Animals with IBS
#78357 - 06/11/04 10:17 PM
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I've been working at for Vet's for the last 5 years and you can imagine my surprise when a client told me that her pet was diagnosed with IBS!!!! I thought that I was going to fall out of my chair stunned! The client asked if I knew what it was. Hmmm.. nope don't think I have ever heard of it.
He pet stresses it's self out so much that it makes it's self sick. So my theory is right that diet is important but stress is a major trigger.
I told the client I have a cat and when he's upset or stressed he vomits and makes himself sick. I had started to sprinkle ginger on my cats food and told her about it. The ginger for my cat Driscal wasn't enough she we ended up putting him on a antidepressant and he is more relaxed and I haven't had a problem with cleaning up stress vomit. Yuck! It ended up that I couldn't even go away for more than 2 days even if my roommate was there cause he'd make himself sick.
I think in the next few years we'll be hearing a lot about animals with IBS!
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My father's girlfriend has a cat with IBS. Thankfully, it only flared up when the cat was under EXTREME upset - in this case, when a certain other cat she had would beat it up - so the simple solution was to make sure the cats never mingled. She kept one in one part of the house, and the other in another.
I always found it interesting that her cat was diagnosed, like, 5 years ago... and at that point, I STILL hadn't found a HUMAN doctor who would admit that IBS was an actual illness!
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All the doctors i've seen now know that it's an actual illness though I think if we tell them that animals have it too that it wouldn't go over to well. LOL You can't win sometimes with doctors.
But now you see how much stress has to do with it more than even the diet? Though diet does help.
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I have thought certain animals had it but never heard anyone actually say so. I worked with a horse that gas coliced everytime he ate from a new shipment of hay. One of my cats gets D sometimes for no apparent reason (and she has been checked for worms) so I put her on "sensitive stomach" Science Diet. I always told the horse and the cat 'ahhh you have IBS like me'.
-------------------- IBS-A for 20 years with terrible bloating and gas. On the diet since April 2004. Remember this from Heather's information pages:
"You absolutely must eat insoluble fiber foods, and as much as safely possible, but within the IBS dietary guidelines. Treat insoluble fiber foods with suitable caution, and you'll be able to enjoy a wide variety of them, in very healthy quantities, without problem." Please eat IF foods!
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poor animals with ibs, tummy problems and no message board to share their pain with
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That is absolutely horrible! I had no idea innocent animals can have IBS!!!
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i know isnt it? and if we think WE have no one to share it with, can you imagine.
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I know. I'm such and animal lover I feel bad for them. I sometimes used to give my cat some powdered ginger on his food when he would start to vomit and it seemed to help some.
Even my sisters dog gets D sometimes and they take him to the vet and they don't know why he's sick.
Not all causes of D are from IBS though. So anyone who has a pet and they are getting sick have them checked out because it could be a lot of other things too. Some causes can be from a change of food (esp changed to quick, parvo, caronavirus, food allergies, has eaten something and it's still in them. We had a dog in last month that was on and off sick for months and the owner didn't bring his dog right away cause he thought it would go away because it wasn't frequent. We did x-rays and it had rocks in it's stomach and couldn't get them out. They had been there for months!! Another case was a dog had eaten the w of of there welcome mat, another had eaten a lot of cotton, and one even had a wire scrub.
*So make sure if you have a problem to have it check and don't just assume it's IBS.
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No kidding - I actually learned this from folks whose pets have IBS, and their vets recommended SFS and peppermint oil caps. One woman actually wrote this terrific letter about her dog Sammy and how IBS info and a soluble fiber supplement saved the little guy's life - I put the letter in a past newsletter here Dogs and IBS
When I got this letter, I sent the woman who wrote it a bag of Acacia for her dog so she wouldn't have to use Metamucil. She just called me last week to order more, and to say Sammy loved it, and it doesn't give him bloating and gas like the Metamucil did. I was laughing so hard at this whole thing but at the same time it was really sweet that the dog is doing so much better - he is adorable.
- H
-------------------- Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!
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