Okay I'm late but here is another outlet.

http://www.puritan.com/milk-thistle-silymarin-065?searchterm=milk%20thistle&rdcnt=1&sortorder=2&Page=1#tab=tab-1

Well last wed was vet day for Sierra, another blood check and her liver is still high
her ALT was down to 179 from 188 but the other level that was low is now high and i forget what she said the # was. so we will keep up on the pills and recheck in march. since they are not in the 300-400 she is not jumping and demanding a ton of test just yet. so i will keep you all posted.

Well we will be doing more blood work next week during her check up but yesterday around 10am (i was at the gym, ken home) Sierra had a seizure not sure what caused it but the way ken was describing it she threw up then tried to poo and fell forward while she was squatting. she then was unable to hop up on the deck. she then drank a ton of water and went into her crate and stayed there even when i got home she would not come out. we gave her 2 spoonfuls of honey and she started to feel better. she was ok for her party but not 100%. I will keep you all up to date.

Oh no, poor Sierra.

ok so we just got back from the vet and have the blood work results. i swear its always something....
so we have been treating with SAM-e and milk thistle. last test was in Dec, just after xmas

her ALT is down to 135 from 179
her AST is down to 60 from 101
her ALKP is UP to 259 from 54

now the vet is not worried since the other 2 went down but i guess the ALKP being up could be a lot of things, the high range is 212 so its not to much higher but much higher then HER last check.

http://canineliverdiseasefoundation.org/?tag=alkp
i found this site with some info but

anyone have any info to share with me? im happy her 2 numbers are down and im trying not to freak over then ALKP.

her BASO was also high at .13 normal is 0-10

well that is all for now, she other then her teeth she was all good

I can't say I know a lot about vet medicine, but I had some high liver tests of my own in the last couple years and this was my experience.

Mine was actually caused by mono. I know mono at 28 wtf? Anyway, I had high ALT and AST and an enlarged liver along with some high white counts. It took them forever to actually figure out it was mono though, because I had symptoms more like stomach flu, whereas I guess the usual presentation is more like upper respiratory infection. Anyway after much worry and thousands in tests they finally did a blood test for mono antibodies and the titer was super high. So there you go. What I learned in the process is that pretty much every drug is processed by the liver. So I had to stop everything, even advil and vitamins (although tylenol was okay). My leaning when it comes to liver problems is to remove anything, including vitamins, those have to be processed as well (but i'm not familier with milk thistle so i could be way off there). Also, it doesn't make sense the vet put her on antibiotics for hepatitis, that's caused by a virus, which is not treated with antibiotics. Unless the vet was trying to ward off a secondary infection aside from hepatitis. Of course it could be totally different in dogs, this is just my personal experience.

Did you find out what the original seizure was caused by? My parents have a golden that was having seizures and it turns out that his were caused by treatments for their trees in the back yard. I think they were pesticides (it was trugreen). Once they stopped having the trees sprayed, he stopped having seizures and hasn't had one since. I only say that since its spring and it could be environmental like a fertilizer from a neighbors yard or something.

no idea on the seizures and she has only had about 4 in the last 2yrs and it has been through out the yr so no given time, or time of day. the SAM-e and thistle vit. is for the liver and with that treatment her counts have gone down. i have also switched her to just one kind of food not mixing two. the only change in her diet has been some raw bones she has been eating the last week and a half, not sure if something from that would cause the high ALKP....

I see. Well I hope the vet can figure it out! It's probably a good sign the other numbers are going down. i'll send positive vibes her way.

Well Sierra's liver count was still high yesterday Ken took her in so im waiting for the vet to tell me or send me the info on what the #'s were. i was really hoping her teeth were causing the issue but that's not the case now. she wants to do an x-ray or ultra sound to check the liver but im not sure what one would be better or worth it. she wants to try some med that is $75 a month that is a combo of the thistle and something else, waiting on that name as well. you don't get all the info when you send your husband to the vet..... i will post back when i have more info. poor baby girl she is acting normal so that's a good sign.

any one have any suggestions not all ready posted?

Sorry to hear that. I don't have anything new to suggest besides what was previously posted a while ago.

I'm sure it will be much more helpful once you can talk to the vet yourself. My husband is horrible at relaying veterinary info too. On the extremely rare case that he takes a dog in instead of me, I have the vet just call me directly with the results/information rather than relying on my husband whom I know won't get it right...men! Lol

I wish the best for Sierra, I have the same issue with my hubby lol. He mentions some key points but then trails off with, 'there was something else too...'

My Lexi had similar issues, but 3 months of denosyl (SAMe) and thistle made levels go down considerable. She is still on those meds. She hasn't had a seizure without pheno pills, so I don't want to chance it if SAMe is helping the seizures too. With my girl I had the xray done as my vet is pretty cheap with xrays when she first got sick. He noticed an enlarged liver as well as spine and hip issues (she is nearly 12). If the pills did not work, he indicated utlrasound would be needed and I think they definitely get a lot more information. I held off and I am happy that I did hold off as it wasn't needed and pretty expensive test.

For Lexi, she showed infection levels as well. Thus, amoxi was prescribed too. Infections can sometimes elevate liver issues as my lab showed liver issues with UTI as well, so I think that step on having amoxi first was a good step. Does any of the bloodwork still indicate infection? If yes, could another antibiotic be tried?

At this point, if levels still are not going down and you want to find out more, probabaly ultrasound is answer. I think mine would cost $500-600 and my vet indicated many of the surgeries would be very difficult for a dog Lexi's age and very costly for the things he suspected. Thus, if it was me, I would probably lean towards not getting one especially if the dog is acting normal and the levels are not too far off the chart. For things internally, I don't see how xray helps besides showing abnormalities in the organs and which ones to target for ultrasound to get more answers. In my case, Lexi has a number of issues beyond the liver issues, but luckily she keeps kicking along pretty strongly.

Just a revisit as we have done more blood work on Sierra just to keep an eye on it all.
We have been giving her Nutramax Denamarin for Med dogs 13-34lbs, one a day, she weighs between 45-50lbs.
Over all her levels have been dropping since we switched to the Denamarin and i was happy to see they are still dropping since we dropped her to the lower dose weight group and im saving $$ every month now. these pills are not cheap.
Still high but not as bad as they were and are almost near the normal/high range. They do seem to be dropping lower every 6 months since we started the new pills. I do think this may be a life time thing for her now though.
ALT is now at 210
AST at 58
ALP 203

That's great her numbers are dropping! If I may ask, where are you buying her Denamarin? Our vet price matches which is convenient for us, but I've seen the best prices at Costco and on Amazon.com. But yeah, that stuff isn't cheap at all...

i did not know costco has it... i have been shopping amazon for it.
last 2 i have bought have been $30 & $32

That's not bad, I'm paying about $57 for the large dog dose. Shadow is 60 lbs and on a crap ton of phenobarbital though, so I definitely need the bigger dose.

Yeah i was paying around that a month, that's why i was happy to see results on the lower dose!

We had a BIG vet visit on sat, shots, check ups blood work, bank account drained...
anyways Sierra had her senior blood work done and her liver is back to normal!
Her ALT is at 58 and her AST is at 53 just under being high but both are in the normal range now.
her BUN level is low now and im not sure if i should be worrying about that as what i was reading said low levels point to liver issues but now her liver is normal, 3 yrs of having a high liver im wondering if something could be wrong. she is still on her liver meds and i will kept her on them for at least another 6 months till her next blood work test.
i want to be happy but im still worrying, wanted to keep this thread up to date.

jbealer wrote:

i want to be happy but im still worrying, wanted to keep this thread up to date.

My commiserations, Jenn - afraid the worry goes with the "Mom" territory

So we have been on this battle for 3 yrs now. Last Sat. i took Sierra in for her 6 month check up, more like 8 this time. She was just finishing up a round of de-wormer from whip worms and the vet said that should not effect her liver numbers. I had some doubt in my mind but trusted the vet, well her numbers came back at like 730!!! her highest yet. Talk about sending me into a panic, on top of panicking about own health issues.
We decided to do a full senior panel on her on Tue. full blood work, xrays, thyroid, urine, and i think one other thing.
She finished up the de-wormer sat so that gave a few days to have it work out of her system.
I dropped her off at the vet on Tue and we had to wait till the following day for all the results.
I got Sierra's update while i was in the hospital waiting to have my test done. Her liver numbers dropped from 730 on sat to 320 on tue, so that was better news. Her X-Rays did not show any masses but maybe something in her small intestine, she eats everything she can find so we were just watching her poop. ( on Friday i found some holiday fabric in her poo!
her proteins are low though and that could be because of her liver, our vet wants to do an ultrasound to see if her liver is just not making the proteins or if it is leaking it out. her urine was diluted, but her thyroid was good. over all it was good news we are just left with some unanswered questions till we do the ultra sound, that really is the next step in all of this. we will start saving and do it in like march/april since they need to shave her whole belly
so that is our latest update in this liver mess.

our baby girl is a fighter and we will fight with her.

I just love Sierra, I really really hope everything turns out ok with her.

Now I remember this...ugh. You are in my thoughts. Any chance any of this is a red herring? Sometimes, the more you test, the more variations you find that really mean nothing. And..I'm assuming she is not grossly overweight (fatty liver).

And, Sierra...NO MORE NON-FOOD ITEMS. yeah, right, Amy

Sierra was down to 40lbs when i took her in sat for the first test she gained 1.5lbs back on tue, as she was not eating with the worms and all. she started to eat more sun night and now she is finishing her meals, i try to keep her between 42-45lbs. so no she is not over weight but was 60lbs when we adopted her.
But again all her test up to Oct. 2012 her liver was fine, then it started to spike. ( we got her in 2009)
we tested everything this time just to make sure, it was the first time we have done everything other then blood and pee.
I was relived to know the xrays were clean, 2 bouts of cancer and we are at the 1yr for the last one i was afraid they might have moved inside. We were also concerned that something was on the liver, again other then blood work this is the first time we have checked farther into the liver issue. that is why the ultra sound is the next step to figure out why her numbers are so high. i can only imagine how high it would be with out the daily meds.

Oh Jenn, fingers crossed everything continues to go well for Sierra. Thanks for the update on your pretty girl. Please do keep us in the loop. Here's hoping the ultra sound goes well in the spring.