MaryJane

You need to get a culture so you can confirm that the bacteria is susceptible to the antibiotic otherwise, you can end up with worse problems. I would not start any OTC medicines until you know for sure you are on an antibiotic that is working.

If she has been sick you might just want to consider doing a bland diet of cooked hamburger and rice for a week or so. That usually helps the GI system because it is easy to digest.

What I meant by nutrition is a nutrient deficiency. I'm not sure what dogs need and what yours are getting and the type of seizures. But, in humans lack of magnesium and other nutrients, or a malabsorbtion thereof can lead to seizures as can blood sugar issues. I really hope she feels better soon. Seizures are scary! Hugs. The blood sugar is one of the items that I read about earlier and I actually started to give just a touch of molasses with breakfast and I am keeping ice cream on hand for after seizures because the sugar can drop so much. I haven't heard about the magnesium but, will investigate further and also check the other vitamin levels.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

It's good information to hear that other greyhounds have had the spinal taps and suffered no ill effects and that it really made a difference in the course of events. I'm glad to hear that both dogs made it through what was serious life-threatening situations. Also, to respond to an earlier comment about nutrition, both Larry and Lucy are on home-made diets. One of the concerns with seizures is food additives, pesticides, preservatives and so on but, neither Larry or Lucy ever have commercial dog food and all the food they have is human-grade. They do have store bought treats if I do not have time to make them but, they are "natural" vegan ones. I also use "gentle" cleaning products and don't use any of the "sols" (like ly-sol, pinesol) around the house.

Again, very good points ... Any results that would come back from the spinal tap would be a "ruling out" things like meningitis, encephalitis and so on and in this case, there are no issues with it being contagious to humans or other animals. In those cases I assume that antibiotics would be the drug of choice. The MRI is to rule out a tumor, if there is one it would be questionable whether it is malignant and operable and as mentioned, whether it is a path I would want to pursue. If it is not operable and malignant, then her lifespan would be measured in months ... maybe a year... There is also some good advice given in just getting her on seizure medicine and if necessary, I could always do an MRI and spinal tap later. I'm going to get back to the neurologist and discuss some of these points.

Thanks for the good information. A few points to address some of the questions raised.. The neurologist does not think that we are dealing with a tumor because of Lucy's age - she just turned 5. As mentioned above, since Lucy is going under for the MRI, the spinal tap would be done at the same time so she doesn't have to be subjected to anesthesia twice. The spinal tap would be done to rule out "possible but, unlikely diseases" - so it is a fishing expedition. The big expense is MRI running at 2K+ while the spinal tap is only about $200, so I'm more concerned about making the right choice for the current time and for the future. As noted above, it seems to be the process now that if a dog goes under for an MRI they do a spinal tap at the same time. Lucy already had bloodwork and a check for TBDs back in March of this year when she had the first seizure and the results were unremarkable. She didn't have a full thyroid panel done but the results on what was tested for was unremarkable and the neurologist concurred. We also tested for lead as I live in an older home and just had extensive remodeling/addition and the seizure could conceivable been caused by exposure to "lead dust". Good point about making sure that her "hips" are noted as being fine before she undergoes any procedures.

She is not on medicine yet - she just had her fourth seizure (grand mals) on Saturday but they have still been out further than a month (last one was about 5 weeks since the last) but, I know she is escalating and the neurologist concurs. The reason for the MRI is that I want to make sure that I have the proper baselines in place before she goes on the medicines and in the case of an MRI - to rule out a brain tumor. If there is a tumor, there may be a chance to remove it and I would like to have the option of having that information and then possibly pursuing surgery if that is a viable option. The spinal tap would rule out things like encephalitis, and possibly meningitis both of which would likely have a different treatment plan than just treating for seizures.

I think what might be deceiving is that you want to be know how much "total protein" your dog is getting daily and not the "percentage of the food that is protein". If a dog does not have kidney issues then you don't need to watch the protein intake but, if there are kidney issues then the conventional procedure is to limit protein/phosphorous and to make sure the protein is a good protein. So for example -- a 4oz portion of ground turkey has 22 grams of protein. One of those ground turkey packages has 20oz so a total of 110 grams of protein. Larry's (my greyhound with minor kidney issues) intake of meat protein per day is about 5 to 6 oz total - so less than 30 grams of meat protein daily. He also gets rice and oatmeal which adds to the protein intake but not as much as the meat does. So, if someone is on a raw diet isn't there a formula of how many pounds of meat a dog requires per day based on their weight. And, according to my calculations, a pound of meat is going to be about 90 grams of protein. A previous dog of mine had what turned out to be an acute kidney issue and I monitored his urine every day with a dipstick to see how much protein was showing up in the urine and adjusting his protein intake based on that. It turned out that to keep protein from showing up in his urine I had to limit his meat protein intake to less than 8oz a day (while he was going through this acute issue). After a few months on the diet we rechecked blood values and I was able to start increasing the protein levels but, our conclusions were that the decreased levels of protein are what allowed him to get through the acute issue because it lowered the amount of work the kidneys had to do.

Lucy has had a few seizures and she will be going on medicine to control them but, before I start the medicines I am going to have a MRI to ensure that there are no other issues like a tumor that could be causing the seizures. The neurologist has said that they also like to do a spinal tap at the same time as the MRI to rule out meningitis as a cause. The MRI is not invasive except that she needs anesthesia so I'm OK with that but the spinal tap is pretty invasive and there are a few things that can go wrong. The neurologist would be the one doing the procedure and he has a good amount of experience. Has anyone had this procedure done on your pet and did you find it worthwhile/would you do it again?

Hoping that Gee gets past the neurological event and that the surgery goes successfully.

Did you get an x-ray? If not, I would suggest bringing Mira back in and getting one.

Did you by chance see them take the x-ray - reason I ask is that the bruising might have been caused by a bit of rough handling. As others have already noted, you might want to have the platelets checked just in case. On the urinary incontinence - I noticed that she had a UA but, did she have a culture? Did the vet suggest putting her on cranberry pills? As to the blood in urine - it indicates irritation and the cause of that could be the reason for the incontinence. The red raspberries extract - you might want to discontinue for a bit until you can check whether it could be having an aspirin like effect (causing bleeding). RED FLAG - also seeing the omega 3-6-9 (in addition to the red raspberries) and if this is from fish oil then that could also has "aspirin like" tendencies for bleeding.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that a higher protein/phosphorous diet which is usually found in raw diets (and high protein commercial diets) could cause protein to spill over into the urine but, there would likely be another issue going on which is causing the kidneys not to be able to handle the protein. I agree that the urine needs to get checked again.

Thanks for the update - it's good news that he is not only holding his own but getting better.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Hoping it's an easy fix.

As to the chemo, with my angel Onyx it would make him pretty sick but he got the chemo back maybe 7 years ago and at that time they were not giving nausea medicines to combat it. In addition to being sick for two to three days, the first night he had to go out every 15 minutes which is pretty unusual, most times the dogs will have to go frequently because of all the fluids they give to wash out the chemo but, not that often. After the chemo treatment he would usually rebound after a few days and be feeling OK. For the day or two of nausea, I would feed cheerios in yogurt - his favorite. Make friends with the chemo nurse (bring coffee, donuts, snacks whatever), because she or the vet tech is going to be the one looking after your greyhound in what could be a "whole day affair with the chemo". I was lucky because Onyx's nurse would usually get him herself when I came in and because of that, we didn't have to wait in the waiting room and get him all upset. The same thing with my picking him up, once she knew I was there she would bring him out herself rather than calling an aide to do it. My Onyx had grown back all the fur after the amputation but, with the chemo, they have them lying on the bare floor which usually rubs their legs pretty bare and they may not let you bring in a blanket because of the toxicity of the chemo in the urine .... you might want to check though and just bring in a "throwaway rug" or something. I had him on a "cancer diet" but, like others have said, I'm not sure if it helped or not but, I don't think it hurt.

What a pretty girl! Welcome to GT.

I'm so sorry for this outcome.

Could be a UTI - try and bring a sterile urine sample into the vet.

I agree with above - greyhound should not be drinking pool water. Also, the caution about greyhounds and pools is really worth taking note of - if they fall in they might not be able to get out.

Unless needed earlier for other reasons, I usually get a first baseline right around age 5. If everything is OK, you may not need another until they get to "senior" which is around 8 or 9 and then I start getting yearly (or every 8 months .. depends on how the dog is) blood work.

spider bite? I agree with others above, do an OSU consult.

I'm just curious, why didn't you just take your dog out of the park after your first verbal exchange when he said something about his dog nipping other dogs?