u/Babysocksclocks — reddlx

Pics - before v now

I’m trying to figure out what might be going on with my mom’s 10-year-old mini poodle/maltese mix. She’s had chronic health issues for about 4 years now and things are slowly getting worse instead of better.

She’s had long-term digestive issues with stool that’s never really normal and tends to fluctuate a lot. Every few days she seems to go through flare-ups where she gets very sick for 3–4 days at a time. During these episodes she often refuses food or barely eats, acts like she’s in pain and will hold a sort of “downward dog” or prayer position, pants heavily, and sometimes loses control of her bowels. She has also had what look like seizure-like or collapse-type episodes during these times. Afterward she tends to be weak but eventually improves somewhat.

Over time she has lost a significant amount of weight and is extremely hard to keep weight on. Her coat has also thinned and changed, and her appetite is very inconsistent — often she will only eat plain chicken and even that is not reliable.

So far she has had multiple fecal tests including blood testing and fecal DNA/parasite panels, as well as routine bloodwork done several times over the years. Everything basic has been coming back “normal,” and parasites have been ruled out, but clearly something is still wrong and it’s been progressively worsening.

At this point it feels like more than just a sensitive stomach because of the combination of long-term progression, severe weight loss, and the episodes that include pain behavior and what look like neurological symptoms.

We’ve seen possible ideas like pancreatic insufficiency, inflammatory bowel disease, Addison’s disease, low blood sugar episodes, or liver-related issues, but nothing has been confirmed.

We’re trying to figure out what to ask for next since routine bloodwork hasn’t shown anything. Things like TLI testing, bile acids, ACTH stimulation testing, B12/folate levels, or ultrasound have been mentioned, but we’re not sure what direction to push in.

Any insight or similar experiences would really help because we feel a bit stuck — she clearly isn’t well, but we haven’t been able to get answers so far.

We were at a splash pad with our 1.5 year old and there was a man at the work out area adjacent to the toddler playground. When my husband briefly went to the car, my child ran over to the playground.

The man was looking at her then made a few weird comments about her skin being so white, so fair, and asked if I put something white on her face. I said, she’s wearing sunscreen. He kept going on, I kept saying, yeah, it’s just sunscreen, while trying to move away. He said she looks like a mime and asks if I know what a mime is. I say yes, as I am trying to guide her away from him.

He makes a comment that she’s cute or pretty (I don’t remember which). We go to another feature at the playground and for a couple of minutes, he leaves us alone. He must’ve been watching because he stops what he’s doing and follows us to start up the “conversation” again.

Now he starts going on about how also, her lips look so “rosey” and red. He asks me if I put lipstick on her. His vibe was off and the way he kept emphasizing the word lipstick was offputting. He sounded weirdly excited and it was just so bizarre. Obviously no I did not put lipstick on this 1 year old. It was glaringly creepy, trust me. At this point I’m already picking her up and walking away quickly from him. I just ignored him and did not answer any question. All I’ve said the whole time is repeat “it’s just sunscreen”

As I am walking away, He starts yelling after me that he wasn’t trying to make me uncomfortable, or something like that. His tone was more angry than apologetic. My husband had started to overhear some of this and ran over from the car. From now across a wide distance my husband comes up to me and I whisper the situation to him. The man is still yelling across at us.

We ignore him and keep an eye on him until he leaves. When we were leaving, I did go into the bathroom and he came out at the same time as me; which was odd as he appeared to leave the park in the other direction about 45 minutes earlier. So he stuck around the area and/or sat in the bathroom for that time.

Anyway I am a stay at home mom and I was planning on bringing my daughter to splash pads occasionally by myself during the week. Now that this has happened, I am a bit concerned about creeps and safety. What do you do to make sure you can protect your kid? What would you have done?

I feel so uncomfortable and want to have a plan for the future to protect my child better from creeps like this.

I’m considering pepper spray but want to make sure it’s something my kiddo cannot get into. We are not really gun people for the same reason, more concerned with our child getting ahold of it.