kudzu

In your place I would get her to the vet to check for back problems since they can be serious but don't get too worried yet. It may be something minor. My "niece" is staying with us for a few days. (I do not consider my dogs to be my children, yet I call my sister's dog my niece. Go figure!) She is a Corgi & just shy of 10 yo. She is still racking up the agility titles but they are careful now after a few episodes of pain which included the need to carry her up & down stairs. Once it was a strain in her back but the other times it was actually a rear leg. It's possible she strained her back compensating for the leg. She takes a joint/arthritis supplement daily. Has special exercises & massage my sister does frequently, especially after a lot of exercise. Plus she gets Traumeel, a homeopathic med, after a big workout or when she seems painful, which is rare now. Hopefully this is just a minor strain or soft tissue injury & you will see her cute bunny-butt bouncing up & down the stairs soon.

Soldi, you are beautiful! I have heard of & used Gastriplex. Vet recommended it for one of my dogs. It was helpful short term, early in his saga but his issues were not colitis & way bigger than any supplement could solve. If I'd thought of it I would have tried it for my girl's intermittent colitis. We battled intermittent colitis for a year. Finally switched to a no grains diet. Problems disappeared & have not recurred for 8+ months. Sorry the problem has cropped up again for Soldi. Hope you find a solution that does not involve pred. That gorgeous girl deserves another 6 years without colitis.

Gabapentin can throw off your equilibrium for a couple days when you first start using it. Keep that in mind if he looses his balance when getting up & down or looks a bit wobbly. The effect is temporary & goes away as the body adjusts. Hope the mads help him feel much more comfortable.

Our group does the SNAP testing but does not do tick panels. They do not promote having them done. However, it is not a secret or anything kept quiet. We had tick panels run on both mine but without the babesia. Both were positive for Lyme but only my girl proved to have an active infection. For several reasons we later went back & ran tests for babesia & toxoplasmosis on my male. He came back positive for both. Toxo, not a tick disease, just showed exposure but babesia titers were high. We have just finished his Imizol treatment. Treating was not an easy choice to make. He is 11 yo. After considering everything though, treating seemed the less risky option. If your dogs are asymptomatic you may want to consider getting PCR testing from NC State before deciding to treat. Just know that if it comes back negative you would likely be recommended to repeat the test to ensure it was not a false negative. I would not hesitate to treat a healthy dog who has a true babesia infection. It can be devastating.

Oh no! Gus with the polyneuropathy? Poor boy. Well, it hardly matters now but it makes me wonder if his is paraneoplastic polyneuropathy. I am so sorry. So many things at once for you.

My girl was able to pull bandages off with a muzzle on so am assuming she could have pulled stitches out. Bought a stool guard just in case we are in that situation again hoping it would help prevent that sort of thing.

Giving the metamucil a second vote. It's worked here & is what I reach for before Immodium. Have used Immodium but only as a fall back. (Used it for a larger dog so cannot suggest a dose.)

Hoping the lack of news is a good sign. Sending good thoughts to your girl.

The above suggestions are very good. So many possibilities come to mind but your description reminds me a bit of my dog who had internal bleeds from tumors that caused extreme weakness & inappetance that would resolve fairly quickly. Were his gums pale? Did the vet check for signs of anemia? If it happens again be sure to check capillary refill by pressing on the gums to see how fast the color comes back. If gums are very pale or color is slow to return after pressure, get your pup to the vet ASAP. Would like to stress that some orthopedic or neurological problems as mentioned above seems more likely so don't panic. Hopefully it will be a one time event.

All I can say is, my dog sliced her foot from webbing underneath up to the top in her own yard with no obvious source of damage, except... We were on vacation & it was the critter sitter at home. The pup in question went flying around the corner of the house & sitter heard a bang then dog scream. Dog comes limping back around to front of house with bleeding paw. Best guess is she ran into the fence or the panel of a 10' X 30' pen on the side of the house. The slice was clean & we let it heal without trying to rejoin the webbing. She is fine now. We never found anything in the yard that could cause that sort of damage. Years ago I had a dog come into from the yard with a puncture wound on lower leg. Never found the source of the damage. Neither incident has been repeated. Sometimes you can't prevent the freak accidents. Hope Sol heals without further incident. That's gotta hurt!

What mix is she? It wouldn't include Shar Pei would it?

Check this site also: http://www.geocities.com/bailey_chair/

Ditto what ahicks said. Didn't think the testing for MG cost that much but if they also added in a few other tests like xray, barium study, etc. that would run the price up. Definitely join the mega-e group & read their strategies for managing this. Dr. Stack from Greythealth has a dog with mega-e. She may be able to offer you some insight. Please don't do anything rash yet. Be very careful feeding your girl. Try very small but frequent meals. Different dogs handle different texture foods better than others. One trick is to find a canned food that can be formed into a meatball that will basically roll down their throat but they must have their heads up & preferably their entire front end. Has is she doing drinking water?

Oh, dear. Poor little doll. Very glad you got him to the vet. Hope the surgery went well & Whippet is on the mend.

We're in an area with lots of heartworm problems. Mine on on HW prevention year round but we still test annually.

Time to see the vet. If nothing is obvious to vet, get blood work. Hope this is something minor & very temporary.

Yep, that makes sense. There are so many forms of polyneuropathy that it is hard to make comparisons between the dogs. Do keep an eye out for the swallowing problems & if he regurgitates, let your vet know. Hopefully the pred will help as well as the carafate.

My polyneuropathy dog, as well as many others, had problems swallowing. He also had slow GI motility in general. As time went on this had a dramatic effect on his appetite. If Gus does not improve quickly you can ask the vet for metoclopramide (Reglan) which is both an antinausea drug but also a prokinetic. It will speed up motility & the side benefit for many dogs is an increase in appetite. It is really worth a try. Also, you could try Zantac instead of Pepcid. It can also help with motility, which is not a feature of Pepcid. So sorry you are dealing with so many issues at once. It is a huge stress to begin with & the vet bills make is so much worse. Wish there was more I could offer. Hmmm... does Gus seem to get weaker the more he moves? Is he swallowing OK? He isn't regurgitating is he?

Nope but have hear since that the feds are onto that trick. Company still ships the stuff but you much send them a prescription. We could have done that but I decide to "surprise" the internist with a little "present". There is a great, but extremely busy, Cushing's list on Yahoo: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/CanineC...AutoimmuneCare/ If you are not already a member you may want to join. Folks there could give you the scoop on importing these days. You've probably already seen all this but will posts links just in case: FDA Import page http://www.fda.gov/ora/import/pipinfo.htm Import Procedure manual http://www.fda.gov/ora/compliance_ref/rpm/default.htm Exhibits page with link to forms & letter samples http://www.fda.gov/ora/compliance_ref/rpm/...er9/ch9-21.html Lysodren has worked effectively & surprisingly safely for many dogs. You do not necessarily need to switch. A few dogs actually handle lysodren better than trilostane. However, I sure found trilostane a lot less scary than lysodren.

What they said, buffered aspirin. Given with food it seems less likely to cause tummy probs. Dogs do not process ibuprofen (Motrin) like humans do. I know of no safe dose. Would guess baby motrin also has ibuprofen as the active ingredient. Don't know for sure since the only baby around here is me.

I had a little non-Grey foster, turned into a forever foster, with Cushing's. She was started on Anipryl with only minor improvements in symptoms. Insisted on referral. Sent to UGA where we were offered either lysodren or trilostane (Vetoryl) but because of the extremely horrible skin manifestations in this dog lysodren was recommended. Results were amazing. She was feeling better & skin healing even before loading was done. But loading took a while, had to reload twice & eventually the dose was so high it became too toxic for her liver. Switch to trilostane was needed. UGA vet processed paperwork for FDA waiver. In the meantime I ordered trilostane directly from UK. Pup was already transferred to trilostane & having her recheck before FDA waiver came through. The transition from one drug to the other was not a complete breeze. We'd had to lower her lysodren dose to protect her liver while waiting for the order form UK to arrive. In the meantime her skin infections returned with a vengence & the poor ol' gal was miserable. Then again, no worries about sending her into addisons by switching too fast. Her Cushing's was highly resistant & even her trilostane dose was quite high but she tolerated it well. Took a while for skin to heal, one of the reasons we'd used lysodren in the first place, but it did & she did well on trilostane until her time came to leave us from orthopedic issues 18 mos later. She was estimated at 15-16 yo.

I've not titered for rabies but for the other titers we've had run it usually cost about $10-15 more for titers rather than vaccines. Not cheap, but not so expensive I would opt for vaccination. Don't know what to tell you for a pup.

Seizures come in a huge variety & dogs can be responsive during a partial seizure. http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/CanineEpil.htm I've not had much experience with seizures but have seen both generalized (gran mal) & partial. The partial seizure I witnessed was in a Greyhound with a history of infrequent, mild seizures. It started as the dog just lifting a hind leg & then putting it down. She began to look very anxious & slowly, stiffly walked to her owner. She then stood in a strange position as both back legs began shaking. She finally relaxed & within a couple minutes seemed fine. It was not the terrifying scene of a generalized seizure but clearly was distressing to the dog. Her recovery was much, much quicker than it would have been from a generalized seizure. Hope for your dog this was just a fear or stress reaction to a noise & not a seizure. Something to keep an eye on. You might want to keep a written record of this in case it happens again. Perhaps you would see a pattern.

Very glad her outward symptoms are improving. Concerning treatment with Anipryl, it is a good place to start but please be sure to continue to do follow up ACTH stim tests. Do not let the vet tell you it is not needed because you are using Anipryl. Elevated cortisol is a serious problem & taking Anipryl will not negate that. Anipryl is not a bad drug but you must make sure it is helping lower the cortisol levels.

My anecdote: Adopted Venus, my first Grey, & thought she was limping occasionally but it was hard to narrow it down to one leg. Vet's found nothing. Suggested joint supplements as a "just in case" for arthritis in wrists. Helped a bit but decided to run a tick panel. (Her SNAP3 test had been negative.) She came up positive for Lyme but at a point where vet said in the past they would not have treated an asymptomatic dog & at that time V was considered asymptomatic. We decided to treat. Limping went away & Venus became much more energetic & playful. Just our experience.