[Dailydrool] Spinal infection

Tue Aug 16 13:54:23 PDT 2011

Good Afternoon, I have been a member of this mailing list for sometime.
Usually just reading everything but never commenting.  I have been seeing a
lot of messages about their fur-kids having spinal issues and going lame in
the back end.  I wanted to shared my recent experience with my 7 year old
female basset hound.

A year ago she went down while at the Basset Waddle, appeared to be a back
spasm.  The local vet gave her an injection of steriods "happy juice", she
did fine and never seemed to have a problem after that.  That was until July
12th of this year.  Cleo was losing her appititie and that day did not eat
her breakfast (this always worries me because she always eats).  But I
always use the rule of thumb if they don't eat in the morning (ok), but if
they don't eat at night again there is a problem usually.  Well when I came
home at lunch to check on her she could not get up and her tummy looked like
she was bloating.  I rushed her to the vet, she was not bloating (thank
god), but he found that she had some mis-alignments in her spine that were
severe and placing pressure on her spine.  At this time she was lame in her
back end and her front left leg had gone lame.  She was admited to the vet
hospital for 3 days of IV fluids (steriods) and seemed to pounce back.  But
all during this time frame he was noticing her red blood count was very low,
but when she is on steriods it will begin to build new red blood cells.
This had him concerned but wasn't sure because she had tummy issues, back
issues and just didn't feel good.  But he also diagnosed Cleo with Wobblers
Syndrome, which I wasn't sure she had.  So, I am lucky that we have a vet
near by that does Canine Chiropractor care so I took Cleo there for a second
opinion.

She found Cleo to have her tailbone raised up, pelvis twisted, 4 vertebrae
out of place, shoulder was jammed and she had her neck sitting 1/4 inch off
her spinal column.  She didn't have her head screwed on straight at all. :)
We have no idea how this happened to her we don't recall her falling or
jumping or hurting herself.  Well she received an adjustment and the we seen
a 110% improvement in her it was amazing.  But then this past Friday she had
a bad spell again and went down and could not get back up for almost 1/2
hour.  She again was rushed to the vet and he did more blood work.  He again
found that her RBC had dropped from 3 days ago.  (she has not been on
steriods during this time).  He immediately placed her on heavy steriods to
get her RBC to come back.  She is on anti-acid meds, penicillin and
Predisone right know.  She will have her blood rechecked on Friday to see if
it is rebuilding RBCs.  Through all this and our vet working with the local
vet school in Champaign, IL they have diagnosed my Cleo with Immune Mediated
Hemolytic Anemia (IMHA).  This is a disease that is very serious and is
destroying her RBC as fast has she makes them.  The only treatment for this
is heavy steriods with the hope you can turn it around.  She will never get
over this totally and will most likely have to be on some sort of steriod
the rest of her life.  We just want her to be happy and be able to do the
things dog should do.

I am writing this just to bring this awareness to everyone else.  One of the
main signs for this disease is weakness in the back end, tummy issues but
definately have your vet check the RBC and monitor it to make sure there is
nothing going on internal.  She has no internal bleeding at all, just her
body has decided to destroy these on their own.  There is no reason why one
dog gets this over another and they don't have any reason why they get it.

I hope this information can be of some sort of use to someone else through
this mailing list.  I have got a lot of great tips and things so the Drool
is Cool.

Thanks for listening and if anyone has any more information about this
disease I would be happy to hear about it.  I have found a very helpful
website (http://www.cloudnet.com/~jdickson) by a lady that has had several
dogs with this.  She has a foundation setup for it and everything.  She
gives me lots of hope and says we are doing everything we can to turn this
around for Cleo.

Happy Drool
Sherri Jeakins

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Menzie Campbell
<menziecampbell at gmail.com>wrote:

> The DAILY DROOL
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> and their people.
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>
> I was glad to read that Duke is doing a bit better by now, but thought
> I would share my experience with this FWIW.
>
> Two years ago, April 2009, husband and I went on vacation out of
> country.  Had a petsitter.  On our 4th day of 5, petsitter sent me a
> text (how I got it in Guatemala, I'll never know, but I'm grateful).
> Hector (then 9) was dragging his back legs.  She took him to our
> wonderful vet.  So at first the vet thought it was a regular thing -
> compressed disc- and started him  steroids and pain meds.  But he
> actually got worse.  The vet knew that sometimes - rarely - a spinal
> problem can be caused by an infection in the spine.  So he started
> Hector on antibiotics instead.  Within 3 days, he was able to come
> home, though he was very wobbly, and we walked him outside with a
> towel under his hips.  Our vet mentioned toxoplasmosis as a
> possibility, but it's very hard to get a culture on a spinal infection
> (you essentially have to do a spinal tap, I gather), so we never did
> find the specific source of the infection.  My PERSONAL theory is that
> Hector got toxoplasmosis from eating cat poop - we had a feral cat in
> our previous neighborhood that used to come over our fence and poop in
> our flowerbed, just to taunt the dogs.
>
> Anyway, he was on antibiotics for four weeks, and he had to do
> physical therapy for several months after that.  But within six
> months, he had regained 90%+ of his function.  He's almost 12 now, and
> has recently started to get a bit weak in the hind end again, but he
> has hip dysplasia as well, so this is pretty much just old age.
>
> I am very grateful to my petsitter for being there, and my vet, for
> being a good diagnostician and caregiver.
>
> --Menzie Campbell
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Wendie Prince" <houndsabound at cfl.rr.com>
> To: "'An internet mail list designed to entertain and inform
> basset  hounds and their people.'" <dailydrool at lists.dailydrool.org>
> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:52:12 -0400
> Subject: [Dailydrool] Duke needs drool
> Hi all,
>
> We have an old guy here at Senior Houndsabound who went down in his
> hind end last night.
>
> He is at the vet today and more x-rays were done to compare with some
> taken a while back and they have determined that he has an infection
> in his spine,  lower spine.
>
> --
> Menzie Campbell, President, OMBR, Inc.
> Save a Life - Don't Shop, ADOPT!
> www.ombr.org
> Owned by Pw. Annabelle ATB, Hector TVL, Barney, Bozlee, Millie and now
> Pippa and Bonnie (the sisters)
> _______________________________________________
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