonide in some cases.
We didn’t start the prednisone until we had also started the formulated diet. I was petrified because so many other foods had not worked. Run everything by your vet when you are dealing with a medical condition like this one.
