Has anyone administered fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) to help with their dog's gastrointestinal issues?
I have a cavalier king charles spaniel that has had some unfortunate health issues for the past few years. The most pressing one that I haven't been able to nail down and fix is her GI issues. Every now and then, she has an all night bout of diarrhea even though the only food she has eaten is her hydrolyzed protein dog food. I remember reading about FMT years ago for people who had GI issues and I'm wondering what the results have been for dogs (and other animals). It seems counter intuitive to fight shit with more shit, but at this point I am willing to try most non-invasive treatments. While taking her to the dog park and asking other dog owners if my dog can eat their dog's poo would be the cheapest option, instead I found a site that purportedly has capsules available.
https://doggybiome.com/dog-products-for-diarrhea/
However, because it is difficult to find more information about this company and because I don't want imagine how this type of business (if it worked) could scale up as an industrial factory farm, I am skeptical.
Any thoughts on treating IBD in dogs for an allergy prone, and sensitive dog? She is already getting fiber and she sometimes gets probiotic with her food.
I haven't tried it, but i think you're lovely for putting so much thought and effort into caring for your pet! If my dogs had the same issue, i think I'd try it
Have you talked to your vet about it yet? They may even be able to tell you more about that company, or if any alternatives exist.
p.s. Whenever my dog gets a bad case of diarrhea (which happens a few times a year) I have always just added some plain, unsweetened yogurt, and plain, canned, pureed pumpkin to his food, which my vet recommended, and that seems to help clear it up.
Oh yeah, I am pretty sure this dog paid for my vet's BMW with how often she goes there. She has insurance and we explore every option where insurance will cover. Her insurance is honestly better than mine in a lot of ways. No one expects a dog to call and dispute an insurance claim I guess.
Honestly, they have been great but at this point I am trying to think a bit outside the box before trying more invasive tests. Previously, I believed that a lot of the issues she was having was due to allergies. But I can't think of why she would be having such a difficult time processing this specialized food randomly unless it is either something serious like cancer, or something to do with her gut flora.
Insurance won't cover the poop pills so I figured I might as well give it a shot. But the whole site seems a bit scammy in that they sell you the test and then they tell you what products to use from their test. I know fecal transplants are an emerging field so I dont have much to go on besides a few articles on Google scholar that noted some improvement in dogs with IBD.
Could you not just phone your vet to ask for some advice regarding the diarrhea, and alternative treatments like FMT, or those pills? I phone my vet at least a few times a year for various things like that. E.g. A few months ago my dog got stung by a bunch of mud wasps in our backyard, so I phoned my vet to ask them how much benadryl to give him. So long as it's nothing serious that requires I actually bring my dog in, my vet is usually pretty cool with answering questions over the phone... and they have never charged me for it.
I have actually brought it up with them before but they didn't have much information to provide for it. She is already on probiotics so I think for them, this is as far as they are willing to go. I got the assumption that they had not read much into this option.
And mostly I was wanting to know if anyone here had tried this treatment and the results they got from it.
Fair enough. I am personally always a bit wary of anecdotal medical topics on social media sites though, so that's why I kept pushing about asking the vet. It's a shame your vet doesn't seem willing to look into the subject for you a bit more though. :(
Curious how this works. Do you just tell the receptionist you’d like to talk to the vet and they pass the phone over? Kind of a dumb question, I know
I usually call and leave a voicemail for the vet who calls me back later. My office has multiple vets and will also leave meds in a bin outside their office to pick up after hours and bill you later for them.
Sounds like a good spot! I don’t really have anything bad to say about my vet, but I also don’t feel like they’re going above and beyond like that.
This is similar to my vet, I call and leave a message with the receptionist, and the vet calls back later. My cat is on a prescription weightloss diet, so they do zero-contact pickup since covid started, pay over the phone and they drop it off in your trunk. Fortunately my cat hasn't needed any prescriptions since I've been with this vet but I think they do it the same way. They actually prefer everything to be zero contact now, they come outside to pick up your pet & bring them inside for the exam then bring them back outside after etc. I think it's good for the animals too, it wasn't good for my scared cat to be in a waiting room with scared dogs barking etc.
We're not that low contact but I think they'll go that route if you request it, that was their COVID method for sure. I really appreciate that they don't make me pay up front for the meds (maybe they would if it had been more expensive) but they've kept my three cats healthy for the past six years altogether so I'm very happy.
Yeah, I usually just explain the situation or question to the receptionist, and if the vet isn’t busy I wait until they can come to the phone to talk to me. If it’s a simple question (like benadryl dose), the receptionist usually just asks the vet the question for me, and relays the answer to me. And if the vet is really busy and its not an emergency, they will usually just call me back later when they have a free moment.
They're already using such therapies in humans and have been for years now. I have an immediate family member with a lifelong history of GI & immuno- problems that has undergone an FMT. (Trying to be vague here for the sake of privacy.) Their diarrhea and hyper-reactivity to a variety of foods dissipated for months after the FMT, only to resurface when they had another health issue that required antibiotics. :(
I genuinely don't understand why FMT isn't used more in the US -- we have millions+ species of flora living in our GI tract, and those millions of species can get unbalanced. If some species get entirely wiped out, the ecosystem gets permanently unbalanced, so of course the answer is to try to replace it.
I have a bit of expertise here: the biggest barrier is getting FDA approval for off-the-shelf oral strategies. The FDA only has approved an enema oral administration of a controlled microbial community which is a bit of a nuisance. We are waiting for a pill based form. At present, true surgical fecal transfers are significantly more efficacious and are generally preferred.