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intestinal resection
My dog recently impaled and disemboweled himself on our iron fence, losing half of his blood and 4 feet of his intestines. He is about 60 lbs, very strong and healthy, and has so far seemingly survived this terrible injury, which our vet says he should have died from. This could be a lengthy story, but I'll keep it short. We live in Costa Rica, where the resources are limited, so I'm trying to get as much information as I can myself. I'm wondering about how well he will be able to adapt to having only half (if not less) of his intestines left, and how well will they absorb the proper amount of nutrients that he needs to stay healthy? The part that had to be removed was directly in the middle of the intestines. Right now he is on I/D food, but the vet wants him to eventually go back to his normal diet. Have you heard of any cases like this, and also, what are some things that we should be aware of in the future? Thanks for any info that could help us!
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Irishsara,
So sorry to hear about the traumatic events you and your dog have had to go through. The good news, as Dr. Humphries stated in his reply, is that your dog received excellent treatment--no doubt due to quick action on your part. As Dr. Humphries said, a slow transition to normal food and close observation on your part are what is required now. As difficult as it may be to believe, he should actually do just fine even after losing so much of his intestines. Once you have him on the right food in the correct amount, the key will be to keep his diet consistent. There is no reason he can't live a happy, healthy life. Please keep us posted on his progress!
So sorry to hear about the traumatic events you and your dog have had to go through. The good news, as Dr. Humphries stated in his reply, is that your dog received excellent treatment--no doubt due to quick action on your part. As Dr. Humphries said, a slow transition to normal food and close observation on your part are what is required now. As difficult as it may be to believe, he should actually do just fine even after losing so much of his intestines. Once you have him on the right food in the correct amount, the key will be to keep his diet consistent. There is no reason he can't live a happy, healthy life. Please keep us posted on his progress!
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Wow, so sorry to hear this. That's a bad injury.
Sounds like he got excellent initial care and surgery. Now it is managing a dog with only part of his intestinal anatomy.
There is no set prescription for this. You will have to see how he does with the transition from I/D to normal food. If he handles it without diarrhea and maintains his weight, you are there!
If he does develop intestinal signs and/or loses weight, we would need to custom design a diet for him that would let him absorb nutrients best he can (same situation as in people who have lost intestine from cancer or injury).
I would guess he will do well after a slow transition to normal food. I would suggest you buy the highest quality food available. Hill's Science Diet, Nutro or Iams would be good choices. There are also other very special brands like Halo and others that he may tolerate better - and be more easily absorbed.
I think it will take some close observation on your part, and trial and error testing with various specialty brands.
Keep checking in here to let us know how he is doing and what types of diets and ingredients work for him.
Sounds like he got excellent initial care and surgery. Now it is managing a dog with only part of his intestinal anatomy.
There is no set prescription for this. You will have to see how he does with the transition from I/D to normal food. If he handles it without diarrhea and maintains his weight, you are there!
If he does develop intestinal signs and/or loses weight, we would need to custom design a diet for him that would let him absorb nutrients best he can (same situation as in people who have lost intestine from cancer or injury).
I would guess he will do well after a slow transition to normal food. I would suggest you buy the highest quality food available. Hill's Science Diet, Nutro or Iams would be good choices. There are also other very special brands like Halo and others that he may tolerate better - and be more easily absorbed.
I think it will take some close observation on your part, and trial and error testing with various specialty brands.
Keep checking in here to let us know how he is doing and what types of diets and ingredients work for him.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Post this over at the behavior forum and see if Dr. Hetts can give you some ideas. Recovering from a major surgery he needs to be confined and not playing Houdini. Changing his anxiety over confinement (escaping) may also prevent future injury and car accidents.
Thank you very much for responding! It's promising information that he might end up being somewhat normal again. Right now we are feeding him 3 times daily in small amounts, to give his intestines a chance to absorb and digest. This injury happened about 1 month ago, so we are very hopeful that he's gonna get through it. This is what I seem to be hearing, about monitoring his stool and weight as signs of wether or not he is absorbing nutrients. The other problem we are having is that his wound is not healing. They have stitched the area 5 times, because the skin kept pulling apart. The 5th time they stitched the skin to the muscle instead of skin to skin, so now instead of having gaping holes of exposed muscle with flapping skin, he just has exposed muscle. They are hoping that it will heal by growing new skin over the muscle. I see where it is indeed starting, but there are still areas that don't seem to want to attach to the muscle. He is not on antibiotics anymore, but is getting ozone therapy, from what I understand is sort of progressive and experimental, especially for this area. I feel good about the treatment he is getting, but another thing I am worried about is what to do once he is all healed and we start leaving him alone again. The reason he got this injury is because he has a seperation anxiety. He is a great dog when we're around, but as soon as we leave, he escapes from anything we have him in. If we keep him in the house, he chews and scratches at the door and windows, destroying a lot of stuff. If we keep him in a cage, he escapes, and when we finally found a house with a fenced in yard, he did this to himself- and this was after about 1 month and a half of living there, and we finally thought we had it under control. Any suggestions on how to deal with seperation anxiety? And also, on the healing process?
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