Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - What causes this?

I just moved, and in a week my Rocco has this disease. This can't be a coincidence. my vet said maybe rat poison, but i can't think of any time where he was exposed to it. Does anyone know any other chemical and/or cause for this. This is torture. Thank God something told me to bring him to the vet. He was lethargic, but I figured it was just because of the move. The vet told me that he would have been dead if I waited one more day. Unfortunately, he's still in the hospital and they haven't given me a prognosis yet. Also, does anyone know any organizations that offer financial aid for these situtions? The problem with pets being ill is that people without pets don't understand the pain involved. I've never cried so much in my life.

Glenn NJ

Hi Glenn, I'm so sorry that you have found the need to join us here, but everyone here has wonderful insight and support to offer, and everyone is at a different stage. Unfortunately, there isn't always a known cause, which makes it so frustrating. Many possible links have been noted, like immunizations, bee stings, genetic predisposition in certain breeds, etc. Some links have been more studied than others. Many have suspected heartworm preventatives, but this has been controversial, and to my knowledge, inconclusive. Please stay hopeful, and even when dogs seem like they are on their deathbed, they can turn around. Learn everything you can so that you are armed with the best knowledge to make good decisions. Get a specialist or internal medicine vet involved if your vet is not up on the latest and greatest or willing to try everything in his/her power to help your dog get well. Visit Joanne's website, and be sure to look at the success stories to help you put some of your worries in perspective. The link is: http://www.cloudnet.com/~jdickson/ Best of luck, and stay positive! Keep us posted on how you are doing. melissa and tiggs (diagnosed 7/16/08)

melissa slc

Ps. we went on a payment plan and my vet had been kind enough to let us pay as much as we are able each visit. thankfully now we are caught up, but for a while, we just payed as much as we could through the worst part of the crisis.

melissa slc

Glenn, I am so sorry to hear about the suddenness of Rocco's illness. I am glad you were able to get him to the vet's in time to help him. There can indeed be many causes of this kind of sudden anemia. What your vet says about rat poison can be a possibility. It can be tested for and the treatment is relatively easy: vit K shots. Is it possible that the previous owners left some rat poison in a place that you have not explored yet? Dogs are so inquisitive when they go to a new place. Here is an excellent discussion of this cause of sudden anemia and bleeding. http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_rat_poison.html Depending on the age of your dog, eating a zinc penny can also be a sudden cause too. Here is another good discussion of that: http://www.marvistavet.com/html/zinc_poisoning.html Here is a good discussion of Immune mediated hemolytic anemia. It will help you understand the kind of tests they are doing right now to Rocco and the treatments that they may be giving him. http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_imha.html Other causes of anemia can be ingestion of some kind of medication that dogs are unable to handle. If the previous owners left something on the carpet like this it could be a possible cause. In older dogs, neoplasms (tumors) can be the underlying cause for this. In some cases these are treatable too. It depends. Tick disease is an under diagnosed cause of serious and sudden anemia and thrombocytopenia (severe bleeding due to loss of platelets). Your vet should do a Idexx Snap4 test to see if Rocco has been exposed to a tick disease. Is there any chance that he could have picked up a tick at some point and you didn't see it? I hope that you will know more by tomorrow morning. Please let us know what happens. I will be thinking of Rocco tonight patrice

Patrice NYS

Glenn, I am sorry to hear of Rocco's troubles. What kind of dog is he? Hopefully the Vet will have some answers for you soon. The most important thing is to have a Vet that is well versed in treating AIHA if that is the diagnosis. Know that everyone here understands you panic and your pain. Keeping good thoughts and prayers for both you and Rocco. Penny

Penny Lytle Creek Calif

It makes you wonder if moving has any trigger. I went away for a weeks's holiday and left my 9 months old maltese x shih tzu in the care of my son. I came home to find him extremely sick with IMHA and a PCV of 12. When I left one week before he was perfectly healthy. Coincidence probably. I have noted though before he got sick he was always reluctant to want to walk on a lead preferring to lie down instead of wanting to walk with me when he was younger. He was perfectly healthy at that stage and had no other signs of not being right. The vets also quizzed me re exposure to rat poison of which there was none. The puppy I have now is so much more active which makes me wonder whether my pup had a genetic predispositon to this disease. I hope you can overcome this horrible disease and remember some dogs do make a good recovery from it.

Julie Australia

Julie, Strange - I went away for a weeks vacation and when I got back that's when my dog was diagnosed with IMHA. He seemed fine when I left him at the kennel. I don't know if that was the trigger or if it could have been exposure to fumes from refinishing a hardwood floor about 6 weeks prior. He did also have heartworm and frontline the week before he was kenneled. I guess I'll always wonder and never know.

Chris PA

My 4 yearold old goldn retriever was diagnosed wth it oct. 9, 2003. Hunter died 8 days later. onthe day he was diagnosed, my vet and i went over anything different in the previous 2 months---and the only thing was his proheart6 heartworm preventative injection. my vet said "when it comes time for his next proheart injection we are going back to thre monthly pils. but of couse, that never happened. Ten months after his death thecFDA had them pull it from the market because of the high number of reported adverse reactions and deaths. morte dogs died in the 3 years it was on the market than had died from all others combined, some having been on the market 12 or more years. AND aiha was one of the leading reported reactions which caused death. it is now allowed back on the market, 4 years later, reformulated, but with a long list of warnings. not a drop will ever enter the body of another of my golden retrievers. don't give up home. many dogs do survive and live long lives.

SANDRA TEXAS

Glen, I hope your boy is recovering... Just to give you a heads up... This certainy may not be your case but there are many, many reported pet anemia illnesses stemming from flea control products. You know flea control products are produced from pesticides. Pesticides are poison and are toxic to your pet's system. I almost lost my dog to anemia from an application of Frontline. I have spent $9,000& over the past two years and I am stil taking him for blood tests every 3 weeks. He was one of the 'lucky' ones who seems finally after 4 blood transfusions and years of medication regimins and up and down hct/pcv counts to currently be in recovery, but it has been a real struggle. I think it is far more likely that our pets are being poisoned from these very widely sold treatments, recommended by most vets. I have learned over the past two years of doing a lot of reearch in this flea control product area that 1 the pharmaceutical companies who produce the product will not give you a straight answer regarding clinical study trials of the product(s) they place on the market and the EPA who are regulators of the product seem to know even less... and, sadly and most incredibly,2) many vets themselves are not fully aware of the toxicity level that penetrates the pets system when given these treatments. If you would like to read hundreds of letters from consumers whose pets have become seriously ill, suffering adverse reactions from flea control spot-on products, please log on the Jame Terbush's website at http://www.elversonpuzzle.com/biospotlettersv11.html You will never use these products again after reading of all of the pain and havoc they can and do cause. They should be removed from the market...but the 'little guys' can't take big pharma to court. They are too powerful. I wish you the best.

Jan PA

When you talk about whether moving triggered the disease, it made me think about something that my vet mentioned to me. She said that stress can sometimes be a trigger. Moving is surely stressful. The day before Sunny became ill I took him to be groomed. He always hated that annual visit to get a hair cut, but this time was worse because the groomer was very grumpy and didn't even seem to like dogs. I actually hesitated to leave him there that day. I'll never know the trigger, but I do know that the grooming day was very stressful for Sunny and that he was never the same dog afterward.

Leslie Oceanside

My dog has just died of what seems to be AIHA. He was 13 years old but a very sturdy mongrel. Unfortunately he did not react to steroids (he was given Dexaven and Imiozol). Due to the lack of any reaction to the steroids, the vets think he was poisoned. Is this possible? Do you know of a toxin capable of inducing AIHA in a dog? I should add that well before the anemia (which lasted a week) the dog also exhibited other strange symptoms including pain in his rear legs and what might be described as paranoid behaviour. This may or may not be related to the AIHA. Although I can't bring my dog back, the thought that he was intentionally poisoned is very troubling, hence the post.

Toby Poland

I lost my dog in September 2008. She was a cross collie and she was only 7 years old. She was a strong healthy dog as she always came to work with me and ran around. She started with a bad joint problem in one of her rear legs. I took her to the vets and they x-rayed her leg and dianosed it and told me she needed plenty of rest and gave me anti-inflammatrys and anitbiotics. She straight away refused to go for a short walk or into the garden to relieve her self. I took her back to the vets and explained what she was doing and the vet said that it was understandable that she was refusing to walk. So I took her home and thought to myself, that her leg most be so painful that this was why she was had chosen to take to her bed. Anyway 3 weeks after my last visit to the vets, she began to change even more. I noticed she had bright yellow poo on the wednesday, which I thought was strange and on the Thursday she refused to eat, so on the Friday night I took to the vets and the vet saw that she was jaudice. She was taken straight away into the hospital. She was treated straight away with steriods and blood samples were taken, they told me that they suspected my dog Polly had Haemolytic Amaemia but they could not confirm this until Monday because the lab was closed. Polly never made it. On the Saturday they said to me that they would not do a blood tranfusion because she was better off with her own blood. She died from a heart attack on the Sunday. I was told her blood cells were in fragments. I felt extremely let down by the vets. They said I was unlucky. I still dont understand everything that had happened prior to her death and I dont really know if everything was done to help Polly.

Gael UK

Hi Gael, I had the same problem as you. My dog was taken to the vets with anaemia and a PCV of 12 and taken to the hospital for a transfusion. They thought his haemolytic anaemia was caused by ticks and treated him with Imoxil. The lab recommended serelogical tests which dont appear to ever have been done. 7 days later, my dog was desperately ill. I begged them to do another transfusion and they didnt. He died the next morning gasping for breath. Well, I'm researching and researching and I've already questioned the vets. I'm just preparing a list of questions for the animal hospital. If you want to chat, feel free to email me. Its torture going through this alone

Karen Thomson Portugal

This thread was discussed between 18/11/2008 and 29/01/2009

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