Bladder Stones - UPDATE

[Adrianne Matzkin]

Samantha has had UTI's on and off for 2 years. She has been on antibiotics for 3 weeks and we went for revisit this morning. She had urinalysis was no better our vet did an xray. Her bladder is filled with stones! She is on a new antibiotic for 15 days when we will do another xray - if she still has any she is scheduled for surgery that day. 

I called Champion foods - they do not make prescription diet foods. I did by a small bag of Hills at the vet until I came home to do my own research - he is quite a distance from our home  and if I wasted money so be it. I am not opening it until I hear what kind of stones our vet believes she has -  I KNOW that is is crap food so please no one admonish me for it.   

I am researching foods for Samantha. If anyone has a recommendation I would love to hear it. 

The list below is for a low oxalate diet. If she has these kind of stones, which the reading I have done seems most dogs have them,  then I can cook for her and find a Champion food that will be good for Samantha.

Group 4 (low-oxalate foods) are “green light” ingredients. They can be fed in any quantity, though they should still be combined with calcium. Foods in boldface are particularly low in oxalates:

• Nuts and seeds: coconut, flax seeds, pumpkin and squash seeds, and sunflower seeds.
• Vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, avocado, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, cucumber, garlic, green or red peppers, lettuce, mushrooms, peas, canned pumpkin, sauerkraut, canned string beans, tomato juice, canned water chestnuts, and zucchini. (Onions should never be fed to dogs).
• Legumes: lima beans, black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, lentils, and split peas.
• Fruit: apples, fresh apricots, bananas, cantaloupe, cherries, cranberries, grapefruit, lemons, lychee,melons of all types, nectarines, olives, oranges, papayas, passion fruit, peaches, pears,pineapple, plums, raspberries, strawberries, tangerines, and watermelon. (Neither grapes nor raisins should ever be fed to dogs).
• Grains: white bread, whole wheat bread, cornbread, hominy (corn grits), oat bran, rice noodles, semolina, white rice, corn and white flour tortillas, and wild rice.
• Fats: all fats and oils, including butter.
• Fish: all fish and seafood (shellfish).
• Dairy: all, including cheese, cottage cheese, cream, eggs, yogurt, ice cream, and sour cream.
• Meat: all meat and poultry, including organ meats, luncheon meats, sausage, and bacon.
• Sweeteners: all natural sweeteners, including sugar (not recommended for dogs) and honey.

May 12

The surgery was a success!! The day after surgery was painful to watch Samantha. She was in agony after she peed. The doodle that doesn't show any pain whatsoever stood like a bronze statue for 10 minutes after she peed. Very slowly the pain subsided for her to sit and then to lay down. It was an eternity for  all of us. The next time the statue lasted only 5 minutes. Then she didn't pee for hours! I called Dr. John and suggested to wait 2 hours to see if she would pee again and if not we were going to go to  see him - he was concerned it might have been a blood clot. At 4:30pm, our time to go out SUCCESS and it seemed she was in no pain!! Since then she is feeling better every day.

Friday night when I was getting ready to go to bed in my den with her(no stairs allowed yet) I turned around and all 4 doodles were gone!! I ran upstairs and their they all were in my bedroom!!  CAlled Dr. John Saturday morning and he said if she wants to do steps let her but no running up and down. Yesterday she play bowed to Niña; Samantha only has play bowed to one other doodle, Jeannine's Sully, in years; she has been trying to get us to play ball which she isn't allowed to yet. 

Except for giving her  antibiotics, cleaning her wounds and watching her like a hawk that she doesn't scratch or lick her wounds, life is basically back to normal. Samantha also had a inflamed hair follicle removed from her chin which she tries to scratch all the time and one removed her side which  leaves alone.

I just received a call from Dr. John. He believes the stones were produced because her urine culture came back with multiple positives including staph and tetracoccus bacteria gram + which has to be treated with injections (under the skin) of gentamycin. The bacteria she has is resistant to all other drugs. This drug is not to be taken lightly - side effects are kidney issues and deafness. Doing my laypersons research on it now and putting together a list of questions for Dr. John. He is not an alarmist, he does treatments in steps and if they don't work he goes to drugs like this. 

He is ordering the meds and later this week we will go for me to learn how to inject the meds.

We are waiting for the results on the test results on what kind of stones they are - it might be 2 weeks.

 

 

[F, Calla & Luca]

So far I'm guessing struvite stones.

[Bonnie and Kona]

Seeing this you can rest assured she absolutely had to have the surgery! 

[Lynda Kamrath]

That really is unbelievable.  If I hadn't seen this, I never would have thought a bladder could even contain all these stones.  At least you know that the surgery was necessary.  Hopefully she will not continue to make these stones.  Hugs to Samantha.  I hope she is feeling much better these days.

[Pam Thomas]

I can't believe she did not show pain. Those stone would be like having a baby. Glad they are gone and hope they never come back.

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

This is good news indeed. Glad to know the surgery was successful. Now to hope that the drugs are easily tolerated and that they do the job.