So, the verdict from the vet is in: no pancreatitis.
Calcium/Phosphorous levels aren't critical yet, but they are quite low.
To give you an update on the latest, Minnie has lumps and bumps all over (every time I stroke her, I seem to find a new one) and she's shaking her head.
Her ears are indeed a bit inflamed.
The vet thinks that the constant inflammation in her gut is playing havoc with her immune system, and as a result, her body is having "random" inflammatory reactions as a form of protest.
She reckons there’s a definite issue with bowel inflammation, triggered by her swallowing that towel. However, the inflammation might have started and persisted for a different reason, and this major flare-up could have been set off by something else entirely.
So, we’ve got an appointment on Friday for an endoscopy, and they’re going to run some other tests at the same time. We’re going to look into local causes (digestive system diseases) as well as immune system disorders. We’d already had a check done on that, so this will be a more in-depth search for rarer conditions (a path they aren’t entirely convinced by, but we’re at the stage now where we have to start looking at the less likely possibilities).
On Friday, she’s having an upper GI scope and, if there’s time, a lower one too. But if they run out of time (it can happen with small dogs that their body temperature drops too quickly, meaning they can’t be under anaesthesia for too long), we’ll wait for the results of the upper scope before deciding whether to go ahead with the lower one.
She’s been a bit under the weather today, really quite lethargic. If she hadn’t developed all these new symptoms, I might have had second thoughts about putting her through this procedure, but to be honest, I’m not really questioning it now.
I’m relieved it’s not pancreatitis; everything I’d read about it was really frightening. But now we’re back to a massive range of possibilities... We should have the first results back in about two weeks, and I’m hoping I’ll have some more answers then!
