[Frena H]

I’m so sorry, Sue — I didn’t realize anyone was responding to my post — just got a notification today for the first time. Our guy was touch and go for another year after his surgery, he had to have another surgery for obstruction in December of 2016 — the vet told us at that time that the obstruction was caused by a TINY piece of stuffing from a toy that he had played with — they said the obstruction was so miniscule that any other dog would have passed it with no problems at all — but his intestines are a “tightly packed ball” with lots of “V” shaped turns. Like everyone else’s vets here, they said there is really nothing that they can do for the adhesions. That said — after his last surgery he has done very well. I think they might have taken out the worst of the V-curves during that surgery because before the surgery his bms were always pencil thin, afterwards they were a lot more normal sized and normal looking. I retired in January of 2017 so now I’m able to keep a very close eye on his activities, no toys and no chewing on anything allowed. I keep his diet as low in fiber as I can — he’s a very picky eater and will eat only a very few things (i.e. I offered him some steak last night and he said “NO”) — so i just give him what he likes — he’s especially fond of Polly-O cheese sticks and boiled chicken. He also likes Wellness Core Raw Rev kibbles and Real Meat Dog Food Company kibbles that are more like jerky. Since I’ve retired I’ve found that he does MUCH better if he eats several small meals a day and he will only eat small amounts at a time — he frequently stops and checks in with his stomach to see how it is reacting, and if it is bothering him, he will stop eating. If it feels okay, he’ll continue eating. So I pretty much feed him several times daily and on demand whenever he asks for food and give him however much he feels he can tolerate. The vet also gives me a prescription for Sucralfate, which I keep on hand at all times since it seems to soothe his stomach and intestines. Charlie has learned to ask me for it whenever his stomach is bothering him, and he almost always feels better once he has had it. We just take it “day by day” and that’s about all we can do! We can go for weeks and even months eating great and feeling great — then have a few days or weeks where he doesn’t want to eat and needs to have Sucralfate until he feels better. Plus our vets are always on call if we need an emergency visit, but we haven’t had one in about a year now. All the local vets use a “travelling” sonographer with the ultrasound machine, so if he has an emergency, I go to the vet where the sonogram is or will be soon. Our emergency vet says that Charlie has a “complicated relationship with food.”

I also did some research on “human” intestinal adhesions, and apparently there is really nothing that can be done, except diet and medications that can help soothe the intestines, which is basically what we are doing. The Facebook idea is great — I doubt there is a dog intestinal adhesion group, but there may be a human group, which would help me understand what they are going through and what helps.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Frena H.
• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Frena H.

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