Anyone have experience dealing with canine gallbladder issues?

My 7.5 year old Labradoodle has had three bouts of early morning vomiting over the past month. On all three occasions, he'll suddenly wake up around 3-5 am and vomit (often in bed), and then usually vomit another 1-2 times over the next hour or so.

He's never lethargic or in pain, remains happy and playful throughout, and never loses his appetite or stops drinking water. In fact, he'll oftentimes want to eat immediately after an episode, although that usually just leads to him puking that food up in the next bout that typically follows.

After the initial 1-3 pukes, if I withhold food for several hours and follow it up with by some bland food (boiled chicken and rice) for the next few meals, he's just fine.

He had his initial instance of this in late January, and I figured he just had a stomach bug. That was literally the first time he had thrown up since he was a little puppy. Since there were no other red flags accompanying the vomiting bout, I took a wait-and-see approach with a bland diet and eased him back into his normal food. He was fine for several days, then had another early morning vomiting bout. I figured I had just transitioned him back into "real" food too quickly, and did another round of boiled chicken and rice, and he seemed fine again.

All was good for the 3.5 weeks until this morning, when he again woke up vomiting. This time, I got him in to see his vet. After $500 and an entire morning of blood tests, stool samples, Xrays, etc., the results were inconclusive. His bloodwork was excellent (vet said it was way better than the average dog his age), and the Xrays showed nothing amiss, other than noting some joint arthritis.

The vet said that their hypothesis of the most likely explanation was an issue with his gallbladder, but that his symptoms weren't serious enough yet to justify tackling an ultrasound or discussing surgery. They again recommended a wait-and-see approach, and gave him a couple days worth of antinausea medication and a weeklong course of an antibiotic that's also used to treat GI irritation.

Has anyone else dealt with a dog with gallbladder issues before? Any tips or tricks that you might be able to share to mitigate/minimize these vomiting bouts?

From what I'm reading online, feeding them a low fat dog food is a common recommendation for gallbladder issues, but he's already eating a weight control food that's only ~9% fat content, and that's even a bit lower than many of the "low fat" dog foods.

Since the vomiting seems to be happening when his stomach is empty, I'm also considering feeding him two smaller meals in the evening. For example, rather than feeding him his entire dinner at 7ish like I usually do, I was thinking I might feed him half at 7 and the other half right before bedtime.

Could it possibly be a food allergy?

I’m wondering if that might be the case since when you switched to bland food he stopped vomiting.

Your vet might sell prescription Hills ID which has good nutrients and is for dogs with digestive issues. Your local pet store will also sell digestive issue Hills but I’m not sure if it’s the same as that from the vet.

quote:

Originally posted by h2oys:
Could it possibly be a food allergy?

I’m wondering if that might be the case since when you switched to bland food he stopped vomiting.

I don't think so. He's eaten the same type of dry dog food his entire adult life, and the recipe hasn't changed. Plus, he has eaten that same food twice a day over the past month, and has only thrown up in 3 bouts over that period of time, irregularly spaced. (And it's not contaminated food, since he hasn't been eating from the same bag or batch of dog food for that whole time; I used up the previous bag halfway through the month and switched to a new bag from a totally different lot number.)

It's not so much that the chicken and rice stops him from vomiting, rather it's that I now don't feed him anything until he hasn't vomited for several hours, and I then ease him back into eating food by feeding him bland stuff for the next few meals to avoid further irritating his stomach that's already angry from the vomit.

If I immediately feed him chicken and rice after a bout of vomiting, he chucks that back up too.

Hopefully slabsides will chime in with a few ideas. Do you feed twice a day? I wonder if maybe the majority of food could be offered in the am with just a snack in the evening? I wouldn’t feed right before bed/ it just seems like this might be more problematic.
Of my 4, there is one that I only offer a full meal in the a.m. The rest are twice a day, but the one cannot handle the second meal without trouble during the night. She used to be fine, but age has changed things for her.
I have another pup I pull water from in the late p.m.
My point is, different strokes for different pups! Allergies may be a possibility, amd one I’d ask the vet about..best of luck.

quote:

Originally posted by irreverent:
Do you feed twice a day?

Yes. Usually roughly 7 am and 7 pm.

quote:

I wonder if maybe the majority of food could be offered in the am with just a snack in the evening? I wouldn’t feed right before bed/ it just seems like this might be more problematic.

The advice I read about feeding smaller amounts more frequently, including right before bedtime, seems to stem from the symptoms of the gallbladder/bile issues being more prominent at night on an empty stomach, thus you'd want to avoid them having an empty stomach by feeding more frequently.

Ollie and I hope he gets better soon.

Sorry for your troubles. If it were my patient and I suspected gallbladder, I'd reach for my ultrasound first and look for sludge in the gallbladder. That often happens and "gums up" the bile duct, resulting in thickening and irritation of the gallbladder itself. Left unchecked, it can eventually rupture.

Often we see an increase in the ALP levels (non specific indicator of bile pathway backup, as a simplified explanation). If that was normal, it would not rule out what the gallbladder, but make it less likely.

Ask your vet about using ursodiol, which helps the gallbladder contract and "flush out" some of the sludge blocking the way. I often use it in conjunction with Denamarin, which is a vet product that helps clean up the liver and biliary system. I have successfully used both those products to alleviate many such cases.

Hope that helps, and email me if you need info in a pinch!!

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by irreverent:
Do you feed twice a day?

Yes. Usually roughly 7 am and 7 pm.

quote:

I wonder if maybe the majority of food could be offered in the am with just a snack in the evening? I wouldn’t feed right before bed/ it just seems like this might be more problematic.

The advice I read about feeding smaller amounts more frequently, including right before bedtime, seems to stem from the symptoms of the gallbladder/bile issues being more prominent at night on an empty stomach, thus you'd want to avoid them having an empty stomach by feeding more frequently.

Understood. Well, thank god slabsides chimed in with some awesome medical advice. Hopefully, this will help your pup. Always hurts to see our pets struggling and we have to try and divine what’s up because they can’t just blurt it out. That’s where vet medicine steps in. Best of luck.

We had issues with our golden. My opinion. Dry dog food is like dry cereal. You never know what’s inside.
we ended up making our dog food in large batches and freezing it. The hard part is figuring out what dogs need for optimal health. Opinions vary drastically. Hopefully you have a good vet, and he/she can guide you in the right direction.

Keeping in mind that I am not a veterinary nutritionist, nor do I play one on TV, my understanding of dietary recommendations for gallbladder mucoceles (which is the organization of gallbladder sludge into a gelatenous structure within the lumen of the gallbladder) is to feed a low fat diet. As a very general rule, dry kibble is higher in carbohydrate content than wet food, and so might be marginally preferred. The quality of the diet is greatly dependent upon who the manufacturer is and the line of food-think of it like brands of cars, where GM owns Chevy but also Cadillac, and one is (assumed to be) a higher standard than the other. Same with Dog Chow (Purina) vs Pro Plan (also Purina) vs EN (prescription Purina). So it varies a lot, and there are many considerations.