Bad Liver, Bad!! Part II

Mommy has been such a lazy butt this week with posting! But I wanted to let you all know how my liver has been doing.

Monday, I thought me and Mommy were going some place special. She got me all dressed up in my new pink dress and put on my favorite pink necklace.



Thankfully, I did not have to wear that hat (Daddy was laughing at me while he took this picture, which I did not appreciate at all!) Mommy got my VB bag and then we were off on our adventure! And where did we end up??........at the VETS, again!! I'm telling you all, I am so sick and tired of going to these people! But Dr. Block was a very nice man, when he came into the room, I was so scared that I was shaking like a leaf, but he got down on the floor with me and made me feel very comfortable. He looked me over and then stuck something cold up my butt, something about wanting to take my temperature, which of course was fine, because I'm not sick at all. Then came the dreaded part that I hate the most, I got pricked again by a needle, boo hoo. Why oh why do I have to keep getting needles in me! Mommy made it up to me though, she took me out shopping on our way home!





Hi everyone! Well, thankfully with this visit with the internal specialist, we've finally gotten solutions to this pesky liver enzyme issue! First thing Dr. Block asked was whether or not she had been retested, which of course she wasn't. He said that her levels from the first testing were not that high and were really not indicative of MVD and he also made no mention of her undersized liver, when I mentioned to him that she had an ultrasound and that her liver was on the small side, he really did not seem concerned at all about that. He did another liver profile on her and it came back that the enzyme levels went down again, so instead of being 3x times high, now they're only 2x high!! Dr. Block said that, considering that she is asymptomatic and her levels have gone down, that she is now cleared for spaying.

But as her levels are still up there, he gave me 3 options:
1. Get a liver biopsy at the same time as her spaying.
2. Do nothing and just get her spayed.
3. Give her Denamarin (which has milk thistle in it) for 30 days and have her levels retested again.

Now, if we do nothing, we run the risk of her levels not going down and having her go through a biopsy and anesthesia again after her spaying. The problem with her being on Denamarin for 30 days is that right now, she needs to get spayed ASAP, as she is due for her second heat very, very soon, and the more heats they go through, the more the risk for mammary cancer is elevated, so she would be getting spayed before her treatment with Denamarin is completed. And if her levels don't go down even more with the Denamarin, then she would need a biopsy to see what is going on. We could always go with #1, Dr. Block said that they would only need to get 1 sample, if her liver is normal in color (if it was discolored, that's when they would need to get several samples from different places). He said that it is a simple procedure that my own vet could do (I told him that Dr. Alterman said they don't do that there and he looked at me like I was kinda crazy and said that he would write down the procedure for them!).

During this whole visit, I kinda got the feeling from Dr. Block that he was wondering why we were there in the first place, seeing as her levels were not that high in the first place and she is completely asymptomatic. Which goes along with my thinking that my regular vets were completely blowing this whole thing out of proportion.

Sooooo, after talking with Dr. Block, listening to his recommendations (he still strongly recommends a biopsy), and also talking with other people whose little ones went through the same thing and are fine without the need for a biopsy, I went with the Denamarin and will just do the spay without the biopsy. I feel confident that her levels will keep on going down, and plus, with the money we've spent so far and still need to pay for a spaying, a biopsy is really not in our budget right now. I'm going to take the chance and I feel that this is the right decision.