Giardia Help

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

I have had my puppy for 2.5 weeks now and the whole time she has had very runny stool and blood in it.

Day 3 of having her we made our first vet visit and they put her on Albon, precription food.  They said in 2 days it does not get better to bring her back.  With in those 2 days it got worse and the poor baby was going to the bathroom every 30 minutes and it was mostly pure blood.

So day 3 first thing in the morning I took her back and they put her on Metronidazole (5 days) & FlortiFlora supplement into her food for 2 weeks, also more canned Gastro food.   This seemed to be making it better the blood cleared up in 1 day and her stool started having a soft serve ice cream look to it. So about a week later now its back to watery and very bloody again and the poor thing keeps going out about every 20 minutes trying to poop.

 

I was finally able to get a hold of the breeder I got her from and she informed me that another puppy in the litter was diagnosed with Giardia.  OK well when she found this info out shouldnt she be calling all the new owners of the litter mates or any other dog/puppy she sold on the last month since this is so contagous???  Not to mention she knows I am 7 months pregnant and Humans can get this as well!!!

So I told my vet this info and they had me pick up 5 days of liquid panacur.   I told the breeder all the meds she was on and is now on and she doest agree with how my vet is treating it....

 

here is her Email to me....

 Treatment for giardia with either metronidazole or panacur is a 10 day treatment. The course of metronidazole with FortiFlora was correct except that it should have been 10 days for metronidazole. The 5 days was just enough to knock it down a bit and then rebound because the treatment was not long enough. Panacur is ok to treat giardia, but not as good as metronidazole and if it is used it has to be for 10 days. The body develops an immune response to giardia and clinical signs are rarely seen in older puppies and adult dogs even though they are exposed to it in the environment either through feces, natural colonies in wet areas or ponds/lakes. The lifecycle/shedding pattern of giardia is such that the most effective treatment for giardia is to use metronidazole for 10 days, skip 3-5 days and treat with metronidazole or panacur for 10  more days. Addition of probiotics such as fortiflora is always good and should be for 2 weeks - our vet clinic uses probiotics for all GI upsets. It is unfortunate that your vet did not properly diagnose or prescribe for her diarrhea because it should have been cleared up within a few days. Hopefully you can convince them to prescribe 10 days of metronidazole and possibly follow-up with panacur. If they wont' do this, let me know and I will get a prescription from our clinic and mail the medications to you. Hope this helps.

 

So I put in a call to my vet asking them about this since they only gave me a 5 day treatment. I dont know who to go with here the breeder is a vet tech. And all I want is the puppy to get better and the quicker the better.

 

So I guess my question is anyone else here deal with this??? What treatment or treatments worked for you?  Should I just tell the Breeder to send me the meds anyway?

 

Anything else I should know to help make this go away quicker?  I washed all her bedding and cage with bleech last night. I picked up all the poop that I could pick up in the yard, I bleached the area's on the patio she had gone to the bathroom. I plan to rewash her bedding and cage every couple days. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I strongly disagree with your breeder on the medications. Panacur is far, far superior to metronidazole in clearing Giardia, and it works much faster, too. The Panacur powder clears Giardia in three days, I have experienced this several times with foster dogs here, and this is also what my vet has told me.

I have found that many breeders, because they have so many dogs, tend to go with the cheapest treatments possible for parasites, ear cleaning, etc. Whether or not your breeder is a vet tech or not, I would stick with the Panacur. You already tried metronidazole and it didn't help. There are also some fairly serious side-effects associated with overuse of metronidazole. My dog is being treated for a serious GI disease, and they want the shortest course of the lowest effective dose of metronidazole always, because there can be neurological side-effects among others. I can't imagine putting a young puppy on it for two 10 day courses when the panacur will clear it in a few days. That just doesn't make sense.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Some veterinary imformation:

From http://www.capcvet.org/recommendations/giardia.html

(Note: Fenbendazole is Panacur)

• Metronidazole  is the most commonly used extra-label therapy; however, efficacies as low as 50%  to 60% are reported. Safety concerns also limit the use of metronidazole in  dogs and cats.
• Albendazole  is effective against Giardia but is  not safe in dogs and cats and should not be used.
• Fenbendazole  (50 mg/kg SID for 3 to 5 days) is effective in eliminating Giardia infection in dogs. Fenbendazole is approved for Giardia treatment in dogs in Europe, and available experimental evidence suggests that  it is more effective than metronidazole in treating Giardia in dogs.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Guinness had giardia as a puppy and my vet treated with Panacur.  I can't remember exactly how long he took it for but five days seems about right.  I would always trust my Vet over a breeder.  You're doing all the right things in terms of cleaning up your yard and washing the bedding and crate.  I would definitely use gloves when picking up the actual stool and scrubbing well afterward.  My Vet also told me to clean Guinness's but well with a Baby Wipe each time he went...also wearing gloves.  Good luck....I remember how frustrating this was.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Also, it's worth mentioning that some breeders use a very cheap product similar to metronidazole, which is called  "Fish Zole". They use this because they can order it without an Rx or a vet visit. Maybe that's why so many puppies come home with Giardia....it doesn't work well.

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

Ok update to this and thanks for the info guys.

The vet that was treating her was not in yesterday and so when I called in they just had me pick up the panacur.

So I was able to speak with the Vet that has been treating her and asked her opion on what the breeder said as well as how the dog was doing.

Last week when we did do 5 days of the Metronidazole she did seem to get better so it made since that could be the correct drug.

So the Vet wants me to finish out the Panacur for the 5 days plus tomorrow start her on 10 day round of metronidazole and keep her on probiotics.

A couple days after she finishes her last dose she is due for her next round of shots so at that point she wants to re examine her and do another fecal sample (but the first one was negative).

 

I hope this cures it. I am reading tons of storys online that sometimes it takes rounds and rounds of meds.  I also just read on one site that after this sometimes they have sensitive tummys and it can be a good idea to swap to a grain free food.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I would not change foods until after the next stool specimen comes back clear, all meds are finished, and her stools have firmed up.

Grain-free foods can be a good idea for many reasons, but I strongly suggest you do not change anything in her diet until the poop/giardia issue is resolved. Too many changes, and you will not know what is helping and what is not.

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

Oh no I was not going to swap foods again (we were already in prosses of swapping from Nurto to blue during this).

But if down the road she has problems then that might be my next step. My neighbor said her 5yr old dog had this as a puppy and ever since has had problems off and on and it took a bunch of food changes to get him to an OK point. She said its almost like he has IBS now and gets set off by little things such as a change in her routine.

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Sorry you are going through this! I went through months and months and months of this. Repeated vet visits, samples and several rounds of metro and panacur. It kept resurfacing. or so I thought. It turned out she had a sensitive stomach to everything under the sun. So while she definitely had giardia in the beginning, my giving her bully sticks, bones, rawhides or anythign similar was also setting her off. It was hard to tell what was causing what until I stopped giving her anything but kibble and a few trusted treats. Thank goodness we're through with this.

Just wash your hands a lot and keep her bedding clean, whipe her butt after she goes, don't let her on the bed, etc. You should be fine. Hang in there!

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

Oh my I hope we dont have to keep going through this that long.  I have heard after they have this its common to become sensitive to things.   I have not given her any treats so I know thats one thing it can not be... but she loves her raw hides and they are the only thing that I can use to keep her from bitting me so Im not going to take those away..lol 

She did sleep in my bed the first 5 nights because I just could not get her in her cage and now im like EWWW cause she did have accidents in bed.  But im happy to say she has been in her cage at night for almost 2 weeks now.

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

I would actually consider taking away the rawhide. Have you consiered giving her antlers instead? they are harmless and last a lot longer too, and are less messy.

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

Where the heck do you get Antlers at???   LOL

I can try to take away the raw hides but then she will chew on me like I am a raw hide and my hand gets all bloody with these puppy teeth :(    But that is another battle we are trying to work on right now. She constantly has to be chewing on something and I have all kinds of toys here but she just wants the raw hide or me to chew on.  I have a couple rubbery toys that I thought she would love and might feel good to her mouth and nothing..

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Google Antler Pantry and write Linda. My dogs love them. I used bully sticks in the beginning and they were a godsend, but then they started disagreeing with my dogs, so we switched to antlers.

http://antlerpantry.com/

My two like the half antlers better than the whole antler.