PETE WEDDERBURN Animal Doctor
In most cases, treatment for gastroenteritis is very simple: rehydration and rest.
Rehydration is essential. If an animal is vomiting, they lose fluid out the front end. If they have diarrhoea, they lose fluid from the rear end. The net result is the same: dehydration. This makes animals – like Gilly – feel dull and depressed. If they could talk, they’d tell us they had a headache and they feel wiped out.
In simple cases, oral rehydration is possible, by giving affected animals a solution of sugars and salts in water. Many pets will willingly lap this up instead of food. In more severe cases, they may refuse to do this, or they may regurgitate the solution, or pass more diarrhoea than the fluid they are drinking. These animals need a more intensive approach at the vet, with an intravenous drip pumping the much needed fluid directly into their blood stream.
Resting the digestive system is the second part of treatment. A short period of fasting is easy to do: most sick pets don’t want to eat anyway – and then bland, low fat, easily digestible food is recommended for a day or two. The easiest option is commercial diets designed for pets recovering from a digestive upset, although home cooked diets such as cooked chicken and boiled white rice are also possible. Once the pet can cope with this easily digested food, their standard diet can gradually be reintroduced, initially by mixing it half on half with the bland diet. Sometimes medication is given to ease the irritated digestive tract, with various products to lessen the irritation of the lining of the bowel, but these aren’t always needed from your vet.
As long as the patient remains reasonably bright and active, the simple approach of rest and rehydration is often enough. There are many times when more intensive veterinary intervention is needed: if the signs of vomiting and diarrhoea continue unabated, if an animal becomes dull and depressed or if blood is passed at either end. Such cases should be regarded as emergencies, and life-saving treatment is urgently needed.
Gilly was lucky: she was an uncomplicated case, responding to simple oral rehydration fluids and bland food. When she came in for a check up the next day, she was already back to her normal self, jumping up and down like a jack in the box, and refusing to sit still on the table.