More bad news

[merlinsmom13]

I'm so sorry I havent read this thread before. I went thru the same thing w/our dog during the big pet food poisoning 6 years ago. Poor Dawg developed anema thought to be caused by it. We did do a transfusion & I used predisolone. I was able to wean her off the pred. after about 11 months. We had 3.5 - 4 good years w/her after this incident, but she had a relapse in Jan 2011. Once again we were giving her the pred. It was more complicated now because of her arititus, she was taking meds for that. This was a shorter flare up & she was off the pred. fairly quickly. In Nov 2011 she starting showing signs again of being tired & mopey, I called my vet & he told me to start her back on the pred. & come in over the weekend. Dawg died the next day, there are alot of side effects when those 2 med combinations are used together.

I hope you have good results like we originally did. The side effects are bad, but considering the alternative, we were grateful we tried.

Strangest thing as a side note. Merlin started flight attacking Dawg every time she became ill. They previously got along good w/no problems. I think he was able to sense one of his flock members was ill & was trying to drive her away.

 

[TikiLola]

Still praying!

 

[Laurul Feather Cat]

I am sorry to hear you and Bella are going through this. I understand where you are coming from; my last dog, Max, had a bout of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia and almost died from it. My vet pulled "a hat out of a miracle" and treated him with methotrexate and apparently stopped the thrombocytopenia dead in its tracks and Max lived four more years without a return of the disease. Max died of pancreatitis complications, another type of autoimmune disorder very suddenly.

I am sending the warm fuzzies and all the positive energy I can generate for you and Bella. I hope the meds will pull a miracle out of the hat for you as well.

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Thanks everyone! Bella's platelets and red blood cells dropped again and her stool has gotten a lot worse with more blood in it. They took a fecal and confirmed a GI infection, probably because she's immuno-compromised now and we've been to the vet so much over the past week.

The specialist was not optimistic during much of the appt, just because the last blood work didn't show any cell regeneration and with the bloody stools and lack of a cause (no tick diseases, ultrasound didn't find any masses, blood work doesn't show any clues and they don't think it's leukemia because her white blood cell count is good) she felt the prognosis was went from bad to worse today. However, once she looked over the latest blood results, she saw cell regeneration! So she said it's possible that her counts have dropped lower because of the GI infection (there's A LOT of blood in her stool). She said bad GI infections can cause a bloody GI tract, so there is cause to think it might not be as bad as it seems.

She's gave her a med for her GI infection (the same med my vet was going to give her but wanted to wait until she had her appt. with the specialist), she lowered the prednisone dose because she's having too many side effects (her breathing & heartrate) and she changed the immunosuppressant to a different one. We're going to give it two days and see how she does (unless she gets worse). At this point, I'm caustiously optimistic!

Both the vet & the specialist said to not worry about Bentley with Bella's GI infection. They said since Bentley's immune system is fine, he'll probably be fine, although I'm suppose to pick up the yard after each poop (since it's diarrhea, it's really not easy to pick up) and not let him lounge around out there. They have different food bowls and they each claim ownership over their food bowl, and since Bella first started getting sick, I've changed the water in the waterbowl after she gets a drink each time.

Maggie has been a little more persistant with me (not wanting to get off my shoulder and nipping me when I try to make her. She's staying glued to me also, all the time). That could be because Bella is sick and she wants me to stay away from her, it could be because I've been gone a lot with Bella to vet appts or it could be because Gizmo (new red-belly) moved in right before Bella got sick. Either way, there has been a definite change in Maggie, but it's been her turning into a velcro bird!

 

[Love My Zons]

Hang in there Girl it is so hard to see our babies sick and fear the worst. If she is eating, happy and comfy that is what matters but I hope she rebounds from this. Hugs to you both

 

[itzmered]

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[roxynoodle]

You and Bella are still in my thoughts.

Since it's hard to clean up the poop, would spraying it with a bleach solution after you get up what you can, help?

 

[AMidnightSoul]

That's a good idea! I'll make up a solution today. My last large spray bottle gave out on me this week while I was cleaning up some of the blood spots on the carpet so I'll pick up a new spray bottle when I go buy some canned pumpkin for her! She went out about 30 minutes ago and just peed, so the last time she had diarrhea was when she went out at 6am (3 1/2 hours ago). Hopefully, that's a good sign. She hasn't eaten anything since last night though, so that might be why. I got her to eat a bowl of GI wet food mixed in with duck & potato dry food and some oatmeal last night. The vet said lots of fiber. Her gums are still pretty pale, but they've been pale for several days now. I don't think they're worse. She only needed to go out every 2 to 2 1/2 hours last night, which is a big change from every hour, but her prednisone dose was lowered so she's drinking less/peeing less. I'm going to feed her some chicken and green beans today also. The vet said feed her anything she will eat, but try to keep it low fat and full of fiber.

On a side note, I didn't know you were supposed to wear gloves when handling immunosuppressants until I got the new brand yesterday, so I didn't wear gloves for a week while I was giving it to her Hopefully my immune system rebounds!

 

[merlinsmom13]

We fried beef liver for Dawg & I started her on human iron pills. Hope she bounces back!

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Got great news today. I took Bella back in for more bloodwork this morning in a large snow storm. Luckily we made it safely. Not far from where we were there was a huge accident on the highway and a semi caught fire. Thee highway was closed for 7 hours!

They took Bella's blood and her PCV has gone up to 32%!!! 45% is when they will consider it getting back to normal. She has no more bloody stool so it does look like the bloody stool was from the GI infection, which is getting cleared up with the meds. She still has large petechia in her eyes, but it will take time for that blood to be reabsorbed in her system. She was feeling better last night and I got some tail wags out of her and she followed me around the house, which she hasn't done for a week. Her belly is very distended, but they said it's a side effect of the Prednisone, since they didn't see anything abnormal in her ultrasound.

She got get sick several times yesterday, which is a side effect of the cyclosporine, the immune-suppressant. The specialist said to skip that pill last night and give it to her in the morning, an hour after eating. She didn't get sick at all yesterday evening or last night, but about two hours after getting her the morning dose, she got sick a few times in arow, so now she's on an anti-nausea pill too. Just until she's off the cyclosporine. The specialist is hopeful that her numbers will keep going up and after she runs out of the cyclosporine, (I think she has about 5 days left) she'll be able to come off of it, but she'll stay on the Prednisone. Then they'll gradually try to wean her off of it. Things are looking up .

I'm so glad. Yesterday afternoon I was so worried. She went outside to pee and eat some snow. She was only out for about 15 minutes but she was cold to the touch when she came in. Her feet, ears and nose were freezing & her belly was very cool. She jumped on the bed and I checked on her about 20 minutes later and she was still really cold, so I bundled her up in blankets and curled up around her. It took another 1/2 hour for her body to warm up and feel normal. I thought it was a bad sign, but it hasn't happened since then and she's been out to pee & eat snow several times since then. I really think we're on the uphill climb now!

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Look at at that pink tongue!!!

 

[Anne & Gang]

what a beautiful doggie

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Thank you!

 

[mjones]

We have a heeler too. She is lovely!

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Thanks They are an awesome breed!

i see Jillaroo in your signature. She's a beauty!

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Hi everyone. I was hoping to have better news but we've slid backwards. Bella continued to improve through Tuesday night & her PCV reached 34 and her platelet count reached 30 to 40,000. Risk of active bleeding stops completely around the 50,000 mark, so we were almost there....

Yesterday she wasn't feeling well again. Yesterday afternoon she started bleeding from her mouth & nose again (not a lot, just a little), so we went back to the specialist who said her red blood cell & platelet #'s had dropped again but they hadn't dropped a lot so to give it a little more time.

Last night, she started having bloody diarrhea again and just like last time, that dropped her numbers too low very quickly. She had to have a transfusion last night. The reason I decided to go through with the transfusion is because there is still evidence showing regeneration, so the anemia is not being caused by destruction anymore (the meds are stopping that), but by blood loss. So it's a vicious cycle. To get her to stop bleeding, we need her platelet count to get up to 50,000 and stay there, but if she's actively bleeding, the new platelets & red blood cells that are produced can be lost with the bleeding.

I brought her meds up there since she stayed the night and they noticed that the label on the immunosuppressant was WRONG. She should be on two pills, twice a day of Cyclosporine and it's labeled one pill, twice a day, which is what I was giving her......We just can't catch a break. I have no idea if the outcome would be different if she was on the correct dosage the past week or not.

Right now, she's back home, feeling really blah. She's only had one poop today (won't eat much) and it was bloody. I do not see any blood around her nose or mouth area today. She's on the proper dosage of cyclosporine now and they've added back in the other immunosuppressant she was on. We're just in a holding pattern of waiting to see if the meds will work.

She might need another transfusion to give her body time to adjust to the new dosage of meds, but I'm not going to do repeated transfusions if we can't get the bleeding stopped. That would just be delaying the inevitable. I'm at a loss. I can only hope the blood loss stops so that her numbers can catch up to where they need to be so she can start rebounding.

 

[roxynoodle]

Oh my goodness

I've had the vet techs make mistakes on bird medications so now I double check them all when I get home. Most people wouldn't know though I guess, but I do the math myself after realizing the first mistake that was made. Math mistakes on medications is no laughing matter

You will continue being in my thoughts.

 

[merlinsmom13]

I'm sorry, I know its discouraging

 

[AMidnightSoul]

Sad update. Sorry, I don't know how to change the thread title. Bella started to improve and her red blood cell and platelet counts went above the danger zone. Unfortunately, she was only better for a few days before she got several blood clots. It's a known risk of the treatment she was on. One of the blood clots was a deep vein clot that was preventing adequate flow to her spleen. She went downhill very quickly. There's no treatement for the clots, only anti-coagulant's to prevent them from increasing. She was in no shape to have her spleen removed. She was put on anti-coagulants, which made her rbc & platelets drop again. She still had the gi infection & the bloody diarrhea returned when she started to go downhill. We reached a point where we knew there wasn't going to be any improvement and she was starting to be in pain, so I went in with my other dog and we ended her suffering. She will be greatly missed and it's just not fair. She had a crap start in life and didn't deserve for it to be cut short. I just know she's laying in the sunshine now, rolling in the grass and is finally at peace.

 

[April]

I'm so very sorry for your loss,my own little girl doesn't have much longer on this earth so I know I too will soon have to make that very hard but loving choice in the near future. She was such a beautiful girl,and she knew you loved her so very much. I know she is watching over you now and forever