Hi Shawna. Thanks so much for seeing my post and responding.
All four of Hannah’s liver values was sky high. Last year at this time of year for her physical only one value was high and that was only 1 or 2 points over the high normal so they didn’t mention it because they didn’t think it was any big deal. This year is total different. This year is also when I switched all the girls to all commercial raw for ever meal. I was occasionally rotating in THK Zeal and/or Preference. Katie developed intolerance to alfalfa so I stopped THK. (Katie is the poop eater and though I’m vigilant about being the human pooper scooper, if I’m out and my husband just opens the door and lets them out in the yard. Doesn’t pick up after them. Too be fair, he has macular degeneration pretty bad and probably really doesn’t see it too pick up). Their diet has been Answers, Darwins, Stella & Chewy’s, Primal Pronto, Vital Essentials. As you know all very high proteins, higher in fats than I would like but they all seem to be that way. I did try Natures Variety for a bit but I didn’t like anything about it so that was just one bag between the three of them.
Your friend in California. Does she only rotate between Honest Kitchen Preference and Steve Brown’s Dinner Mix and if so, what proteins, fruits and veggies does she add? Did she ever go back to any raw meals solely or always the pre mixes with protein. Why Premix with oats? Do you know what brand or what it is?
Yesterday was a really really bad day for me. I tried keeping myself together while Hannah was around but I was near hysterical and stressed beyond belief yesterday. If I wasn’t crying I was shaking. I spent almost all day on the computer yesterday trying to digest as much info as I could. The more I read the more nervous I got. I dropped Hannah off this morning (after fasting 12 hours) and just picked her up. They’ll have results back tomorrow afternoon. They were just checking liver at today. They did not want to test for Cushings today because they felt that we needed to take one step at a time. All four doctors in the practice spoke with me today and explained that the Cushing’s test needs to be given medication first (steroids???), and because of the fasting then feeding fatty food and then rest and retesting for the liver test that felt that would interfere with true bloodwork for Cushing’s test and wouldn’t be accurate. Sounds logical. So one step at a time. Depending what they find with results of tests for both liver and Cushing’s they’ll do a liver ultrasound. Best case scenario it’s something that they can reverse levels with food and Sam-E type prescription product. Worse case scenario could be tumor or cancer of the liver. At her age it would be a matter of keeping her comfortable. She’s certainly too old for surgery, chemo, radiation or anything else that goes along with it.
They did tell me no more rabies vaccines for her (unfortunately she had one on Friday during her yearly physical) and definitely no more HW preventative, Sentinel, for her either.
So I’m interested in knowing more about your friend in California and what she fed along with the premixes. That’s the one thing I want to work on immediately. I certainly don’t want to have to put her on one of their prescribed foods so I’m trying to get a jump on getting and ordering whatever I need to change her diet to. This has come as a shock to me. All the issues with her I could justify with other problems she has like loss of hair would be hypothyroid. No jumping on furniture and trembling loss of hind leg muscles and weakness I attributed it to mid spine degenerated discs. One thing I do know is that she is drinking enormous amounts of water.
I’d appreciate any guidance you can give me.
