Blood work help for Maize?

Sheena

Guest

Hello Katie

Sorry you’ve had to go through this awful time & thanks for the blood tests which tell us quite a lot.

Maize (who is an absolutely gorgeous boy by the way!) has high neutrophils which usually means infection of some kind. Especially with the presence of band neutrophils. Do you know what tests they have done to cover this, e.g. Snap 4dxTest or cultures? Antibiotic treatment?

In our experience, once a PCV of over 25 is reached, reticulocyte production slows down quite dramatically. That is why we never recommend transfusing to over this level. I need to look into this more – there is a complicated way of working out level of regeneration – I think you vets have probably done that already, but I’d like to check it against advised Cornell Uni figures. I’ll get back to you shortly on that. I am also going to look at Worzel’s PCV/reticulocyte progress as he recovered well & that will help us hopefully!

I noticed they had seen Target Cells on the blood analysis. These indicate (most commonly) iron deficiency anaemia. You can read about them here:
https://www.secondchanceaihadogs.com/AIHA_Terms/leptocyte/
However in view of the transfusions, iron supplements are probably not a good idea, or you can end up with iron overload. But Vitamin B12 injections would help for sure. Did you use packed red cells or whole blood for the transfusions please?

Baby red blood cells are always bigger that adults – nRBCs or nucleated red blood cells are immature red cells & can actually skew automated blood tests if there are a lot of them – the machine thinks because of their size, that they are another type of cell -WBCs. I do think you vets have done an excellent job & have looked at smears as well as using the machine.

The only thing I can’t see on there is if they looked for agglutination or spherocytes – these are clotting risks for our dogs

As Vally says, Denamarin (contains Milk Thistle) is great for liver support & bringing down liver enzymes. We have all seen the enzymes go up with the drug treatment, then come down with the milk thistle. If these enzymes don’t come down, I would get the liver ultrasound done for sure, but I think it’s probably the drugs doing this – it usually is. Do you know what enzyme levels were on the earliest tests please? If they were normal, we can be pretty sure it’s the drugs!

I agree with Vally – Worzel had a bone marrow aspirate – I wish I hadn’t bothered & would not have one done in hindsight. The treatment is the same regardless of findings. So I would not advise that, especially as I am suspicious there may be an infection going on.

29 is not a bad PCV at all -certainly nothing to be concerned about. But obviously, we want to help you get Maize back into normal levels as soon as possible.

If you have any other results you can show us, that would be great as it helps with the “story” of what’s happened.

Vally mentioned Dr Jean Dodds – she has helped many of us so much. She always suggests adding thyroxine because it encourages red cell production. You can always contact her for a consultation through this website underthe Hemopet resources. She is a real expert in this disease & I cannot speak more highly of her.

Love & hugs
Sheena, Worzel (diagnosed Dec 2012) & his friend Ollie
xxxxx

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Sheena

Guest

Hi again Katie

Had a good read of what’s happened. I think you can be sure this was an infection from the report – what it is? I don’t know – it could be many things. Whatever it is, the antibiotics are essential in my opinion & I’m worried (because of the high neutrophils) that it’s still there. Sometimes, antibiotics are need in high dose for up to maybe 6 weeks for nasty things like tick diseases. Doxycycline is safe for our dogs – some other antibiotics aren’t.

There are other reasons for raised neutrophils such as stress, corticosteroids & severe allergic reaction, but the cause of such high levels is usually infection – we have seen this many times on here & it’s worth bearing in mind. I am not a vet, so it would be best to discuss this with your surgery – they look like a really good team, Katie.

He also had very high monocytes, which are seen with inflammation, infection, allergies, but they are better on the later tests, which is great. One less thing to think about.

There is a lot of emphasis in the reports on agglutination & the need for clopidogrel to prevent clotting – they are on the ball & I’m glad they will be keeping a close eye on Maize. I wish all vets were as vigilant, as this is a vital part of treatment.

His liver enzymes weren’t bad at all at the beginning, so I do think it’s the drugs – I hope you decide on the Denamarin & see an improvement. They can go off the scale, into 4-5,000 sometimes without help. The pred does this, I’m afraid.

If Maize is acting good & eating well, I think a week is fine for a recheck – BUT if he gets a temperature, gets a runny nose, runny eyes or develops a cough, or anything resembling an infection getting worse, diarrhoea etc, straight to the vets. That runny, sore nose has me thinking about several infections that might cause it. I bet your vets have thought of a few things – glad the Babesia was negative. Worzel did not have a high temperature until he started the pred – then it went rampant & he was really poorly very quickly – so we started him on doxycycline on that very day, for a long period of about 5 weeks, as I said earlier. I’m afraid I insisted we carry on with it long term so I could be certain whatever he had was gone – that advice was from people on this site & I’m glad I did it as it did turn out to be something very nasty indeed.

You are so welcome to any help we can give, Katie. It’s a pleasure. The best “thank you” is that you stay here with us & when you feel like it later on (or now if you want to) maybe say a little something to other owners who are going through the same horrible situation. I can remember how much it meant to me to find other people on here who had experienced this with their beloved pets – this lovely bunch of ladies helped me through that awful time more than I can say.

Give Maize a gentle cuddle & kiss from me – if you are worried about anything or have any questions, you only have to ask.

Much love & hugs
Sheena, Worzel & Ollie xxxxx

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