I am going to dig through Banks' records to see what she was on -- I'll post back later tonight Hope she is doing better today
Thank you!
This is what I had found online about using Panacur that I was referencing earlier:
[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica] How Do I Know My Dog Has Giardia?
Most of the time, the vet is stumped as to what is the problem and even though they treat the animal for Giardia, it comes right back once the meds are stopped. Then the vet starts to think this might be a food allergy or sensitivity, when infact it is just very difficult to get a handle on Giardia. I always suggest running a check for Coccidia at the same time as a test for Giardia, just to make sure that is not the problem as well.
A typical Giardia dog is one that will not gain weight, they may feel/act normal but they can be on/off their feed, and/or have intermittent loose stools or diarrhea. In the later stages, these dogs will not eat or become picky since Giardia causes stomach upset/gas and severe cramping. It is
because of this, they will often graze on grasses excessively looking for relief. If your dogs have these symptoms, I would treat for Giardia first, before you start running up vet bills looking for other health problems like expensive diets or exploratory surgery.
Giardia is a very big problem, one that goes undetected by most veterinarians. Dr.Carol Turkington writes, "Once an infestation of Giardia, it often reoccurs. Giardia is spread by food or water contaminated by the Giardia protozoan organism found in the intestinal tract and feces. When the cysts are ingested, the stomach acid degrades the cysts and releases the active
parasite into the body. Once within the body, the parasites cling to the lining of the small intestine, reproduce, and are swept into the fecal stream. As the liquid content of the bowel dries up, the parasites form cysts, which are then passed in the feces. Once excreted, the cysts can survive in water for more than three months. The parasite is spread further by direct fecal-oral contamination, such as can occur if food is prepared without adequate hand-washing, or by ingesting the cysts in water or food.
Turkington goes on to state, "Diagnosis can be difficult because it can be easy to overlook the presence of the Giardia cysts during a routine inspection of a stool specimen. In the past, the condition has been diagnosed by examining three stool samples for the presence of the parasites.
However, because the organism is shed in some stool samples and not others, the infection may not be discovered using this method. A newer, more accurate method of diagnosing the condition is the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that detects cysts and antigen in stool, and is approximately 90% accurate.
While slightly more expensive, it only needs to be done once and is therefore less expensive overall than the earlier test." Generally, Flagyll or Metronidazole are often used for Giardia, and
repeated again in 2 weeks if the symptoms have not subsided. Many times you will treat them for Giardia and they are fine on the medication, but once the course of medicine is done, they usually return to a loose stool. If you use Panacur wormer for treatment, which I think is a more effective
choice for this problem, take the total dose for the weight of the dog and then instead of treating the dog for the normal 3 day period, you divide up all the amount of Panacur powder and divide into doses for use over a 10 day period of time, to effect the Giardia in the varying stages of growth and proliferation.
In other words, spread the treatment over 10 days.[/FONT]
It's from this website:
http://www.filadog.com/giardia.htm
Pic of my stinky pup
