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6 month sick 104 fever

1K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  Kathrynil 
#1 ·
Kora’s is our 6 month GSD. Normal hyper puppy up until She lost her appetite 1 week ago and began sleeping all day. Went the vet where exam was fine, no temp but X-ray found her stomach was pissed off and intestine full of gas. Went home with Cerenia and
Metronidazole and was told she would feel better tomorrow. Next day (Xmas eve) she was worse. She is acting like a 15 year old dog looks like ever movement hurts her. Yelping when we try to pick her up, No interest ground turkey and rice. Called vet “she should be feeling much better” take her to hospital. Go to Access in Culver City on Xmas. X-ray is boring, ultrasound is boring, fever 104, white blood cell count is high, platelets are low. They will send blood to lab for full work up. Gave IV fluids, send us home with antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and pain meds. Anyone experience this? Please share anything that will help us
 
#3 ·
Low platelets are a big deal -- they're going somewhere. If the dog isn't hemorrhaging internally, then the differential possibilities include infection or some kind of cancer. At this age, cancer is very unlikely, so there's most likely some kind of infectious agent destroying the platelets. However, being sure there's no internal bleeding also is very important. Did they rule it out through the xray? If so, then they need to figure out what is crashing the platelets!

In dog rescue work in the South, I've seen a lot of dogs with severe lethargy, anorexia, and low platelets who ended up having life-threatening tick diseases -- I would insist that the vet run a full tick panel (NOTE: I'm not talking about just a SNAP 4D in-office test as that doesn't test the possibilities you want to rule out here --the full tick panel that has to be sent out to a lab that tests for things like RMSF and Babesiosis). Though regular antibiotics like Doxy will treat some tick diseases, Babesia is nasty and requires a special compounded medication normally used for malaria -- so getting the right diagnosis really matters. With the blood they already sent out to the lab, they may have pulled enough that this could be added as a test by the lab by the vet, if they do it quickly.

When we have had dogs with platelets crashing, they stay at the vet and get bloodwork run twice a day to make sure they're not critical.

If you have a good vet with eagle-eyes, Babesia can SOMETIMES be spotted under a microscope by those trained to look for it -- it's a blood cell parasite, so if they look in the internal cell structure of the RBCs under the scope, a tiny thing that should not be in the cells is sometimes visible. I have a vet tech friend who can spot it with over 80% accuracy in the clinic because she's seen so much of it....but until you know what you're looking for, it's terribly hard to spot the first time (but your vet can find pictures of it to compare, probably).

I hope you get some answers. Emergency vets aren't the best at following up with this sort of hard-to-diagnose stuff. Keep advocating for your dog!
 
#4 ·
Ugh I'm scared to death of RMSF. It's bad around here. Luckily our ticks are super seasonal (basically just from like April-June) so yeah, I ain't takin' my dog hiking AT ALL until the ticks are gone.

But yeah in other parts of the country ticks active more year-round, I think. Here (Montana) it's just spring/early summer. But RMSF killed a friend of mine's puppy last year. Serious business. Not wishing to scare you or anything, glad you got veterinary help and hopefully it'll all be good.
 
#6 ·
Kora’s is our 6 month GSD. Normal hyper puppy up until She lost her appetite 1 week ago and began sleeping all day. Went the vet where exam was fine, no temp but X-ray found her stomach was pissed off and intestine full of gas. Went home with Cerenia and
Metronidazole and was told she would feel better tomorrow. Next day (Xmas eve) she was worse. She is acting like a 15 year old dog looks like ever movement hurts her. Yelping when we try to pick her up, No interest ground turkey and rice. Called vet “she should be feeling much better” take her to hospital. Go to Access in Culver City on Xmas. X-ray is boring, ultrasound is boring, fever 104, white blood cell count is high, platelets are low. They will send blood to lab for full work up. Gave IV fluids, send us home with antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and pain meds. Anyone experience this? Please share anything that will help us
P
Low platelets are a big deal -- they're going somewhere. If the dog isn't hemorrhaging internally, then the differential possibilities include infection or some kind of cancer. At this age, cancer is very unlikely, so there's most likely some kind of infectious agent destroying the platelets. However, being sure there's no internal bleeding also is very important. Did they rule it out through the xray? If so, then they need to figure out what is crashing the platelets!

In dog rescue work in the South, I've seen a lot of dogs with severe lethargy, anorexia, and low platelets who ended up having life-threatening tick diseases -- I would insist that the vet run a full tick panel (NOTE: I'm not talking about just a SNAP 4D in-office test as that doesn't test the possibilities you want to rule out here --the full tick panel that has to be sent out to a lab that tests for things like RMSF and Babesiosis). Though regular antibiotics like Doxy will treat some tick diseases, Babesia is nasty and requires a special compounded medication normally used for malaria -- so getting the right diagnosis really matters. With the blood they already sent out to the lab, they may have pulled enough that this could be added as a test by the lab by the vet, if they do it quickly.

When we have had dogs with platelets crashing, they stay at the vet and get bloodwork run twice a day to make sure they're not critical.

If you have a good vet with eagle-eyes, Babesia can SOMETIMES be spotted under a microscope by those trained to look for it -- it's a blood cell parasite, so if they look in the internal cell structure of the RBCs under the scope, a tiny thing that should not be in the cells is sometimes visible. I have a vet tech friend who can spot it with over 80% accuracy in the clinic because she's seen so much of it....but until you know what you're looking for, it's terribly hard to spot the first time (but your vet can find pictures of it to compare, probably).

I hope you get some answers. Emergency vets aren't the best at following up with this sort of hard-to-diagnose stuff. Keep advocating for your dog!
thank you so much. We are waiting for the vet to get the results back from her blood work. We live in the city and Kora has never been hiking or up
In any mountains so the tick thing seems far off but I will not rule that out! She did visit a park in the foothills tho
 
#12 ·
P

thank you so much. We are waiting for the vet to get the results back from her blood work. We live in the city and Kora has never been hiking or up
In any mountains so the tick thing seems far off but I will not rule that out! She did visit a park in the foothills tho
After two nights in the hospital they think it’s a tick born disease. Treating with aggressive antibiotics. Hope she will start to feel better soon.
 
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