New Thread for Megan & Sophie – Page 2

Keymaster

Megan,

I am really sorry to hear about this. It must be making you very anxious and worried.

There are a number of reasons why Sophie has an elevated heart and breathing rate. One is anxiety, either because she doesn’t feel good and/or you are reacting to her in an alarmed way. She will mirror your emotions.

Prednisone at high doses overwhelms the body with cortisol (which is similar to the bodies own produced cortisol) and this increases the overall metabolism. This will lead to increased heart and respiratory rates. Think of how you feel when you drink way too much coffee or if you are almost in car accident. You are breathless and your heart pounds.This is similar to that.

Another reason for accelerated heart and breathing can be indirectly related to the discomfort of an enlarged liver. The liver will be affected also by high doses of prednisone because it is the organ that processes the prednisone. Dogs with enlarged livers do not seem to want to lie down on soft things like couches or beds and seek out cool floors.

There is definitely a shortage of oxygen going to her body cells with a PCV of 15%. There are not enough red blood cells to carry O2 to the body. She needs to be kept quiet to help this. Her body is trying to get a little more oxygen into the system and increases heart and breathing.

In most dogs with anemia this need for more oxygen would definitely cause the kidneys to signal the bone marrow to make more red blood cells but this isn’t happening in Sophie. This is called non-regenerative anemia. Chance had that. There can be several causes for this. In his case his immune system was attacking the most basic template cells in the bone marrow, the precursor cells, that make the red blood cells. Dr. Dodds put him on her bone marrow failure protocol. Within a month he began regenerating again and eventually recovered.

Another possible reason for non-regenerative anemia is that the kidneys are not performing their job properly. There are a few items on the chemical screen that can point to this problem. Without being able to see your last two CBC and Chem screen tests, I can’t tell if this is the case.

If she has stomach ulcers this would be a cause for pain and anxiety about that pain. She can also be in pain if there is pancreatitis, inflammation of the pancreas. This is sometimes a side effect of high dose prednisone too. A dog with pancreatitis will refuse to eat, arch their back and groan in pain. There are several items on the Chem screen test that can possibly point to this.

We all have experienced this panting with our dogs when they are on prednisone. I put folded towels around the house on the floor and put a small fan up for Chance so he could lie next to them.

Needless to say, however, if you are anxious about this and feel this is something new and unusual you should call your vet and tell them what is happening. She may need some advanced nursing care in hospital. A PCV of 15% is quite low. I know Chance did not do well with a PCV of 18% and that is when he had his transfusion.

The accelerated growths on the paws are related to the cyclosporine (Atopica). It can seem alarming but it is not life threatening, and in most cases is just unsightly. You may also see growths on the gums as well. These can be dose related and it might be time to revisit the dose you are using with Dr. Dodds. I think Chance was at the highest dose for 4 weeks max on a pulsed dose cycle (5 days on, 2 days off). This was highly successful and he began to regenerate by week 4. We reduced that dose the 5th week, and alternated reducing the prednisone too.

my best, patrice

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Patrice

Keymaster

Megan

The heart is being impacted by the shortage of red blood cells, just as the body cells are, by the reduced amount of oxygen. It makes it harder for it to do the job it must do which is pump blood to the body. The heart is a great big muscle and muscle tissue needs oxygen.

I have not yet seen any of the CBC or chem screen reports and I don’t know what all of the diagnostic tests have been done. So it is very difficult to guess what they know or what you should ask them to try.

I can tell you it would be normal to do an x-ray of a dog’s chest to check the heart. There are a limited number of things they can see on an x-ray but with those things they can see they can make some”interpretations” . The size and shape of the heart are important. A very round full heart can indicate that there is some fluid pooling near the heart for instance. You said they felt it wasn’t enlarged and that is a good thing.

The same with the lungs, they cannot see everything with the x-ray, but they can see areas of light and dark. From those they can “interpret” some things. In dogs, as well as in humans, there always can be “white spots” in a lung x-ray. The question always is, what do they mean?

A few white spots in the lungs can sometimes be small areas of tissue that walled off some foreign material years ago that are meaningless and benign. A lung that shows hundreds of white spots could possibly show areas of tumors or a rarer condition called Blastomycosis, a fungal infection caused by digging in contaminated soil.

It is unlikely that your little Sophie has ever been digging in areas where this exists. This is a condition that outdoor working dogs are exposed to.

If there are numerous white spots on the lungs, then it is possible these could be small areas of tumors. But I would need to see the vet’s report to see what they think. Small white spots can just be the signs of an older dog’s lungs and mean nothing.

So, for right now, we need to know what your vet has said about this.

Vets can be like this, they do tests looking for all kinds of things, report to you what the tests showed, but then fail to actually tell you what they are thinking because they believe that owners cannot understand the technical information.

Talk with your vet, write down what they say, no matter how confusing it is to you, and then report that here. We can tell you what they mean. Try to get copies of the lab work that has been done, you paid for it and they belong to you, and then post that information here. From that we can tell you much more.

my best, patrice

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