Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Pete’s liver function test results

We’ve been worried about Pete the Aussie lately, especially since he had another seizure one morning last week while I was making my mocha petefreak cappuccino. He came and flopped down against my right foot and seemed unable to move. He barfed a little as Maria sat on the floor next to hiim and comforted him and after a couple of minutes regained his composure, got up and trotted off like nothing had happened.

Dr. Jon Huff, our vet, suggested a liver function test to see if his deteriorating liver was the cause of the seizures, so I took Pete in to get blood drawn yesterday.

Dr. Huff called a few minutes ago to say the test shows Pete has excellent liver function - the liver function of a healthy dog.

It does not tell us how much liver he has left, but what he has is functioning fine. The main purpose of the test was to see if loss of liver function was causing the seizures. It is not.

He isn't showing any signs of a brain tumor and Dr. Huff suspects it may be epilepsy. As long as the seizures are only one a month or so and are as mild as they have been so far, he doesn't think any seizure meds are indicated because they could put a strain on his liver.

He recommends getting another in-house liver check early next month.

In the meantime, we should maintain the medication he's getting and try to relax.

That’s a huge relief.

There is nothing to indicate that he has lost any liver function or that his liver will quit before any other vital organ.

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