Epi Medicine For Dogs

The same applies to the fiber content.

Epi medicine for dogs.

Home care of dogs with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Dogs with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency are unable to digest nutrients in their diet properly resulting in maldigestion weight loss and abnormal feces usually pale and. If your dog doesn t tolerate pork well there are also beef based or plant enzymes. Other treatment considerations for animals with epi include additional dietary alterations and possible treatment of the main cause of pancreatic disease when diagnosed.

Some epi dogs have unrelated food allergies further limiting their diet. Epi treatment pancreatic enzymes. Porcine enzymes in a powder given with food are considered the best. Epi dogs lipid soluble vitamin research just published aug 22 2018 in the journal of veterinary internal medicine.

Other dogs cannot tolerate even as little as 12 percent fat. Epi4dogs assisted with the patient registry for this study and funding. Bacterial overgrowth is not uncommon in dogs with epi and intermittent antibiotic treatment may be necessary over the course of the animal s lifetime. Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency epi is the inability to properly digest food due to a lack of digestive enzymes made by the pancreas epi is found in humans afflicted with cystic fibrosis and shwachman diamond syndrome and is common in dogs epi is caused by a progressive loss of the pancreatic cells that make digestive enzymes.

Patrick barko david williams univ of illinois. The pancreas is an organ near the stomach and small intestine that produces enzymes needed for digestion as well as releasing hormones including insulin that regulate body homeostasis including blood sugar levels. Loss of digestive enzymes leads to maldigestion and. Epi is less common than pancreatitis in both dogs and cats but it is the second most common exocrine pancreatic disorder in both species.

Many dogs with epi thrive on raw diets and some owners find that a raw diet is the only one that works for their dogs. Optimal treatment for your dog requires a combination of home and professional veterinary care. Dogs and cats treated with the proper dose of the correct supplements can be given a good long term prognosis. Epi is treated even in conventional medicine using pancreatic enzymes to compensate for your dog s own lacking enzyme production.

In fact even though complete recovery from epi is rare.