Young dog has anemia

[Jared Ensing]

I have a 4 year old dog that was very healthy until about 2 months ago. She wasn’t eating. Brought her in and had an enlarged spleen and low Red Blood Cell. She started on prednisone for a week, no improvement. They found small (non cancerous) masses on her spleen and removed the spleen with RBC around 18. She had a transfusion and climbed to 25. She came home and recovered for about 2 weeks and was doing great. Her RBC was at 32 at her checkup. Then 1 week later, loss of appetite and energy. We took her in and her RBC was at 13. Transfusion brought it to 20. She got up to 22 before dropping back to 18. She is getting another transfusion now. They tested for tick borne illnesses, heart worm, autoimmune, and more. Some results we are waiting on, others were all negative. We are lost and don’t know what our next steps are.

[Patrice]

Jared,
I am really sorry to read this. While this may seem unusual to you and possibly your vet, we have seen this many times. My website is named after Chance, as he had the exact same thing happening to your girl.

It’s not particularly easy to describe this to you. Splenic accessory growths of a benign behavior can seem useless and worthy of removing the spleen and growths.

However when we removed Chance’s spleen and very large benign growth he was later diagnosed with bone marrow failure. He was not making red blood cells or white blood cells, he was very sick.

It was a puzzle to my vet and the board certified veterinary specialist. He could only tell me that his marrow had very few cells. He thought it might be autoimmune and put him on prednisone but it wasn’t working, he got worse. He upped the dosage of prednisone but finally he said to me, you have a beautiful dog. Essentially he was unable to save him.

Through a friend, they recommended I contact Dr. Dodds, all the way across the country from me in California. Apparently she knew, as a veterinarian, why this was happening and even had a protocol that would target the autoimmune destruction of the precursor cells in the bone marrow.

My vets were delighted to work with Dr. Dodds, though many vets weren’t at that time. We implemented it immediately and within about 3-4 weeks he began to start making red and white cells. His body was a mess because of all the prednisone and it took months until he began to look normal. You can read his story under Our Stories.

I am at work right now and I dont have access to my files right now. I’m hoping Vally will hop on and get the protocol to you.

Please use the Urgent Advice page to send us via email the cbc and Chem screen.
Don’t lose hope, we can do this.
My best Patrice

[Patrice]

Jared,
Check your emails carefully there should be several emails from both of us.
My best Patrice