galgrey

Great news!

I feel and understand your pain.

You have my positive and healing thoughts!

Sending positive thoughts for a clean x ray and that she sails through her chemo. And hugs to you.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Worth checking into I think.

Welcome, Nance. We are pretty crazy about our greys for sure. Once bitten by the greyhound bug, most never recover!

This isn't uncommon. My bridge girl, Chloe, developed an obstruction from a piece of plastic she ingested. She tore up a vinyl squeaky toy and I took it away from her right away not realizing she had already swallowed a few pieces. Weeks later the vomiting and retching started ..... when she was opened up there was a piece of the toy! I'm so glad that they found the blockage in time and I'm sending good thoughts that Chevy recovers quickly and completely.

I'm sending you and Chevy healing thoughts. Keep us posted.

That emotional roller coaster is so hard. {{hug}} I'm glad to hear she's showing progress and I will continue to send you both healing thoughts and prayers.

OMG! Lots of healing thoughts to sweet Brody.

Hello and welcome! He's adorable. Is he a lurcher?

Absolutely! Me too, Eva!

Thank you, Dr. Feeman.

Lots of prayers and white light for you and your beloved boys!

I'm so sorry. I lost my first one the same way.

Oh no! I'm so very sorry.

His THS was 10 and his T4 was 11. I still worry that I didn't do everything I could have for him

Yes, there is a difference. Dr. Dodd and some other vets believes that as much as 80% of hypothyroidism in dogs results from autoimmune (lymphocytic) thyroiditis. If I understand it correctly, a complete thyroid autoantibody panel is necessary to test for thyroiditis. In people there's a condition called Hashimoto's disease. In Hashimoto's, antibodies react against proteins in the thyroid gland, causing gradual destruction of the gland itself, making the gland unable to produce the thyroid hormones. So the disease itself causes the hypothyroidism. I know about this from my own thyroid issues and am just assuming here that it works basically the same way in dogs. Just like a person can be hypothyroid without having Hashimoto's disease, dogs can by hypothyroid without having autoimmune thyroiditis. No. Autoimmune thyroiditis and lymphocytic thyroiditis are specific thyroid disorders. "euthyroid sick" is when the dog has an infection or some other disease or stressor and the T4 reading is low; there is nothing wrong with the thyroid in this case, and a full thyroid panel will generally show that. Ok, that makes sense now.

Is "euthyroid sick" the same as autoimmune thyroiditis or lymphocytic thyroiditis?

That is certainly a possibility and Dr. Watkins and I discussed it. He tended to agree with you, however, another vet I consulted felt there was a direct relationship between his low thyroid function and neurological/immune system decline. Because I have thyroid issues myself and have had lots of tests with lots of specialists, I find there is some major disagreement among human doctors about the thyroid and it's relationship to multiple body systems. Seems every other one I've seen has assured me that the previous specialist was wrong. It guess vets are no different. For myself, I will always wonder about Keno and will certainly want to rule it out in the future if any of my dogs have similar problems. edited because I can't type.

Here's one by Dr. Dodd: LINK TO ARTICLE. I'm sending Cricket white light and healing thoughts. I know how frustrating it is to watch helplessly as they begin to have multiple system problems and for no apparent reason.

I've been especially missing my boy, Keno, recently. He left us in January and the impact of his loss still comes in waves. Anyway, he had LP (laryngeal paralysis), LS (lumbosacral stenosis), and other neurological symptoms that appeared to be autoimmune in origin. Being an avid internet researcher, I compiled lots of info on his variety of symptoms and passed these along to my vet as we tried to piece together what was going on with him in the beginning. I came across this folder in my favorites today and I thought posting this might help someone who's struggling with their dog's health issues. It's not always the case, but indicated in some of these problems (and in some dogs) is hypothyroidism. Because Keno didn't seem to exhibit any of the "classic symptoms" of hypothyroidism, my vet didn't think adding a complete thyroid panel to our long list of tests was necessary, but did it at my request and sent it to Michigan. He was very surprised when Keno's lab results showed he was extremely hypothyroid (very low thyroid function even for a greyhound). And all without many of the classic symptoms -- hair loss, weigh gain, cold intolerance, etc. We started him on medication right away, but sadly, I had to help him to the bridge only a fews weeks later. Even if your hound isn't showing the classic low thyroid symptoms, hypothyroidism or autoimmune thyroid disease could be contributing to his/her neurological and/or autoimmunity problems. Not all vets agree that there is a relationship, but many do. Dr. Jean Dodds is one of them. She believes animals with autoimmune thyroid disease have generalized metabolic imbalance and often have associated immunological/neurological dysfunction. I'm not sure it would have made a difference for my beloved Keno, but I will always wonder if I had insisted on a thyroid panel earlier (and his thyroid function was corrected) would he have gone into such rapid decline with multiple neurological (polyneuropathy) and autoimmune problems. Just something to think about, research, talk to your vet about if your dog is having some of these problems.

I'm so very sorry.

I'm glad he's finally on the road to recovery. It sounds like you did just the right thing with the exploratory surgery. Keep us posted!