[Susan]

Hi Kristine, yes I know what you’re going thru, I rescued my boy at the age of 4 yrs old, the day he was suppose to be put to sleep & it was his birthday, today actually, the 20th November, he was Micro Chipped with DOB, the lady said feed him a healthy diet & he’ll look good again, he was in real poor condition, he suffers with skin allergies as well from food & Seasonal environment allergies, so I’d say Patches old owners took him to the pound cause of the IBD & Skin problems & got rid of him 🙁
Until Koji has biopsies you will be going around in circles, so the sooner he has his biopsies you’ll get some answers on what type of IBD he has & what is causing the inflammation of the small bowel….Patches vet also blind medicated Patch & I would watch him get worse with some medications, the Prednisone (Steroid) made Patch sick, ant acid meds made him worse, finally this year I learnt he’s not making enough stomach acid Hypochlorhydria, so no more ant acid medications….. Metronidazole seem to be the only medication that helped him & certain foods…… boiled rice irritated his bowel causing noisey, gurgling bowel noises, bad wind & then diarrhea, kibble was no good, it irritated his stomach more, so I was soaking the vet diet kibble in warm water till kibble was soft then fully draining all the water & squeezing out any water & putting the soft kibble in a blender for about 5-6 seconds but its still over processed kibble & hard to digest, water added with kibble can cause acid reflux another thing I learnt this year….

I cook now for Patch but I still have problems with his weight keeping it on & his stomach some days & every 5-6months Patch gets S.I.B.O & has to be wormed then put on Metronidazole for 2 weeks then he’s all better again……
In the beginning I belonged to the “IBDogs” a yahoo group & they were the ones that told me to have an Endoscope & biopsies done on Patches stomach & small bowel, it only cost $750 that’s with 2 biopsies…. but Patches flap (pyloric sphincter) to the small bowel was closed & vet couldn’t go thru to his small bowel but the ladies in the “IBDogs” yahoo group said their vets got thru to the small bowel, so maybe some specialist know how to open the Pyloric Sphincter so you can go thru & get biopsies from the small bowel….

This time next year Koji will be much better, sounds like you have the right specialist, Koji is a very lucky boy, he has you, some people just give up & do what happened to Patch dumped at the pound… all I did in the beginning was breathe, sleep, dream, IBD & Skin allergies….