Diseases Affecting Dogs and Cats Liver : How to Know , Differentiate and Manage
Liver diseases in cats and dogs are the most common causes of death for pets if they are not diagnosed and treated early.
There are many causes of liver disease, whether viral diseases such as adeno virus or bacteria such as leptospirosis or parasitic such as babasia
The problem is that the symptoms of liver disease at the beginning are similar to many other diseases. The onset of liver disease symptoms may be the loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, and animal inactivity. Therefore, these symptoms are often ignored or the symptoms are treated without the actual cause of the disease. So evolution of the disease to an advanced stage.
In the advanced stages, the pet suffers from many symptoms such as large size of the abdomen may be either due to liver fatigue and this situation is more common in cats or the collection of fluid in the abdominal cavity (ascites) and this situation is more common in dogs .
The most common disease of liver diseases in pets is jaundice due to the increase of Bilirubin in the blood, which causes the color of the tissues to turn yellow and become more pronounced in the ear floss and gums.
☆ There are also many other symptoms such as delay in wounds healing and severe bleeding because of the inability of the liver to synthesize vitamin K which is important for blood clotting and bleeding stopping .
☆ In other cases, the animal shows neurological symptoms or skin rash due to the inability of the liver to remove toxins from the body resulting from the process of digestion, especially ammonia resulting from protein digestion.
It must be emphasized that:
If your pet has any abnormal symptoms such as loss of appetite, laziness or swelling of the legs, the veterinarian should immediately refer to the necessary tests to treat the disease at the beginning and take the proper diagnosis ..
