VetNet®
VetNet® AIHA discussion forum
VetNet® Forum
Lifelong Learning Network
www.vetnetlln.ac.uk
Veterinary Recruitment
Premier Partner Program
Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - Brandy bad morning
| For the first time since dx 2wks and 4 days ago, Brandy doesn't have an appetite. She ate a few bites of chicken. She did have at least 4 excursions out to potty in about 5 hrs, (all good poop) so is exhausted but of course I am beside myself. still on all meds. When did you all start to see decreased appetite from meds? did it take this long? I was so happy because she was eating like a horse all along. I am also trying to figure out how the PCV differs from the Hct..anyone know how they calculate them differently? I asked the vets but didn't really get it and I do fully understand all the labs otherwise. I think my anxiety has overtaken my brain. prayers please thanks sharon and brandy |
| sharon pa |
| Sorry to hear Bandy is not having a good morning. How is he acting other then not eating, does he seem alert? I do remember Ginger not wanting to eat and I would boil some ground beef and a little rice and sometimes, not always she would eat that . I would put it on a people plate instead of her bowel and she thought she was getting something really good off the table which she never gets. There were also many times when I just had to hand feed her. Exactly what medicine is he on and what is his dosage, how much does Brandy weigh and what kind of dog is he? Hopefully the rest of the day will go better for him. Cheryl & Ginger |
| Cheryl Pineville PA |
| Maybe the combination of Pred & Imuran is making Brandy a little nauseaus (sp?). Is she taking any protectants for her stomach? Also, sorry to read in your other post that your vets did not alert you to the thrombocytopenia. A similar thing with Sierra - sort of - she was a rescue, who prior to being placed in rescue was spayed. At the same time, she received a 5 in one combo vax, plus the rabies vax. Long story short, A couple months later (after I'd adopted her, about 2 weeks into the AIHA/ITP battle) and she seemed to be heading downhill, the woman who runs rescue contacted her former owner for me and he begrudingly consented to give permission for the clinic who spayed her to send her medical records from the spay to my vet. Lo and behold, her platelets were 50K prior to them spaying her and giving her the combo vax and her PCV was 28%. I was livid when I saw that. What vet in their right mind would spay and vax any animal who was at the low end of platelets (not the lowest of course, but low enough for potential bleeding problems) and then also vax an obviously anemic animal. When Sierra began bleeding that first morning after I had brought her home, she was at 16K platelets. And oh yeah, the first entry on her chart was from April of 2002, when she got her first puppy shots ... this guy had claimed he found her wandering the hills. I know there is a slight different between the PCV & HCT, but generally the terms seem to be used interchangeably. Patrice could probably educate us on the exact difference. Well, sorry to ramble. I hope Brandy is starting to feel better this afternoon/evening and maybe ask the vet about some anti neausea. Or maybe you could try a couple of ginger snaps. Ginger snaps work pretty good for a friend's dog who gets neauseas in the car. Good thoughts to Brandy. |
| Ronda So Cal |
| Sharon, I am so sorry to hear about Brandy not wanting to eat. This is not the usual case when a dog is on prednisone, their appetite usually increases significantly, as does their desire for water. You might try pan searing some meat or scrambling some eggs and see if that doesn't seem appetizing to her. I made Chance a liver omelet and he had a hard time resisting that! It would be helpful if you listed your meds here. However, even without them listed, I can guess that your vet has put Brandy on doxycycline because they suspect it might be a tick disease causing this. Thrombocytopenia is just one sign of a serious tick disease. It should have set off red lights and sirens for any vet in terms of tick disease. Doxy is a pretty common drug to try right away to see if things improve quickly. And if it is a tick disease, the changes are almost immediate. The important thing about doxy is that it is a very hard drug on the dog. It reduces their appetite and nearly every dog on it will begin to refuse food they associate with this med. If this is the case with Brandy, you will need to use some stomach protection in the form of pepcid about one hour prior to meals, ask about getting a prescription for sucralfate to help coat and repair the stomach. This drug should be given with at least 2 hours on either side of any medicine. Give the doxy as a whole tab, never cut them, they taste bad and can irritate the stomach. Keep your hands free of any doxy residue when working with it. Give the doxy in a separate treat near the end of the meal in something other than their normal food. Do not let Brandy lie down after taking doxy. Keep her moderately active, a small walk around the yard would even help. For practical purposes and understanding, the difference between PCV and HCT: A PCV is measured by using a very small tube with a tiny sample of blood in it. This sample is spun in a special machine so that the white stuff and the red stuff are separated. They hold it up to a special chart and a *visual* number is read across from the topmost part of the red stuff. Normal range for most dogs is 37% - 45%. Prior to automated machines, this was generally the way it was done. Now-a-days most vets use automated analyzers. They put the samples into the analyzer and it is sophisticated enough to be able to count everything it sees by a system of recognition software. So it counts the red cells and the different white cells, notes any unusual cells etc. It can even perform math formulas! "Hematocrit is a measurement of the fractional volume of red blood cells." So hematocrit HCT done this way would be more like looking at a sample of the blood and interpolating the numbers from the count that it takes. And these numbers are directly influenced by the hydration of the patient or in other words, is this dog dehydrated or overhydrated. Are there other conditions that change the thickness or thinness of the blood plasma sample? I remember taking this kind of a count visually with a microscope and then using a formula to figure out the actual numbers from the size of the slide and the area I counted in. If you count 50 red blood cells in an area of the slide and you know that you need to add 5 zeroes on the end for example, you get 5 million red blood cells total which is about normal. Who would sit around and count 5 million rbc! So, thus the shortcut. The machine is kind of taking a short cut. So what's the practical difference to you and me? Well, I have found with my vet's automated analyzer that the HCT consistently comes in lower than the PCV. So I ALWAYS have PCV spun at the same time I do a CBC! This is a matter of simple mis-calibration of the analyzer in most cases. Chance's actual condition is more representative of the PCV number than the HCT number too, another indicator that he is ok and not low. When I saw the specialist this spring, he had all the CBC's from our vet in his hand. He was a little worried at the lower number Chance's HCT was on paper and wanted to do his own "anemia panel." Later, he came back into the room and said "never mind, Chance's PCV is fine." Note: this specialist does all of his blood work by *hand and analyzer!* He also mentioned the calibration must be off on our vet's machine. Now in most healthy dogs, this variance isn't anything to worry about but when you and I are determining what dosage meds we should be on, or whether we should be thinking about a transfusion, it makes a big difference! So I always suggest here that you ask for a PCV to be spun at the same time they do the CBC. They will draw a large sample for the CBC and then from that fill a small tube to spin. Later in the treatment (and recovery period) when it's not as crucial, you can actually have just a PCV spun for around $8-15 for a quick checkup. We went to a once a month PCV earlier this year. It's also important to note that the other red blood cell numbers that come with the automated CBC like hemoglobin etc will be altered too because they are a relationship with the number of RBC. So you might see the hemoglobin fall into a lower range. Once you get better at reading CBC's it easy to see when something doesn't look right and you can ask the vet if there is something wrong. If you ask nicely, your vet will probably want to have it redone or at least have a look at a PCV. I *know* how easy it is to worry about all of this. Right now you need your energy to go towards making good decisions and providing good nursing care for Brandy. Try turning some of this nervous energy into time for studying on the internet. Read everything you can find on google searches about canine blood tests, anemia, tick diseases etc. Try to spend at least an hour a day studying this. You will be able to communicate with your vet in a knowledgeable way and help make treatment decisions. my best, patrice |
| Patrice NYS |
| Sharon, If you go to this page linked to from my Web site http://www.geocities.com/meishamargo/uofmn.html you can see the actual centrifuge that runs the PCV as well as the hematocrit tube that holds the blood. Also on this page is a photo of the machine that does the full CBC which includes the hematocrit. |
| Joanne MN |
This thread was discussed between 09/08/2008 and 10/08/2008
Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) forum index
This thread is from the Vetnet archive. The live Vetnet forum is active now.
