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Question

My 7 month old puppy underwent exploratory surgery in his abdomen last night, and I'm quite concerned. For 3 days he was vomiting and had blood in his stool. After the first day (10 hours of vomiting every 20-30 minutes) we brought him in for emergency care where they placed him on fluids to keep him hydrated. He has been under veterinary care for over 72 hours at this point and had multiple xrays, ultrasounds, bloodwork, and the surgery, and no one can find any clues or figure out why he was vomiting. The doctor biopsied his stomach, intestines, and a swollen lymphnode. We expect these results in 2-3 days. As of this afternoon, he has not vomited for about 24 hours. They will try to feed him late this evening and if he can hold food, they will send him home with us tomorrow evening. My concern is that they don't know what was causing the vomiting to begin with. Is it normal to not have a diagnosis for something like this after 72+ hours of hospitalization, surgery, and multiple tests? Should I be taking my dog somewhere else?

Submitted: 47 days and 6 hours ago.
Category: Dog
Value: $9
Status: CLOSED
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Pet's Sex: Male
Pet's Age: <1

Already Tried:
veterinary care

Accepted Answer

Hello! I am sorry to hear you have a sick puppy.

 

I would say that your situation is what commonly happens. As good as veterinarians are at diagnosing and treating conditions, sometimes we never truly find an answer to why something happened.

 

In this case, the exploratory surgery made sure there was nothing really bad going on - IMO, finding nothing wrong is just as important as finding something wrong.

 

The other thing to remember is that you still have biopsy results pending, and those tests may give you a true diagnosis, or cause of the vomitting and bloody diarrhea. It is also possible that they will all be normal as well, and not give a solid answer at all!

 

In my opinion, the most *awesome* news is that your puppy is doing so much better with symptomatic treatment at the vet clinic he is at! A lot of times, the biggest key is getting the vomitting and diarrhea to stop, so that it doesn't self-perpetuate.

 

So it is possible that there will not be a "specific diagnosis" by the time your puppy is discharged, but again, as long as the puppy is still improving at this time, which I would say he is since the vomitting has stopped and they are considering feeding him at this point, I would say he is in very good hands.

 

Good luck with your puppy!

 

Dr. Tanis!

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Expert: Dr. Tanis
Pos. Feedback: 100.0 %
Accepts: 
Answered: 10/6/2009

Dog Veterinarian

10 years experience in small animal emergency medicine

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