Dexter had another appointment this morning at Alpenglow with Dr Eshelman. It’s been a tough week for me since I had a surprise wisdom tooth extraction on Tuesday, so I’ve been juggling pain meds for myself as well as Dexter’s care. Since my last update, I’ve tried various doses of lactulose (stool softener) and coconut oil both with and without the lactulose at the same time. The goal is to get his body to pass stool as quickly as possible as soon as it’s ready to come out, so that it doesn’t make his rectum dilated any more and gives it a chance to “snap back” into place, but so far no matter what dose of anything he receives, he won’t have the “liquid” state of diarrhea that would make this snap back happen fastest. So long as it’s too dilated, he doesn’t have proper function and is partially incontinent, leaving poo all over my house and in his crate (where he spends most of the time already).

The last two days of using coconut oil in conjunction with lactulose have given him a pretty good result. The stool is formed (and not paste-like, which is very hard to pass), but seems a bit easier to get out with the addition of the coconut oil. In addition to this, I discussed with Dr Eshelman that I could manually help his body along by snapping on some gloves and massaging Dexter’s bum. Today he was very tolerant and pain-free when the doctor gave him some gentle squeezes and got a few tablespoons of soft stool out that way. His rectum (really his whole backside) looks much more properly sized and shaped now that we are resting at home. I’ll have to start figuring out the best way to do this at home since I don’t have the same table/setup as the vet’s office. I’m also unhappily waiting until tomorrow morning for my next dentist appointment as it seems like my extraction site has gotten infected. In other words, I’ll update when I can and when there’s any news about my furbaby.

He was good at the vet’s today! Very low on whining, and let them do their work without much struggle. He’s cleared for normal physical activity again since it’s been about a month since surgery. Yay! Here he is waiting for the doctor. You can see his hair is slowly regrowing.