Other Factors That May Adversely Effect Proper Absorption of SARDS Canine Hormone Supplementation

Other Factors That May Adversely Effect Proper Absorption of SARDS Canine Hormone Supplementation

Please be aware of the fact that diagnosing and providing proper hormone supplementation for a SARDS canine patient may not be enough.

Malabsorption is a primary concern with ALL canine patients, not only because of their decreased IgA levels in their intestines, but also because of their food sensitivities and their trypsin deficiencies.

While you and your veterinarian are waiting for test results, it is important first, to make sure your canine does not have food sensitivities. If this has already been determined, that is fine, otherwise a food sensitivity needs to be determined and corrected for proper absorption of the primary canine SARDS replacement hormones.

Often, using a commercial diet or homemade diet with only one source of protein and one source of carbohydrate, might work better.

There are multiple proteins that can be used, but stay with that protein that you already know and agrees with your SARDS canine.

At this point in my practice, using white potato seems to be the best choice for a carbohydrate, but obviously there are also other good choices.

Please realize inorganic sweet potatoes contain elevated amounts of pesticides, referred to as a xenoestrogens, which is an estrogen mimicker. Since canine SARDS patients already have elevated total estrogen causing their problems, inorganic sweet potatoes will only add to their autoimmune disease as will inorganic carrots and apples.

If you believe that foods are still a problem, it is best to do a food elimination diet.

Note: You are welcome to go to my website at www.drplechner.com and search for Food Sensitivities or Food Elimination and you will see a number of articles that contain directions for applying a food elimination diet.

To do a food elimination diet, you might begin with one part cottage cheese to 4 parts boiled white potatoes, unless you already know your canine is sensitive to either one of these foods. If this is the case, you and your veterinarian can decide on what foods will be best to substitute.

Note: I do recommend using white potato over using rice, because I discovered many years ago that some canines became sensitive to the rice in the Lamb and Rice diet I created for Nature’s Recipe. This is why I had the need to create Innovative Veterinary Diets for Nature’s Recipe, which contained limited food antigens like duck, venison, rabbit, and fish, including white potatoes.

Since cottage cheese and white potato contains fewer calories than most pet food products, both you and your veterinarian will have to decide on the quantity of this combination that needs to be fed to your canine daily.

This diet, or any diet must be tried for 7 days, unless a reaction occurs during the earlier days of the trial.

The 7 day food test is critical in order for you to realize that you can feed a certain food or food treat today only once, and 7 days later, your canine can have a reaction.

You may tell yourself that you only fed this snack or change in food a week ago for only one day, and now you are seeing a reaction?

Yes, because your canine has a delayed reactions to foods, etc. and anything new you try, MUST be fed for 7 days, unless a reaction occurs during those seven days.

If the cottage cheese and white potato diet works for 7 days, then it is time to add a new protein to the combination mix.

You and your veterinarian can decide whether it should be chicken, fish, rabbit, lamb or beef, but whatever you use, please use for 7 days unless a reaction occurs before the 7th day.

At this time, you can decide to continue home cooking or find a commercial pet food that ONLY contain these limited ingredients.

Note: Good nutrition is simple and the longer the food ingredient list is, the worse the nutrition.

Also please realize, that the first three ingredients in any pet food, are 90 % of the nutrients found in that pet food, if the pet food label is HONEST.

The beauty of using a “grain free” diet is not to avoid gluten enteropathies, but to reduce the chance of any added grain coming from GMO seeds.

Secondly, it is important to make sure that your canine SARDS pet does not have a trypsin deficiency.

What is a Trypsin deficiency?

Trypsin is an exocrine enzyme produced by the pancreas that is necessary for the breakdown of protein in animals and in humans.

When a Trypsin deficiency is present, and causes malabsorption, the following may occur:

• Lack of protein absorption that leads to weight loss
• A sludging effect of the fatty acids, which also binds vitamins A, D, E and K and causes these vitamins to become deficient in the body of the canine SARDS patient or in any patient whether animal or human.
• Disallowing the absorption of the primary, oral medications, including those hormone supplements necessary to control canine SARDS.
• Pica, which is the need to ingest plastics, paper, cloth materials, sticks, leaves, including licking the ground, carpet and possibly the pet owner’s hands and face.
• Eating feces. Canines in general that eat their own feces do this because there is undigested food in their feces. If the canine eats another dogs stool and NOT their own, it means the other canine has a trypsin deficiency.
• Curved front wrists and being cow hocked in the rear comes from the canine’s inability to absorb calcium as a puppy, resulting in lengthen ligaments. This trypsin deficiency may also help explain why ligament ruptures like ACLs, are very common in these canines, if the ligament rupture itself is NOT genetic.
• Having more than two stools per day, which may be soft, and voluminous unless the pet owner is overfeeding their pet.
• Inability to gain weight, however other trypsin canines may gain weight from the fact that they have a partial trypsin deficiency and can only absorb carbohydrates.

For maximum absorption, it will be best to empty out the contents of a digestive enzyme capsule onto the food for each meal.

By doing this you will not need to worry about the source of the capsule because if the capsule is gelatin, it comes from beef and if a patient has a beef allergy, the gelatin capsule may be harmful.

Placing all canine SARDS patients and canines on digestive enzymes in general should not hurt unless they react to something in the trypsin mixture.

Note: Replacement of trypsin itself is usually not done based upon price, so most digestive enzyme supplements contain many different enzymes that will complete the effects of adding total trypsin.

I favor the use of a human digestive enzymes called Advanced Enzyme Systems by Rainbow Light.

This trypsin replacement should be available in most health food stores or you may order it through www.vitacost.com.

In the “old days”, a trypsin deficiency was diagnosed by placing a small strip of undeveloped x-ray film in a solution of NaHCO2 with the patient’s feces.

If trypsin was present, it would digest the gelatin coating on the x-ray film.

If trypsin was not present, the x-ray film would still remain coated.

This test was referred to as the Jasper Test.

Modern day testing can be done through a blood sample, but over the years, in my experience, I have found that often the blood trypsin values vary considerably from the fecal trypsin values.

Since the Jasper Test seems to be no longer available, I try to observe the clinical signs I see with my patients, and my patient’s history, according to their owner.

I think you can now see how important it is to identify a trypsin deficiency when treating any disease in animals and in humans.

Any patients, whether animals or human, being treated for allergies, autoimmunity or cancer, can all benefit from taking a trypsin supplement, if they are on oral medications for their disease.

For more information on this subject, please go to my website and search for digestive enzymes.

Hopefully this will help.

Sincerely,

Dr. AL Plechner