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Chronic Vomiting In A Dog

by cprather - March 24, 2019 View Case Report

I have been seeing Tessa, a 5 year ol English Bulldog for a few month. She came to me with a history of chronic vomiting. She was on prednisone, omeprazole, probiotics , and Royal Canin HP diet. She was still vomiting several times per week.
Exam: Very sweet dog, overweight. Earth Constitution. Tongue- lavender, wide and wet. Her pulses were soft and deep.
I diagnosed Spleen Qi deficiency. I stopped probiotics and omeprazole and decreased pred dose. Tessa was placed on Wei Ling Tang and Standard Process Enteric Support.

At recheck 3 weeks later, Tessa was doing fantastic. The owner had weaned her off the pred completely. She was only on HP diet still, WLT , and Standard Process Enteric support. No further vomiting was noted.

I advised the owner to start switching Tessa to homecooked diet. Since that visit, the owner has tried to transition her to home cooking by adding small amounts of meat first but each time she tries, Tessa vomits within a day or two of adding the protein. We have tried whitefish, salmon, beef, turkey- all with the same response. If she stays on HP, she does well, but both the owner and myself would prefer to feed her raw or home cooked food.

At the last recheck 2 weeks ago, Tessa was doing well. Her tongue was lavender, with no coating. Her pulses still seemed fairly soft, deep. The only new complaint was that the owner had gotten a new dog just after the first visit and Tessa was aggressive towards him at times, especially when it came to attention from the owner. ( maybe not Earth constitution after all !)

I am not sure what to do at this point to help her with the transition to a different diet.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Colleen

by naturevet

March 25, 2019

Hi there,

That's quite amazing - to vomit all foods other than the HP diet. Your success thus far and the limited tolerance for anything other than a hydrolyzed diet does suggest a Spleen deficiency for sure. It could be that the dog needs a few more months for its GI to settle down (and the Spleen to buck up), at which point real food could be tolerated.

Another idea is to mix digestive enzymes in the food for a while, to take some of the load off the Spleen and Stomach, and see if that allows tolerance of real food.

My third idea comes from some recent research I've been doing on the microbiome in response to diet change. Movement to a real food diet can change the gut microflora and increase gut permeability in compromised animals. If the dog has a form of IBD, antigens from either the microbes or food can then be absorbed that trigger an immune response, manifesting as vomiting.

To combat this shift in flora, further tonify the Spleen, and make a real food diet more tolerable, you could supplement with:

Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang (perhaps instead of the WLT, if two formulas seems too much)

Probiotics (as previously)

Prebiotics (namely a fermentable fiber source of some type such as inulin or FOS)

If you try a whole foods vegetarian diet based on beans and legumes for a while, then you can get the benefits of soluble fiber that way. I'd still use the BZYQT and probiotics in that instance. While I'm not a huge fan of using vegetarian diets for dogs, it may prove a useful stepping stone you do want to try.

Hopefully this helps you out. Let us know what you accomplish and how, but meanwhile, it sounds like you're doing great!

Steve

Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang

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