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  1. #1
    House Broken ls2erin's Avatar
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    Tell me about Clostridium

    Over a month ago on a Friday night, Roxy started having bad diarrhea and I was up with her all night long. The vet was booked solid that Saturday, so they had me bring in a stool sample rather than make an appointment. They said she had Clostridium Perfringens and gave me prescription ID and a week of Metronidazole. While it helped firm it up a little, it remained soft. I took her to see the doctor when there was an available appointment, but I felt like she did not do well answering my questions. Anyway, next they tried a week of Metronidazole with 3 days of Panacur, which didn't take care of the problem either. After that, they had her on another week of Metronidazole again with 2 weeks of Tylan Powder. It got a lot more firm, but not like it was originally before this all started. We ran out and I waited a few days to see if it would remain firm on just the ID that she has remained on. It did not. I called the vet and got more Tylan Powder. It has been a couple days and is back to soft. Is this normal? I've never dealt with clostridium before and I am not sure why it has been so hard to get rid of. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
    Last edited by ls2erin; 07-20-2015 at 12:25 PM. Reason: Added more details.
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  2. #2
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    Did a quick search online and one thing it mentioned is upping fiber in the diet.

  3. #3
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Hemi used to have this issue a lot, me and the vet now have it down to an exact science to get rid of. Took 3 vets and 6 months to come up with this combo but can cure it in one round now when it comes up. At least it works with Hemi and might give your vets something to go on.

    Here is what we do to get rid of it with Hemi,

    The prescriptions are 10 days Amoxicilin 500mg, twice daily with meals
    At the same time 15 days Metronidazol 500mg. twice daily with meals
    When the Amoxicilin runs out, then you start 15 days Sulfasalazine 500mg tablets, 2 of the large brown tablets twice daily for 10 days, then back it down to 1 tablet twice daily for the remainder 5 days.

    Oh and Note Hemi is 89lbs so depending on your lab dosage may vary.

    Basically what it is, is the bad bacteria in the gut. It has taken over and you really need to kill it off and then let the good bacteria build back up. Amaoxacilin, Metronidazol will often kill off the good bacteria as well. So when you take them off it then it the bad chostridium take back hold. The Sulfasalazine is milder and can hold the bad bacteria off while relaxing the large intestine and letting it do it's job.

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  5. #4
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Oh and another thing, look at what happened before this all started. Can usually give you the cause. Might be hard though cause with Hemi it can be a week before. Stress? Like staying at boarding facility, or with family while your out of town. Doggy Daycare more often. Going on vacation, new places adventure. This is one of the things that usually cause it with Hemi, if we go on a vacation for a week or more then when we gets back usually 2 days after.

    Change in foods or treats, new things entering into the mouth. This can trigger it as well. Something that lets the bad bacteria take over. So take a look around at new treats, or food. Look careful at the food, they may have changed their formulas. California Natural has been doing this and not really drawing attention to it. Hemi used to do Venison and Sweet Potato, then they change it to Venison and veggie, never changed the bag at all just the text that said sweet potato, which yeah I know I always grabbed the red bag, then they changed it again to Venison and lentil, again the bag stayed exactly the same just the small text on the bag changed. I had some older bags I was saving for the UPC code as they used to have a mail in 10 UPC codes and get free bag and the formula were actually changing quite significantly. Yet the bag looked identical, same color, same picture of same dog, just the small text was changing ever so slightly.

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    Charlotte K. (07-20-2015), ls2erin (07-20-2015)

  7. #5
    House Broken ls2erin's Avatar
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    Wow, thanks so much for all of the info, Jeff. Your posts were exactly what I was hoping for. I will run all this by the vet as soon as I can get her in for an appointment. Roxy has been on probiotics for well over a year, so hopefully that will help the good bacteria. As far as the cause, I have no idea. She does not go to doggy daycare, has had no changes in food or treats, and we haven't gone anywhere new. The vet said she could have picked it up on the ground and licked her feet, since it's in the environment. As for her food, I did not notice anything different about the bag of Pro Plan she was eating before when all this started, but I will inspect it fully when I get home from work tonight.
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  8. #6
    Senior Dog Labradorks's Avatar
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    Jeff - Would you want to add a probiotic?

  9. #7
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Labradorks View Post
    Jeff - Would you want to add a probiotic?
    You can, however I found it never really did much good with Hemi when this was going on. Tried it with and without, it didn't seem to matter. Tried it with before like when I knew it was going to happen, didn't seem to help either in preventing it.

  10. #8
    Senior Dog Doreen Davis's Avatar
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    Diarrhea Due to Clostridium perfringens in Dogs | petMD

    One of the things I noticed about Jeff's regimen is the extended length of time on the antibiotics. I learned with our issues with our black lab Amy was that our 'generalist' vet didn't leave her on them long enough. An extended treatment of the metronidazole etc. might do the trick and then do the other things i.e. high fiber diet etc.

    Good luck.

  11. #9
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    Type and length of time on antibiotics. This was one of 4 bacteria/parasites Rivers had over 2yrs ago; damn dog was SICK, and I mean SICK!

    This is when I truly realized that the supposed healthy dog foods out there obviously were not as beneficial to his health as we believed them to be...if one's diet is truly providing everything the dog needs, the dog should not be getting THAT ill.

    Rivers was on antibiotics for 8-10wks iirc; and vet prescribed probiotic was the ONLY probiotic that helped, a regular off the shelf probiotic does not have everything a *dogs* system needs, they are different then we are.

    One thing that helped drastically though; switching his diet. From that point on, Rivers has never had systematic bugs or bacteria, or diarrhea of any kind.

 



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