Andy, the Wonder Wiener

[We Hope]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

There was someone on another board a while back who absolutely HAD to use steroids because of a life-threating blood disorder. When the disease was in an active state, this was the only thing which would help. There were other meds which can be used in treating this, but the dog in question got no response to anything except use of the steroid.

Can still remember her posting about the problems and telling her that she could learn how to use some R insulin to help with the very high bg's the dose of steroids was causing.

Andy may not react strongly to this at all; at this time we don't know. But if you have problems with the Temaril-P and his bg's, you may need to do a little increasing on the R, depending on what Andy says to us about the med. Do know that the person whose dog couldn't manage without the steroids when they were needed was able to do a good job with the addition of some R.

Getting onto the med may also make Andy feel better and more interested in food; many times when we're not feeling right, we're not interested in eating much either. It might also turn out that Andy doesn't need to take the Temaril-P all the time; Heidi only took it as needed.

Kathy

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Thanks Kathy, today is a better day at least for me. Time to get up, brush myself off and get back in the fight.

I have increased his R just a tiny bit and also added some enticements to his food which he is now eating again. His BG's are not bad but I am not seeing any improvement in the allergies.

He has been on the Temaril-P for almost 48 hours and no improvement in breathing through his nose. In fact he sneezing blood at times. I am also giving him Zyrtec, alternating with Benadryl. Just a half tablet at a time, 4 times a day.

We will see what comes back on the culture of his nose. I should know this tomorrow or Tuesday. I have some antibiotic leftover, Enrofloxacin (Baytril). I am tempted to go ahead and give him some of it. Not sure how to balance all this with the elevated liver enzymes.

[We Hope]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Anne,

I would wait until the culture comes back because it should tell you whether the Baytril will take care of any bacteria that might be there. As things are now, you might give Andy something he doesn't need because Baytril may not be the right type of antibiotic to get rid of whatever bacteria there may be.

Can tell you from a human aspect that many of these allergy/sinus meds contain something called a decongestant, and what they do is to dry out the nasal and sinus passages to get rid of the mucus. When they become very dry, they can bleed.

If you have a home where the humidity is too low, you can have this yourself; it happens a lot to people who are in areas where they have to heat in the winter. The air in the house becomes very dry from the heat--this is why many people in areas where they have colder weather have some type of humidifier.

Know you can help yourself with nasal irritation by using a non-prescription saline solution for the nasal passages. A brand name is Ocean, but most pharmacies have their own "generic" versions of it. It's used like you use the ones like Sinex, etc., but before I started squirting something like this in Andy's nose, I'd run it by your vet.

Has Andy ever had any imaging done to see if there may be something in the nasal or sinus passages like polyps? They're often the cause of breathing problems in people.

Kathy

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Kathy we are to the point where imaging might be called for. I have questioned "something" being up his nose.

Andy is not taking any antihistamine with decongestant. I have read this is really bad for dogs? So no antihistamine with "D". However, I think it is what he needs. His nose runs constantly. He is running and sneezing with lots of mucous yet he is stopped up and his nasal cavities seem swollen.

In AZ we have very low humidity. I run a humidifier at night for us to sleep under. I started doing this for Andy and found we all sleep better and do not have the super dry noses. I also have a air purifier running all night and the bedroom door stays closed. I try to create an "environment" that is as pure as possible.

The poor baby has figured out that if he lays upside down with all fours in the air, his floppy hound dog lips stay open and he can breathe. This is sad.

[We Hope]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

This is at the opposite end of the dog, but here's what we found with imaging this week.

Toodles, my non diabetic, had a UTI in December. I saw him pass some blood which wasn't even enough for the urine testing to find. You could see nothing else, so we treated the UTI and all was well until the other week, when almost 6 months to the day, he did the same thing.

Brought him in for the post-UTI check up to see if the urine was free of bacteria. John got busy so I left him there for a while until John could check. When John took the sample, he now saw a sort of grit in it, palpated the bladder and found something. Toodles went into X-ray, where the picture showed he had a bladder full of tiny stones. We were both surprised because he hadn't been giving any real "signals" re: bladder stones. The only sign was the small amount of blood I saw him pass which didn't show up on urine tests, yet here he had all of these little stones.

He had them out Wednesday; if he hadn't had the small amount of blood I saw him pass, he might still have a bladder full of stones because there really wasn't a lot of "evidence" to go on until Tuesday.

Doing some imaging might give you an answer about Andy's nose but even if nothing's seen, you would at least know you could cross that off your list of possibilities.

Kathy

[k9diabetes]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Anne, is the mucous still clear or is it yellow?

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Nat yesterday I pulled some out that looked yellow. I was wondering it that meant possible infection?

[rhodesian46]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

If it is yellow than it is an infection! If clear it is not.

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Talking this through with Margo I have another question about this situation with Andy's nose.

Andy was on doxycycline for a period of time before we figured out it was NOT working. This is when we did the first culture of his nose. Doc said good news is we found he does have a bacterial infection in his nose but doxycycline will not treat it so lets move him over to Baytril which does treat this particular bacteria. Now he was on the Baytril for a couple months and just recently completed it. It was when we went off the Baytril that this flare up started and continued to get worse. This has been a couple weeks. I made the assumption this was just his seasonal allergies.

So, was Baytril just knocking this bacteria down and not getting rid of it? Does that mean they misdiagnosed the bacteria and he was on the wrong antibiotic all along? It seems like taking the antibiotic for a couple of months should have cleared the bacteria. Maybe he needed to stay on it longer?

We did another culture of his nose just this last Friday so it should come back and let us know what bacteria we are talking about assuming there is one in his nose that has not cleared up.

[We Hope]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Anne,

See if these links from Lab Tests Online help:

http://www.labtestsonline.org/unders...ty/glance.html

Intro: Susceptibility Testing

http://www.labtestsonline.org/unders.../glance-2.html

Susceptibility Testing

http://www.labtestsonline.org/unders.../glance-3.html

Bacterial Resistance

[Patty]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Anne,
Just curious, what was the dosing for the last Baytril treatment?

I ask because during one of Ali's UTIs a former vet put her on too low a dose of Baytril and she wound up with another infection. I didn't know better at the time.

Baytril dosing is typically 5mg/kg of dog for a UTI (I don't know if this is different for different kinds of infection). Ali was 47.5lbs at the time and should have been getting at least 107.9mg. She was only on 68mg 1x/day. Very frustrating.

Just thought I'd throw that out there...
Patty

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Gosh Kathy, that is just scary.

His Vet did put him on two meds at once. An antibiotic and an anti-fungal and she did say he might be on them for months.

So now, if he does still have a bacterial infection, it could be resistant at least to the meds he was taking.

Interesting but not encouraging.

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Patty, Andy was on 50mg once a day. He weighs 19lbs....gosh now I need to do the metric system...LOL

Ok got it, 8.6kg X 5mg = 43 ...so he was covered at 50mg.

[forloveofandy]

Re: Andy, the Wonder Wiener

Ok kids, I took Andy off the Temaril-P. After a full 48 hours taking it he was only worse and his BG's were very hard to control even with extra R.

I gave him a Baytril and within 12 hours of taking it he has huge improvement. His nose is almost dry and he is breathing again. The only thing going on is some minor reverse sneezing. I just gave him the second one this morning.

His culture will not come back until Tuesday. We will see then if we need to change to another antibiotic. In the meantime, the Baytril is at least knocking it down.

Will keep you posted.

[forloveofandy]

Culture is Back

News is not so good.

The Culture came back positive for Pastoreli (sp?).
This bacteria does respond to Baytril and that is why he had drastic improvement when I gave him the Baytril. There is another bacteria also and right now I do not have the name of it.

The Vet consulted with his internist and they want him to be on these three meds:
• Ciprofloxacin
• Metronidazole (corrected the spelling)
• Ursadiol
Anti-bacterials and a med to support his liver.

His internist thinks it is really important for him to have a liver biopsy because he has “mixed inflamation” and she does not think this is just because of the diabetes.

The possibility is that he had Chronic Active Hepatitis or Infectious Hepatitis.

She is going to work up an estimate for the biopsy but I told her it will not be for a while. We will give the meds and supplements and test again in a few weeks to see what the liver is doing first. Also we have spent all we can for now.

Will write more later tonight and hopefully have the lab reports and correct spellings.