If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Inflammatory bowel disease or IBD for short is a severe form of irritable bowel syndrome found in pets. This disease affects cats more than dogs and can be difficult to diagnose.

The actual trigger or cause of disease is poorly understood. This makes treating this disease difficult and leads to frustration among both pet owners and veterinarians because medications and special diets either work for a short time and fail or don’t work at all. How do we diagnose this disease and how it is treated?

IBD is an idiopathic disease. Idiopathic is a fancy term doctors use for “we don’t know.” Now before you declare your vet an idiot for using this term to try to confuse you, please understand that this is used clear across the land from your veterinarian’s general practice to the leading veterinary universities.

For sure, vets understand there is some mechanism that triggers the disease. However, definitive testing is unavailable at this time. To make things really confusing, the criteria for IBD differs between many top veterinary gastroenterologists. Sounds like trying to get agreement on Capitol Hill, yes? The good news is there are many ways to get a definitive diagnosis and treatment.

Many times IBD is not IBD at all. Other diseases such as parasites, glandular diseases, etc. can mimic IBD. To rule these diseases out your veterinarian may suggest some screening tests such as a fecal parasite check, routine blood work, X-rays and an abdominal ultrasound.

These are non-invasive, relatively inexpensive tests that establish a baseline. If they come back with normal results, don’t feel that you wasted your money but rather that you were able to rule out certain diseases before considering more invasive testing.

Other times a food allergy can mimic IBD. If there are foods that cause an upset stomach and we know what they are, then it is easy to avoid them. In some cases, pet owners can try different brands or flavors of over-the-counter diets. If one particular diet is tolerated, then stick with it. Remember to be very strict with what your pet gets besides its diet to prevent flare ups.

If that doesn’t work, there are commercially made prescription diets available through your veterinarian’s office. These diets are a little more expensive and not sold at your local supermarket or pet store. However, many pets respond so well that the extra cost and inconvenience is worth it.

If these simple tests are normal and your pet doesn’t respond to a particular diet, then more invasive testing is warranted. Veterinarians may suggest a procedure called endoscopy or the passage of a flexible tube with a camera at the end down the esophagus into the stomach and duodenum (the first section of the small intestine). Instruments can be passed through the tube to obtain samples of tissue for testing (biopsy, culture, etc). Endoscopy requires anesthesia but uses natural openings so trauma is minimal.

If your dog or cat suffers from arthritis pain, don’t make it suffer any longer. Relieve joint pain, lubricate the joints, increase flexibility and improve mobility with these best pet pain remedies.

Tags: Pets

Popularity: 9% [?]

Share This