Please HELP.. After $2,000 and a year, still no answers.. =(

Hello everyone..
First, I really appreicate taking to time to read my long story and try to help me out with any opinions or experiences or even guesses as to what is going on with my dog.. especially anything breed related.

I have a 7 1/2 year old female Pitbull terrier (Sasha) and we have went through a lot of money, treatments, time, and worries.. she went through a fever phase where she wasn't eating or moving barely.

She is currently on Predisone 10mg (every other day) and is eating again and active but not like she use to be. She still has enlarged lymphnodes (can't jump on the bed easily anymore, or run around fast like once), her hair coat is thinning out a lot on her sides, growls slightly when helped move around (she is very submissive dog). Everything is okay on her.. but my worries are: I would really like to find out what is going on and get this thing treated once and for all.

What we suspect: some type of auto-immune disease, viral infection of some sort, severe allergy maybe?

The story:
Fall 2009: She was great and normal.. running around like normal and always happy. Then she fell ill quite quickly in a matter of days with a fever, no appetite at all, hardly any energy or movement. (Note: May be useless info, but the only major things or changes right before she got ill was one of her toe nails came off completely during play, healed back up fine, and I pulled a tick off her <more to="" come="" on="" that="">)

Winter 2009: Thought it was tick related disease, bacteria or fungal, tried tetracycline, Clavamox, doxycycline, amoxocillin, a couple fungus meds (can't remember name) and some chewable anti-inflammatories. Even got her babesia tested, negative. Nothing really worked, her appetite/energy came back slightly, but we later found out that was due to the chewable anti-inflammatory. We got her lymphnodes aspirated and blood drawn. White cell counts were low, lymphnodes were other wise just showing a reaction of some sort. (We may even though cancer, but it has been nearly a year, and she is not getting progressively worse or how a cancer would progress, so we ruled out cancer)

Spring 2010: She was just taking the anti-inflammatory, so we had an ultra sound done to check her for stump pyometria. It was slightly swollen, so we had a surgery done to drain all the build up "stuff" all in her abdominal area and cut the stump out. Found out, it was really stump pyometria (just looked awful like it in the ultra sound and symptoms) and the built up "stuff" was her immune system trying to fight something.

Summer 2010: We finally realized that Predisone is really the only thing that has made her back to her self maybe 80%, and that she was eating fine and activity sufficient. We were thinking it is some sort of auto-immune disease. But I want to keep fighting and looking for a cure, I know she can't be on this forever, or whatever it is, can we beat it into remission?

I am stumped as what to do or what to do next or what direction to even think. I was hoping that someone has run into something like this before or knew something breed specific..

Please, anything, guesses, wild shots, anything to brainstorm what could be causing this.

Thank you,
James F.

</more>

 

We have an old bitch who went through something like what yours did. She stopped eating and was down to skin and bones for no reason. Took her to the vet and he couldn't find anything except a little anemia so we took her to the Veterinary University where they ran a plethora of tests on her only to find out they had no clue as to what she had and they also suspected some form of cancer, maybe luekemia.
I had resinged myself to the fact she was not going to be around very long and figured I would at least make her feel comfortable so the first thing I attacked was the anemia. I fed her fried liver and rice with some ground meat and scrambled eggs for a couple of weeks along with some geriatric vitamins for dogs and by some miracle she began to gain weight again and return to being herself. Since there was a chance she may have had cancer I let her stay in a guest house for a couple more weeks and by that time she had gained too much weight and there was no sign of any sickness so she went back on chain.
This was over a year ago and she is doing fine. The vets still have no clue what she had nor do they understand why she got better.
Give it a try, what do you have to lose.

 

great to hear gringo! i would say do anything possible to improve health. feed raw diet, give vitamins, and hope for the best. not much else u can do other than baby her at this point

 

Gringo never feeds raw unless the dogs catch it themselves.

 

Lime disease ??? Look into it .

 

I think so also....50% of dogs with Lyme disease will test negative. So you might consider a strong long term antibiotic. I had Lyme Disease caught it before any symtoms and they had me on antibiotics for 9 straight weeks.

 

Hey all.. thank you for all your answers and words of encouragement.

I will definitely look into the lyme disease thing.. she did get the test and was negative, and was on doxycycline and amoxicillin for a few weeks.. but will double check into it..

Thank you..
Please keep your suggestions, experiences, and guesses coming! At least it will give me a lead in some sort of direction!

Thanks,
James F.

 

How is her water intake? Urine?

 

Urine is fairly clear now.. water intake is slightly above average. When she was sick, her urine was dark, almost brownish. She use to drink crazy water where she'll drink so much at once, she throw some up.

But the prednisone has controlled that slightly.

 

Hi all, just wanted to give everyone a quick update from vet's visit yesterday:

Everything is really pointing towards some sort of auto-immune disease, maybe even lupus or small possibility of Cushing's disease. We are weening her off Prednisone (once every 3 days) to see how she will react and her if her symptoms change or persist the same which will give us better direction on what to test.

I did some research and I am going to try supplements and prayer plan. If it is auto-immune, long-term prednisone is unfortunately the treatment; however, in some cases, I might be able to severely suppress (or remission) the immune system attacking itself through a specific diet. I plan on feeding vitamin-B supplements, fish oil pills, and plant sterols/sterolins supps. Maybe even some cooked organic eggs and meat. Hell, I might even resort to voodoo..

If anyone has any more suggestions, would love to hear em!

 

Try a raw diet along with supplements.

 

HMM WELL THIS MSM ( METHYLSULFONYMETHANE )= sulfer is for joints & muscles/health im using it for parvo mabye that would be for your dog ????

 

has the dog been tested for Babesia ?

 

Ya beat me to it. I was just going to add, have her checked for Babesia. But I wouldnt have your vet diagnose it. Contact Dr. Birkenheuer at the University of North Carolina. Call and ask for Dr. B in the vet school, and when transferred to that dept schedule a DNA blood screen. Your own vet can draw the blood and send it to Dr. B, rather than his own lab.

 

Also, if she does have babesia...never treat a babesia dog with prednisone. Prednisone is an immune suppressant, and the dog is getting sick to babesia because of a weakened immune system, so giving prednisone is not a good thing to do. Just give the correct medications (Berenil, Imizol, Doxycycline), and build her blood back up with vitamins, liver, etc.

 

I just re-read your post and saw that you had her checked for babesia. If you had your own Dr. check it, most likely he missed it. I would definitely have the blood checked again by Dr. Birkenheuer. I believe Doxycycline will only put it into remission.

 

You're going to need Imizol and Berenil if she does have babesia.

 

Are her gums pale? I would have Babesia test re-ran by Dr. B at UNC as suggested by Scratchin dog. Also, as others suggested I would start weaning her over to a RAW diet. You would be amazed by the difference changing the diet makes. Good luck.

 

James I am sorry that Sasha is going thru this
I only had to read a few sentences of your post and my first thoughts were Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, Babesisiosis or some other tick borne disease, and then I read that you had pulled a tick off of her!
Most vets do not properly test nor do they fully treat tick born dieases .
I HIGHLY suggest you join the following tick born disease list (which is run by a vet in Texas), Most members on this tick list know more about tick diseases and how to treat them the majority of vets in this country. It is free to join and the help you will get will probably astound you. (It is woth the member ship just to search their archives IMHO, having lost a dog to kidney failure from Lyme disease in the past). I did not find the tick list until after I lost my dog, sadly and I hope it will help your Sasha before things get any worse for her.
The fact that she gets the dark urine is also another indicator that her kidneys are being challenged,(typical of tick diseases) have you done blood work on her when her urine is dark like that to chekc on kidney/liver values????
Also as posted the prednisone can cause much more harm then good and will present itself as autoimmune issues as it destrosy their immune system. Most vets prescribe predn, when at a loose of what to treat or do next.
if she had cancer her calcium levels would be very high so I would also rule cancer out at this time
Here is the link for the tick list, look on the left under OPTIONS to subscribe hopefully, I will see you on there.
http://http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-PLUTO.exe?A0=TICK-L

Wishing Sasha the best and will keep her in my prayers

 

The clinic I work for, we use a 3dx test wich test for, Hw, ehrlichia,lymes.

This is what we commonly see is, HW positive and ehrlichia

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_ehrlichia_infection_in_dogs.html

All tick born dieases suck!


PBlove, I tried your link and it does not work?