My German Shepherd just diagnosed with AIHA, help!

[Desiree]

Thank you so much for the encouragement and the words of advice and council that you have given to me. Awesome!!
Thanks especially for the advice on the food. We switched him to a chicken and rice diet, and for the first time in days, he ate tonight. Not nearly his “usual” meal, but it’s still progress that he is eating at all. Yah!!!
We are going to get his blood tested again on Tuesday. That will be the third blood test. (First was Thursday, then Saturday last week).

Vally, we are going to ask for the Sucralfate tomorrow when the vet opens.

We have not started giving him aspirin yet. How much do you think he may need, based on his 70 pound weight? I want to err on the side of caution with this, just to avoid any potential for blood clots.

Can’t thank everyone on here enough for the help and support. I had no idea this site even existed a few days ago, now I’m spending hours reading up on everything here! Thank you!!!

[Desiree]

Thank you Vally! I’m looking forward to hearing from Patrice. I appreciate you all more than you know!

[Sara]

Ah Desiree so glad he is eating .. That’s a good step in the right direction !!!

We were the same as you thrilled some place online existed where we could get help and second opinions on what our ER was telling us to do or not to do. It’s not that most doctors don’t have your dogs best interest at heart but sometimes their knowledge base is limited to some things more than others .. so it was nice to have many stories of dogs who had went through AIHA or who were currently going throught it to read and see the similiarities.

Patrice of Vally will answer on the sulcralfate.. Our Vet for whatever reason would only agree to us giving Pepcid AC. And that was at our request. Nonetheless we put her on it. As I told our vet I would rather err on the side of caution than wing it and have my dog be the rare one that ended up with a clot.

One last thing on his eating. Eventually the prendisone will kick in regarding causing him to want to eat more. Or at least it did with Flossie. We let her eat within reason of course. She ended up gaining 12 pounds and maintained at that for several months. Once she started tapering off the meds when her PCV reached 37% she gradually started losing weight and now she is off all meds .. she is back to her normal weight again.

So happy he’s Eating !!!

Sara and Flossie

[Carrie]

Great news!!! Glad to hear he is eating.

Daisy is 68lbs and I give her 10 mg of Pepcid ac twice a day. That is per my vets request. She does well with that dose. She goes back to the vet tomorrow to check her PCV again.

Carrie

[Vally]

Desiree, this is a response I’ve had from Patrice by email:

I rarely have seen reticulocyte count so high. 13.2 % is extraordinary, that’s 339,300 absolute. Usually see around 150,000 or so.

That’s probably why the neutrophils are so high. (and of course wbc are high ) this is called toxic left shift, nothing toxic about it really, but indicates a vigorous response by the bone marrow.

What we don’t know from this is if there is continuing active hemolytic destruction of RBC in circulation. I would want to know, from blood smear, if there are spherocytes. These would tell us that there is continuing destruction.

Another indicator would be on the chem screen, a high bilirubin amount and if the dog had jaundice in gums, eyes etc.

So if this is the case, it is a massive response to a very active destruction of RBC inside the blood vessels. This is not only dangerous in terms of bad clotting but it also causes havoc on the kidneys and liver as they try to process all the wastes from the destroyed rbc.

I recommend aspirin or low dose heparin therapy if the vet can determine if there is a clotting risk from these two indicators and other clotting tests (coagulation time, prothrombin time, partial prothrombin time, or the older buccal mucosal bleeding time) be done in hospital.

Give half or quarter baby aspirin now. Talk to vet in morning. Dose, 0.5mg/kg daily. That’s about 1.1mg/lb. Give half or quarter that dose now.

I also recommend the liver sparing diet, no red meat of any kind.

Patrice

[Vally]

A further response from Patrice:

Ask vet to check Kiki’s spleen. GS’s can be prone to spleen issues, especially older boys.

Aspirin, so at about 60 lb dog 1.1mg x 60 = 60 mg aspirin. Nip a bit off of one baby aspirin.

From Patrice

[Vally]

And another idea. Many of us have referred blood tests to Dr Jean Dodds for her to run her eye over. She is an expert in this disease. A consult costs $150 and is a one off fee. Once she responds you simply email her back with any queries or updates. If you’d like to do that there is an online consult form on this page.
https://www.secondchanceaihadogs.com/hemopetresources/
It’s the second box.
She really is amazing.

Vally

[Desiree]

Thanks for all of the feedback, and the analysis of Kiki’s bloodwork. I’ll be sure to follow up with the vet with this information.

The vet did call in a prescription for his tummy. Tell me what you think, if you don’t mind. It’s called Metronidazole. Is this the best to give to Kiki?

Thanks again to everyone!!!
-Desiree