| Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Cancer, or Giarida?
Hello all. Our 9 year old greyhound Charlotte is seriously ill. I was hoping to see if anyone else out there has dealt with a similar set of symptoms and treatment and could offer any advice or insight.
Charlotte's symptoms flared up suddenly, nearly overnight, at the beginning of December. Her primary symptoms were ascites, albumin loss, and drastic weight loss. She also developed edema in her hind limbs, but that has subsided since she is now on a diruetic. Her pancreas, kindeys, and liver are all functioning normally and her heart sounds fine and appears fine in x-rays. Our vet suspects Inflammatory bowel disease, parasites like Giardia, or intestinal cancer. We have opted not to have the colonoscopy and/or exploratory surgery needed to definitively rule out cancer - Charlotte is in a weakened state and that sort of invasive testing may be too much for her.
Our vet has placed her on the following (as an anti-inflammatory and chemotherapy round): prednisone, azathioprine, and metronidazole. The prednisone is at a fairly high dose.
She is very up and down - she'll be almost herself one day and more lethargic the next. Her appetite is there and she will eat - we're feeding her a/d in with her dry food to try to help her gain weight.
Here are my questions:
Obviously, this may well prove to be an untreatable cancer and we understand that although our hearts are breaking at the prospect.
Other than that, has anyone dealt with a similar set of symptoms? Did you get a different diagnosis? Should I push for panacur or another de-wormer? If you've dealt with this, was it difficult getting the weight back on?
Thanks for all of your time - we were blindsided by her sudden illness and are trying to become experts in all the possibilities. It's just such a helpless feeling sometimes. | 
