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Max is a 4
year-old American Pit Bull Terrier that has had
two close calls in the past year. He has a
lovable personality and a great sense of humor
making him a wonderful patient. However, Max
does have a character flaw. He enjoys eating
things that are unable to pass through his
digestive tract. He has had two separate
surgeries this past year to remove the foreign
objects! Unfortunately for Max these objects
became life threatening when they obstructed his
stomach and intestines. Tightly lodged objects
can stretch and strain intestines causing the
adjacent tissues to tear or die. In order save
his life we had to operate.
Max's first
episode was back in October 2005. He had been
seen for vomiting and lethargy at the Animal
Emergency Center the night before. They had
discovered by barium x-rays that there appeared
to be possible foreign body material in his
stomach and duodenum. His owners brought him in
to our clinic for the exploratory surgery the
next morning. During surgery Dr. Beatty located
and removed a very hard and strange looking
object from his duodenum. We were all stumped
as to what it was. His owner's best guess was
that the object could possibly be a pumice stone
or debris that he ate at the beach. Max
recovered well from his surgery and was his old
self in no time.
Only 6 months
later Max was back in our clinic with the same
symptoms of vomiting and lethargy. X-rays
showed that Max had yet again eaten
something that had become lodged in his
gastrointestinal tract. He was taken into
surgery and Dr. Beatty removed two more objects;
the first from his stomach and the second from
his duodenum. The objects appeared to be plant
material like a large seed pod from a tree. As
before, he recovered uneventfully.
Needless to say,
his owners have to constantly watch Max like a
hawk. Max enjoys playing with his sister,
Ophelia. Although we love seeing Max's friendly
face around the clinic we hope that his future
visits are only for routine wellness exams...and
no more exploratory surgeries! We wish him and
his parents a safe and healthy year!
Click To View Xray
This
radiograph, or x-ray, is from Max’s first visit.
Unless foreign material is metal or calcium
based it does not show up readily by itself on
an x-ray. Max was given chalky white barium to
swallow to aid diagnosis. Barium and bone appear
white on an x-ray. The liquid barium usually
empties from the stomach in minutes. It was
suspicious on x-ray that the barium stayed in
the stomach for a very long time. When the
liquid did finally creep out of the stomach and
into the duodenum it slipped around foreign
material. Foreign material is a term referring
to something not belonging to the body. The
arrow points to an object subtly outlined by
white barium on the x-ray. The object was
completely plugging or obstructing his duodenum
which is the first section of intestine.
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