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In this Discussion
- 000 January 2014
- Cherry_Pie January 2014
- flossy_log_lady February 2014
- kdawg January 2014
- Leland January 2014
- ManInTheIvoryTower January 2014
- Matthew January 2014
- MirandaJuly January 2014
- swamp_knobbler_mahan January 2014
- the_owls January 2014
- ThickeningAgent January 2014
- UncleBoatShoes2011 January 2014
- YoursTruly February 2014
Sick Snoop
Home all day with a very sick dog. Hurts my heart to see him like this!
It turns out that ComboGuard, the heartworm/flea pill we give him every month, is actually just a re-branding of Trifexis, a medication that makes dogs sick and that 700 dogs are said to have died from??? Nobody told us this at the vet. It's so dark. He usually gets sick after taking his pill but this time is way worse. Gary called the vet and yelled at them (exaggeration) and now we are switching him to this totally different kind of worm pill situation.
Word to the wise though, if your dog gets sick after combo guard or trifexis (still on the market!!! even with ongoing litigation), it's definitely a real thing and I think that medication is fucked and you should tell your vet you want to switch. Our vet is comping us our remaining 3 doses so we don't lose any money.
You should see this snoop, I swear. He's never been this sick. He can barely walk, he's got tremors, he's drooling, he barely opens his eyes when you go talk to him. I feel so bad for him and worried. This is when I regret not having a car, for what if we have to rush him to the ER?
Can we also talk about this heartworm/flea thing? In my memory we literally never gave our family dog this thing. I know lots of people don't do the heart worm prevention medication at all, OR they only do it in summer when there are actual mosquitos about. What do you guys think? I'm always torn between wanting to keep the dude healthy and not wanting to over-medicate.
It turns out that ComboGuard, the heartworm/flea pill we give him every month, is actually just a re-branding of Trifexis, a medication that makes dogs sick and that 700 dogs are said to have died from??? Nobody told us this at the vet. It's so dark. He usually gets sick after taking his pill but this time is way worse. Gary called the vet and yelled at them (exaggeration) and now we are switching him to this totally different kind of worm pill situation.
Word to the wise though, if your dog gets sick after combo guard or trifexis (still on the market!!! even with ongoing litigation), it's definitely a real thing and I think that medication is fucked and you should tell your vet you want to switch. Our vet is comping us our remaining 3 doses so we don't lose any money.
You should see this snoop, I swear. He's never been this sick. He can barely walk, he's got tremors, he's drooling, he barely opens his eyes when you go talk to him. I feel so bad for him and worried. This is when I regret not having a car, for what if we have to rush him to the ER?
Can we also talk about this heartworm/flea thing? In my memory we literally never gave our family dog this thing. I know lots of people don't do the heart worm prevention medication at all, OR they only do it in summer when there are actual mosquitos about. What do you guys think? I'm always torn between wanting to keep the dude healthy and not wanting to over-medicate.
Comments
This whole ordeal has definitely taught us some things. One is, like you say FL, being overly cautious can lead to just as many problems as being negligent, in a way. I think there is no reason for a citified Northwest dog to take year-round heartworm/flea medicine. At most he should be on it when it's warm enough for actual mosquitos/fleas to be about.
edit: Scared now that it's not combo guard, as he's getting drooly again and his fever is going up
FUCK
what a disaster
thanks for worrying FL, you are nice
the only time i've ever medicated any of my dogs with that stuff was if I knew they had fleas or worms or they had some massive exposure to mosquitoes and ticks (like after a back-packing trip).
He did his weird retching/gagging thing periodically all night but didn't barf. Gary was a good soldier and kept getting up to check on him while I slept--he said at one point he thought snoop was having a seizure but then realized it was just me snoring. I was beat!!!! Poor Gary. His fever goes down, then back up--right now it's up. He's still hobbling--his gimpiness has not improved. But this morning he finally pooped and I was so happy because I THINK that means there's not some weird "foreign body" in his intestine as the inconclusive x-ray sort of implied. Knock on wood. It's all very ambiguous. Last night we called the vet and they said to just keep monitoring him. I think he is poised on the edge of "nothing the vet can do" and "maybe something really crazy is wrong that they will need more tests to diagnose," and everyone is just holding their breath hoping he starts turning the corner soon.
Yesterday Gary went to a screening and I stayed home and seriously felt crazy by the end of the night. Just sitting and staring--Steve is right, we really should just do regular things and just let him work through it on his own unless he takes a dramatic turn for the worse. But I have an obsessive worrying personality and I COULD NOT stop just sitting and staring at him while he trembled and half-slept. Today Gary is staying home with him so I can go to the coffee shop and get some space and work on my syllabus.
Gary starts school tomorrow! Really hoping this gets resolved today. FINGERS CROSSED.
Matt thank you for the medication tip. I feel like I know/have known so many cool woodsy dogs who essentially never went to the vet and they did not seem the worse for wear. I think we need to ease up on the overprotective dog ownership vibe.
Imagine if it was your baby or husband or something! Jesus. Steve pointed out the experience of like a pioneer woman sitting in a cabin in the dead of winter in N. Dakota watching her husband horribly die for 3 days and not seeing another living soul until June. "It's a hard world for the little things"
I worry about him.
not barfing, which we think is a good sign, but with no other areas of improvement it is hard to feel that comforted
Changes:
- eating pretty excitedly; stoked on his baby food chicken
- enormously swollen glands in his neck, make him look crazy
- now crying gently to himself while lying down; gasping with pain while laboring upright; seems to have pain everywhere--cries out if you touch him wrong or help him stand up
I slept on the couch to keep an eye on him and he cried off and on all night. At 4:00 a.m. I took his temp and it was 104.4. We were supposed to rush him to the vet if his temp got up to 104.5 but I called and the vet said there's nothing they can do for him except actually hospitalize him and give him an IV, so we should just keep waiting. At 9 a.m. his temp was normal, no fever at all. Now it's 103.3, low fever. WTF
So glad he's a little better, kinda.
I also feel like eating is always a good sign. I'm trying to stay positive and also ignore him a little, and not just sit and stare at him. I so hope he's on the mend somehow but as of right now he seems basically just as fucked up as he's been all along, minus barf.
thanks you guys for thinking of us. It feels good to have somewhere to update.
That's where we're at today.
Wanda thanks for that sad story about Andy. It does make me feel better to hear about other pets that have been cartoonishly sick but then recovered. Poor Andy.
This is DAY 5 of this shit, how long can a person be this sick??
I know that what Andy had was really different from Franklin's symptoms, but even when things are bad for kind of too long they can still get better. I think you should keep calling your vet with whatever frequency you need for your peace of mind. I used to alternate calling my regular vet and the ER in order to not bug any one person too much. For the record I took Andy to Tualatin Veterinary Hospital rather than Dove Lewis- they're way less expensive and very nice and will talk to you on the phone and give advice for a long time (if that's what you need.)
Hang in there!
SNOOPY <3
They should never get sick.
The vet was awesome. I went in guns blazing, being all "IT'S LYME DISEASE I KNOW IT" and she was like "chill out, there's like 120 less-horrible things it could be! Lets do another very minor/cheap blood test first." The blood test was again inconclusive except that it showed his white blood cell count had doubled again since last time--so something is raging inside of him and he's fighting it off. She was also concerned because he's swollen and stiff in his neck and there's a lump in there, so now cancer is thrown into the mix of things to worry about.
She said we should start with pain meds and a broad spectrum antibiotic just to see if it knocked out whatever was going on. I was so relieved just to have some sort of proactive thing to do. Sitting and staring at him every day for 6 days has been murder; but if we're talking jamming pills down his throat and walking to the pet store for supplies (turns out there are all kinds of ways you can tempt a dog into eating when it's fucked up on pain medication! Raw goats milk and honey / weird nutrient powders / LAMB TRIPE) I can do that and feel productive. Also very glad to get the pain meds as he was just clearly in so much pain that he wasn't even able to sleep.
She said if he's not showing signs of improvement by tonight, then something is wrong that antibiotics can't fix and we'll need to revisit our options.
That night he cried himself awake still, and we had to get up with him several times and give him meds in the middle of the night. In the morning he seemed sort of indefinably better, although he was still consistently running a fever and it was hard to judge his attitude through the stoned fog of the pain meds. He is still stoked on eating. He's even eating his weird probiotic powder that you give them when they're on antibiotics (humans too, everyone needs probiotics while on antibiotics). He also hadn't pooped in 2 days
I was so sure I'd wake up today and he'd jump up to greet me like usual but that did not happen. He's still super trashed and conked out and gimpy and bummed and running a fever. BUT:
- he slept through the night without crying, and indeed he hasn't needed a pain pill yet even though he's many hours overdue for one (our first full night's sleep since Saturday, amazing and beautiful, I feel seriously like a completely new human being, I even put on a clean shirt--along these lines I apologize to those of you who received anguished, self-involved texts from me last night, I really hadn't slept significantly in so long that I felt so sincerely despairing and didn't know what to do with my feelings)
- he seems really mellow now, not like stoned and bummed but just chilling, although he's still got a very low fever and he's still standing with his head down and his tail between his legs when he gimps up out of bed
those are the only positives to report but at least no negatives. Also this morning he made a huge poop and I was so happy.
this was a long update. This has been a crazy experience that I would not wish on anyone, except Dick Cheney, except I don't think he loves anything/anyone enough to lose sleep over their suffering.
He's basically got another 8 hours or so to show us something definitive in the improvement department. I will let you know if that happens. If it doesn't happen I ACTUALLY DON'T KNOW what we will do. I'm about to take him outside, we'll see how fucked up he is.
YOU CAN DO IT, BUD
I really can't imagine how hard it must be to have a sick sick dog for so LONG. You guys are doing great. It's almost past those eight hours you mentioned - I hope you're seeing signs of improvement!
has a swollen bulgy eyeball that's dripping down his face now. We just feel like WHAT NEXT. But still, major signs of improvement.
this has been a real slog. Today is day 7! Thanks you guys for being so nice. Thanks to UBS for giving me a breath of fresh air and letting me watch ski videos at his house for an hour, it was incredibly rejuvenating. I will let you know what's up with the eyeball tomorrow---if it's an infection hopefully it will fade with antibiotics, but if it's an abscess or tumor or something I assume it will get worse.
LORD HAVE MERCY
suffice it to say, snoop's still bad, and I'll let you guys know when/if he is better.
it's just life! A DOGS LIFE
Love that dog, love that dog's life, love you guys.
The test results might show that he does have autoimmune disease, which will start a whole new process of anguish/decisions. But at least he's feeling good now. It was 9 full days of hell for that guy!
Thanks to everyone for being SO INCREDIBLY NICE.