High Liver Enzymes in our 13 yr. Old Lab
Hi All,
In September, I post in the "general health issues" section, but thought this time I come here since our Sadie is a senior girl.
Through blood work at her annual check-up it was discovered that Sadie's liver enzymes were elevated. She's had an ultra sound that showed inflammation and she's had a biopsy to rule out cancer. She was on an antibody for 2 weeks which lowered her levels, so put on for an additional 6 weeks. However, they went back up a bit. Our vet then put her on Atopica, which is used as an anti-inflammatory. We thought she was to be on it 2-3 months before a blood draw, but she had a draw on Wednesday after only 6 weeks. We got the results today and her numbers have only dropped by 6 points so the vet feels it's not doing it's job. However, we wonder if she had gone the full 2-3 months then had blood work done might there be a bigger drop in levels?????
The vet said the next step is Prednisone, but that comes with side effects (increase water in-take, increase in urinating, increase in appetite) and for some dogs its much more pronounced. We're not sure we like the idea of her taking a steroid. We asked her about Denamarin, with milk thistle. She said it is only a supplement, but we could try if we wanted.
So, I've come here to see if any of you have dealt with high liver enzymes in your dogs? What did you do/use? Have you used Denamarin? Prednisone? What were the results?
The vet said it's also possible that neither the Prednisone or Denamarin may make a significant change and then we might just do nothing. Benign neglect is what they call it.
We lost Sadie's litter mate 1 1/2 ago to a tumor on her spleen that ruptured. We were unaware it was there so one minute she was fine, the next she was in distress, in serious trouble and nothing we could do for her. We don't want to end up in the same kind of situation with Sadie. One minute fine, next minute not.
We'd appreciate any input and advice you can give us. thanks.