Tuesday, July 1, 2014

All these medical problems

 This weekend I went to my sister's house in Va. Beach.  We had a good time just hanging out.  Walked on the beach, went shopping and out to eat. Fun!!
When I got home Sunday night. Guiness just looked off to me in his back end.  I asked my husband if he ran around a lot today. He said no. The only thing that was weird was he tried to jump the three steps onto the deck and his back end went out from under him.  Over the next couple of hours his back end got worse, he couldnt get up onto the couch and it would fall out from under him was getting down. All I could think of was he had a tumor pressing on his spinal cord.  I figured I would take him to the vet in the morning. I woke up at 2am, Im not sure why. I checked Guiness and he was worse. He couldnt settle down and now all his legs weren't working right. He would sometimes fall down. I know it couldn't be a tumor progressing this fast. He couldn't rest.  I was rubbing him, trying to get him to calm down and I found a tick on him.   I pulled it off and put it in the freezer.   I started researching wobbling and ticks in dogs on google.  I came across tick paralysis.   It starts in the rear legs and progress forward.  Then effects the diaphragm, esophagus and heart. They dog can die. It said to take them to the vet right away.  So I took him and the frozen tick to the emergency vet. I told them I thought he had tick paralysis. They took him right back.  The vet came and talked to me. She said that she agreed he had tick paralysis but that I already did what needed to be done, remove the tick. After that the dog starts to get better.  She said usually when the dog gets to them, they cant walk at all. She  also said usually they have to shave the dog to find the tick but since I already found it, that didn't need to be done.  She said he would back to normal in the next 12 hours.  By 7:30am he was already so much better. By the end of the day, he was back to normal.  Wow was that a scary disease.

Java hasn't been quit right either. Ugh!  So she was checked by the rehab vet on June 10th and she couldn't find anything wrong.  On June 19th, I took Java to the field to work. She didn't run around and play chase with Miley before hand. She and Miley just laid under the trees while I set up the course.  When I called her out to work, she was limping. WTH??   So I didn't work her. The next day she was find. We didn't do anything but a small walk in the morning. That evening, I took her and Miley for a walk in the neighborhood. She was fine in the house, through the garage, down the driveway and when she hit the street, she had a huge limp. WTH??   There is nothing in her pads or feet.  I don't know what is going on.   On and off , since the end of May, she has been scared of thunder.  But then goes out and uses the bathroom and pouring down rain.   She seemed better, then last night she was out in the back yard and a huge thunder clap came, and she ran in scared again. Ugh.  So I played toys with her to try to get her to forget it. It seemed to help.  Anyway I took her to the rehab vet again on June 26th.  This time she felt that Java's left front leg has more lateral motion in it , then it should.  It also popped when she was doing different things with it. She didn't show any signs of pain. She had full ROM of her shoulder without signs of pain.  So the vet thinks she has subluxation of her left shoulder. Then it could be happening when just walking and the she is sore for a little bit. She wants me to  do underwater treadmill and swimming with her to build up her shoulder muscles.  (I really trust this lady but Im just not sure of this dx.  I cant really find anything on it  on the internet. ) Today I took Java back into the regular vet. I had them repeat her blood work and do tick test on her just to rule that stuff out.  I don't know what to do. Should I just go with it, or try to investigate further??  I don't know.



 So we've been going to the river everyday and Ive been making Java swim. I also make them walk against the current, like an underwater treadmill. No one likes it. LOL




Miley seems to be doing well on her medication. She is able to sleep through the night now. Yay!!!

Stephanie is at college taking summer classes and working.  She has had a UTI. She took a course of antibiotics but she was still having symptoms. So I told her to go back to the school clinic.  She went back and she still had an infection.  They gave her Macrobid. Its an antibiotic that's been around a long time. 24 hours later she calls me and she is having chest pains.  I had her take 2 tums to see if that would help.   When I got off the phone, I looked up Macrobid. OMG!!  There is a huge warning on the medication under side effects:
  "CHRONIC, SUBACUTE, OR ACUTE PULMONARY HYPERSENSITIVITY REACTIONS MAY OCCUR WITH THE USE OF NITROFURANTOIN."

Also heart: "Changes in EKG (e.g., non-specific ST/T wave changes, bundle branch block) have been reported in association with pulmonary reactions"

Holy crap.  I called her back and told her not to take any more of the mediation and call the doctor right away. The saw her right away and did an EKG. It was normal. They told her she could never again take the medication.  They had her stay in the clinic for a while, gave her some other medication, then let her go home.  It took almost a week for the chest pains to go away. She went back to the doctor yesterday and still has a  UTI, so they started her on another antibiotic. This time we looked it up before she took it. It just had regular side effects.

So hopefully things will get better around her and everyone will stay health.

5 comments:

Sheltie Times said...

That's just crazy stuff going on.

Just a note (you may have already thought of this but I find its helpful to suggest), if your daughter has a regular pharmacist she uses (I use a chain so it follows me where ever I go) it isn't a bad idea to have the problem drug listed on her record there. I've had them catch more than once when a drug I've listed is in the same "family" as a drug on my list. Pharmacists can be really good at catching those kinds of issues that docs sometimes miss.

Hope all of you are doing better soon.

Sara said...

Yikes! That is a lot of medical issues! But glad to hear Miley is sleeping thru the night.

HOpe the new meds help stefanie. Those uti's are so painful.

I think if you trust Java's doctor, to go with what she says. Poor thing. There's a new tick borne virus spreading up here, and apparently there are no meds to cure it (antibiotics don't work), and it will kill you if you don't have a good immune system. Scary stuff those ticks.

Dawn said...

Wow. That's a lot of scary stuff. I'm glad you woke up and found that tick on Guiness, and I'm glad you googled to find out what it was, and that you googled Stephanie's meds. What would we do without the internet. River water therapy would be a lot cheaper than taking the dog(s) to a PT....but I guess if they hate it you don't want them hating you so maybe they SHOULD go to a PT!

zoepheedogs said...

Your dogs are gorgeous and they look like they are having such a good time!

zoepheedogs said...

I think I posted on the wrong post. I meant to post the last comment on the Wordless Wednesday post.

That being said, WOW! Poor pup! Tick paralysis is so scary! I haven't been through it myself but I had a friend that did and I used to work at a vet clinic. I hope everyone is feeling better!