Fish Zole
June 26th, 2011 § 4 Comments
Last night, we decided to start Slate on Fish Zole. Which is really metronidazole…
In the past, she has had bouts of giardia and, after trips to the vet, who often wants stool samples (which have revealed nothing, as giardia is not present in all stools), he would eventually put her on metronidazole. This worked like a wonder drug and after only a couple of doses she was A1 again. It reached the point where we’d phone our (very nice) vet up and ask for him to put some metronidazole aside at the front desk, so we’d save the cost of a consult. However, if our (nice) vet isn’t available, no other vet at this practice will do this for us, leading to silly expensive tests and sometimes traumatic x-rays for blockages before metronidazole again fixes things – leaving us wondering why we couldn’t have tried that first and saved a lot of money and trauma for the dog.
Adam went to the US a few months ago and, after reading this article online by a beagle breeder, we realised we could buy metronidazole there, without a prescription, under the name of Fish Zole. Thereby saving us on vet consults and unnecessary tests. I was at first concerned about giving fish meds to a dog – what if the Fish Zole wasn’t ‘pure’ enough, being intended for fish? A quick Google of ‘Fish Zole for dogs’ revealed however, that many other people have found this solution before me and reports were unanimous that it was safe – Amazon has a whole list of excellent reviews for the product, from people who have used it on dogs. (Googling ‘Fish Zole for humans’ reveals people are willing to use it, themselves.)
My one concern though, is that so far this illness isn’t manifesting in Slate in the way it usually does: Usually the first sign she has giardia is bloody, mucousy poo. She doesn’t usually start to throw up until a week or so into it. At the moment her poos are perfectly normal, although they do sometimes have some dark blood on them. She is also still pooing with regular frequency, so I’m not sure it can be a blockage… Her gums are also very pale and she seems lethargic and seeks comfort from us often.
She has now had 2 doses of the metronidazole, and her appetite does seem to be returning slowly. (She is a total pig usually.)
We have made an appointment with the (nice!) vet for 9.30am tomorrow, but we’re not sure now whether we will go or whether we will cancel and see how a few more days of metronidazole work out. He is unlikely to give us any other meds if she has only just started metronidazole, and doing x-rays and further tests seems a bit overkill at the moment.
Update at 11pm: Slate has been back to her normal self this evening and her gums are pink again. If we went to the vet and said we’d just started metronidazole and now she seems to be getting better, I can’t see him doing anything other than sending us away to see how it goes. So we have decided to cancel the vet appointment in the morning. I hate making these calls sometimes.
[...] she was ill a few weeks ago, I googled her symptoms (vomiting, lack of appetite, blood around the outside of some poos although [...]
[...] Don’t want to speak too soon, but Slate appears to have recovered, since we started her on the Fish Zole. [...]
[...] I noted this as being the way her giardiasis starts, the giardiasis where we have to use our source of metronidazole without prescription – Fish Zole! But I really hoped she’d eaten crap which had made her throw up and it wasn’t the [...]
[...] pretty pleased with myself for sourcing metronidazole without a prescription, by way of Fish Zole. Each vet trip, when Slate gets this condition, would usually cost £35 just to see the vet, then [...]