CT Update

At 11:30am, we checked in at NC State University Veterinary Health Clinic and Katie came to bring us to an exam room. She was great meeting our CT and letting him lick her face (I like anyone who will rave about how cute my dog is and love on him). We spent the next half hour recalling eight years of CT's ups and downs. After taking a full page of notes she left and came back a half hour later with Dr. Ward.   Today they did a full blood work up, 4 GI tests (to see how well his intestines are working and absorbing vitamins), an ultrasound of his tummy and intestines and fecal tests for parasites.
Thankfully we got to pick up CT tonight at 6:00pm.  The test results were mostly good but we are still waiting on a couple.  They do believe he has Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) that causes his chronic vomiting.  IBD can be caused by his immune system reacting inappropriately to food or other antigens in the GI tract.  I guess it was good that we changed him to a hypoallergenic food back in December.  With the new food and some steroids he should improve even more.
The diarrhea could be caused by a few other things - they don't think the two symptoms are connected.  They are testing for parasites and we should get results next week.  They are going to begin treatment for the parasites now anyway since it shouldn't hurt him.  Another cause could be a reaction to antibiotics.  He might have to be on Flagyl long-term but it should keep things under control.
Test results also showed a possible sliding hiatal hernia.  If the medicine doesn't stop the vomiting they will look more closely at it.
NC State University was great.  We really appreciate how much time they spent with us, how well they explained everything and how sweet they were to my special little dog.

Happy to have our CT home and hopeful things are going to get better from here!