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Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - For Pam/Jewel
| Pam, Haven't seen you post lately and am wondering how Jewel is doing. Karen |
| Karen NC |
| Karen, Thank you for your concern, Jewel is doing great, she was checked on August 26 and her levels all went up....the platlet count from 32000 to 898000 after the transfusion and tetracycline and PCV from 11 to 33 after the blood trasfusion and tetracycline. The Vet told me he was surprised at how good she looked and said "so there must have been a component to the tick borne disease"...of course right then and there I wanted a new vet but I financially can not afford retesting. He told me i did not need a refill on the tetracycline and told him about my concerns for that and he said he was sure he gave enough to kill anything out of her system.....EXCEPT...in Ehrlichiosis and other tick diseases...if they are in the chronic stage their bodies and immune system are too weak to rid the bacteria and the teracycline and doxycycline only break down bacteria and keep breaking it down until the body's immune system can eliminate it....these antibiotics don't KILL anything..so anyway after 3 days of her being off the tetracyline her body wasting started coming back and the conjuctivitis in her eyes started again...so I called and told him I wanted a 3 monthe supply...in 2 months I will come and restest if all her levels are normal then...we will test in a month after that to make sure they stay normal and then we can try to take her off the tetracycline when I know her immune system has shown stability for 2 months or so....he finally agreed.....I told him, if she was in the chronic stage of ehrlichiosis then she may never get rid of the bacteria and it could recur as long as she lives...and he said yes it could.....my question is WHAT MORE CAN I DO TO CONVINCE HIM THIS IS THE DISEASE!! Anyway she is back on the tetracycline and within 2 days is back to not limping and the muscle wasting has been reversing itself again! Karen, I keep Darcy in our prayers....have them keep her on the Doxycycline and feed her fresh foods, when Jewel started the tetracycline in week 2 I decided to start lowering her meds because pred and azathioprine can interfere and compromise the values of it and thats when I saw the most progress......she is still on both but in that month I decreased pred from 20 to 15 in week 2 to 10 in week 4 and she stays at 10mg now and the azathioprine from 50mg to 25mg and that is where I have her but the vet said I probably can start doing that every other day. I also give her 2 senior vitmains a day and give her 500mg Vitamin C, 600mg Calcium with 520 mg Vitamin D and I just started 400mg Vitamin E. I try to spread out the medications 4 hours away from the vitamins and 2 hours away from each other. I really think the vitmains and real meat and veggies have helped her tremendously....and my doctor acted like she should not even look as good as she does so I must be doing something right....and I kept taking her out to walk so her leg would get stronger and I let her set the pace and now she's back to walking around the school I always take her to 2x's round....but sometimes i only let her do that three times a week for sure once around! Good Luck and stick in there and let them know what you want and research online as much as possible. Blessings ans the power of healing to you and Darcy. Pam |
| Pam Milwaukee |
| Pam, I'm thankful that Jewel is doing so well. If your vet refuses to continue with the Doxycyline, you can buy it online at PetMeds. It sounds like you've had some of the same issues with the vets your dealing with that I've had. I picked up some Doxycycline(100mg) and Carafate from our regular vet last Friday and got Darcy started on that. The Doxycycline prescription is for only 14 days, so I'll probably have to insist on more. The reason they prescribed the Carafate is because I told them that Dr. Dodds said she needed to be on a gastrointestinal sedative. I'd been giving her half a Pepcid every day, but I'm sure that wasn't enough protection. I give the Carafate to her 30 mins. before the Doxycycline and I have to give those two meds twice a day. She also gets the Azathoropine(50mg) and Prednisone(30mg) once a day. I'm giving her the PetTinic per Dr. Dodds recommendation. I'm trying to space everything out, too, and have a chart and a timer in the kitchen to help me remember what to do. It can be mind boggling. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering if I've taken all of my daily supplements! I take Darcy to the regular vet today to get the blood sample to send to Dr. Dodds. I'm hoping the vet will handle everything properly and get it safely to California for the thyroid testing. If Darcy tests positive for autoimmune thyroiditis, we'll start her on the Thyroxine. She sees the internal specialist for a blood recheck on Thursday. Please pray that we get some good results. Praying for you and Jewel and her continued good health, Karen |
| Karen NC |
This thread was discussed between 11/09/2008 and 15/09/2008
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