East Carolina Veterinary Service

"Dear Member, I am very sorry you had a negative experience at my office. I am disappointed you have not returned my calls nor been by the clinic to pick up heartworm prevention so we could discuss this matter personally. Thank you for complimenting my staff, I am very proud of them. At your last visit in July you saw Dr. McAvoy, a relief veterinarian also employed by Animal Care, 10th St. and Firetower. She did not compliment you on the 5 lb. weight loss for Sonny, the Jack Russell mix, as your other dog lost the 5 lbs. You are correct. Sonny came with an obesity problem when you adopted her in 2011 at 30lbs. At your last visit, she had more than doubled her weight. Obesity is our most common medical problem in veterinarian medicine with 40% of our small animal patients being overweight. This is also true on the human side, which adds significant illness and death in the human population. Fat is not inactive in the body. It sends out signals that cause diabetes, arthritis and other inflammatory conditions in many species. It is a preventable disease but requires lots of work. I myself have “dieting cats”. Increasing exercise is always the first rule to weight loss but many owners are busy and don’t have the time to walk their dogs more frequently. Second rule is to decrease the calories in the diet. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find the caloric content of over the counter (OTC) food. I also love the green bean diet, substituting green beans for food. It has lots of fiber and is also inexpensive. If the OTC diet doesn’t work, we do recommend prescription food, which is expensive. This is not a profitable item for veterinarians but it is for the food companies. Third rule we try medication. The gold standard for hypothyroidism (which commonly leads to obesity) is a thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) level. It is an expensive test, which you declined. Thyroid supplements are cheap and cause relatively few side effects. Our goal was to keep thyroid levels at the high end of the normal range, but not abnormally high, hence the normal thyroid test (T4). The extra thyroid hormone was to burn fat but unfortunately your dog experienced the unusual side effect of diarrhea. I am glad you have found a veterinarian who has gotten Sonny back down under 30 lbs. so she will not develop diabetes or arthritis in the future. I would be happy to fax your records if you would please contact us; phone, email, fax, all will do. I would also like to know what techniques you are using to get Sonny to lose weight. I am always learning. Sincerely, Linda Kuhn, DVM"