Jang Bong-hwan, CEO of Good Morning Pet Animal Hospital
Just like humans, pets also vomit and have diarrhea when they are sick. Temporary vomiting and diarrhea will improve without special treatment, but if they appear chronically more than once a week, you should suspect “inflammatory bowel disease.”
Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic disease that causes inflammation in the intestines. It often appears in dogs and cats, and the cause is unclear, but it is assumed to be a complex cause such as ▲food allergy, ▲intestinal bacterial imbalance, ▲immune system abnormality, and ▲genetics. Inflammatory bowel disease reduces the digestion and absorption capacity of the gastrointestinal tract (stomach, small intestine, and large intestine) because the normal bacteria in the intestine cannot function properly.
Causes of inflammatory bowel disease
If you suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, you will suffer from chronic vomiting and diarrhea for more than 3 weeks, blood in the stool, weight loss, etc. And your vitality will decrease. The main symptom is vomiting in cats and diarrhea in dogs. However, these symptoms can occur not only in inflammatory bowel disease but also in other diseases of the digestive system, so a digestion examination is also necessary.
If inflammatory bowel disease is left untreated, various complications occur. Dogs may be exposed to protein-losing enteropathy, which causes proteins to escape into the intestinal mucosa. In particular, the loss of albumin (which regulates osmotic pressure in the blood) can cause secondary ascites or pleural effusion. Cats can suffer from monoductal hepatitis or pancreatitis when the bile duct and pancreatic duct fuse and affect the duodenum.
Inflammatory bowel disease causes nonspecific symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea, and blood tests and various tests must be performed to check for kidney, liver, pancreatic disease, parasites, and bacterial infections. Subsequently, the condition of the intestinal wall, intra-abdominal inflammation and lymph node changes should be checked through imaging tests such as x-ray and ultrasound, and a biopsy should be performed if inflammatory bowel disease is suspected. A biopsy requires an open abdomen to remove intestinal tissue to first check for reaction to the drug.
Inflammatory bowel disease is difficult to treat and requires the administration of immunosuppressive drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics, as well as constant monitoring of the diet. If the response to drugs is good and weight control is possible, the prognosis is good. If you take a prescription food specifically for your allergy, you can see the treatment effect within two weeks. However, reactions to medications or prescribed food vary from patient to patient, so a thorough consultation with a veterinarian is necessary.
Inflammatory bowel disease can cause animals to repeatedly vomit and diarrhea, but then resume normal life after a day or two. However, in the early stages, the prognosis of treatment is good, so do not ignore it and get an accurate diagnosis. Cats in particular vomit hairballs frequently, but if they vomit more than twice a month it is best to visit a veterinary hospital.
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