Giardia antigen

RE: Giardia antigen

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:34:02 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]

Owner more interested in the state of her carpets, and wants a quick magic wand fix. Breeder has advised a raw diet and sub therapeutic doses of Drontal!

A waste of my time.

[/quote]Time to move this one to the thread on sacking clients me thinks!

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]Always found metronidazole far better)[/quote]Worked for me, only problem I couldn't drink alcohol and I was going on a skiing holiday. What a quandary! There was an option of standard dose for a week or mega dose for 3 days which consisted of 13 tablets daily but would be finished the day before I went. Have you ever tried swallowing one metronidazole tablet let alone 13 at a time? I can't recommend it. Still it was worth it to imbibe in the apres ski refreshment.

RE: Giardia antigen

Michael Woodhouse — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 17:46:07 GMT

Drontal should kill giardia......

(I can't be the only person who's come to the conclusion FBZ is pretty useless? Always found metronidazole far better)

RE: Giardia antigen

Clive Ansell — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 17:08:43 GMT

[quote user="robloxley"]

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]compliance and hygiene are issues.[/quote]

then I fear you may end up chasing your tail for some time with this

[/quote]

Yes, I think you have hit the nail on the head.

I've seen the 2 dogs this afternoon. one still has profuse watery intermittent diarrhoea, the other is fine. I've advised testing both again, as well as further diagnostics for other causes, all declined. Treated both again with Metronidazole and Panacur. Owner more interested in the state of her carpets, and wants a quick magic wand fix. Breeder has advised a raw diet and sub therapeutic doses of Drontal!

A waste of my time.

RE: Giardia antigen

Rob Loxley — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 16:33:46 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]compliance and hygiene are issues.[/quote]

then I fear you may end up chasing your tail for some time with this

RE: Giardia antigen

Andrew Kent — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 14:57:55 GMT

As others have said the antigen test should not remain positive for any great length of time.

In the cases that I see with persistent giardia the two major causes are reinfection (either an environmental source or direct reinfection as the parasite sticks around the anus so can be reingested during treatment) or concurrent GI disease as the primary cause of clinical signs.

So I get people to consider environmental sources, I treat for a week with fenbendazole and get the owner to bath the dog every day during treatment (and clean up any faeces in the environment).

If the signs persist through that then I start to think about concurrent disease and look at diet trials etc.

Andy

RE: Giardia antigen

Bob Russell — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 10:25:26 GMT

We have a real problem with giardia here. I don't give metronidazole and stick to 7 days panacur/granofen/wormazole. Each month after they get three days panacur and usually retested 6 weeks later.

Some are +ve the second time but most -ve if tested later. If there are no further symptoms I treat monthly for about six months but don't necessarily retest.

It may well be that reinfection is happening. Despite this risk, they all seem to resolve in the end, presumably the body develops resistance to the parasite.

RE: Giardia antigen

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 10:23:53 GMT

I have a Cocker Spaniel pup with a similar history - screaming trots 10 x per day. It was treated with bland diet and pro/pre-biotics unsuccessfully, was then tested positive for Isospora and was given both fenbendazole and sulphamethozole/trimethoprin combo without success. Despite it being a 5 month old pup and shouldn't really have a dietary intolerance I put it on a restricted protein diet and the improvement was dramatic and almost immediate. Coincidence or not? Either way the client is hugely grateful and not inclined to experiment with changing diet again yet.

RE: Giardia antigen

Richard Carter — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 10:09:59 GMT

antigen indicates active parasites as only the parasite produces antigen.

Antibodies are another thing altogether

Speak to your lab on the possibility of false positives? All tests have varying levels of accuracy but probably easier to just treat again