LuvAPuppy

Have no advice on the cost, but it is a wonderful drug! My IG was on it twice a day for years and years. Ultimately not her heart that took her, but brain cancer.

IIRC knots take longer to dissolve. Mousie removed hers from her spay surgery. The rest of the incision healed well except for a tiny area at the end of the incision. It never looked red, swollen or infected. She kept licking it until she took the knot out and it was mostly closed and healed two days later

Any oral med can have a side effect of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea; including those meds that are for nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. (I know, right?) Neuro side effects are a possibility with Flagyl. My IG had liver toxicity while on a continuous dose to try to treat suspected IBD. Once off of it and a several month, maybe a several year treatment of Milk Thistle and SamE (before it was considered common for liver support) and her enzymes returned to normal. Neither vet in the practice had ever seen liver effects before.

My vet will not. Never do a "dirty" surgery with a "clean" surgery UNLESS your patient is such a fragile anesthesia risk that they're possibly damned either way.

Many pharmacies carry Tramadol as a $4.00 Rx for #30, (in the US at least and I didn't notice if you have your location listed). However if he's going home this evening yet and you don't have any nearby 24 hour pharmacies -- bit the bullet and pay more for it at the vet -- don't make him go without

My vet refuses to vaccinate my 16yo. She had her yearlies from the time I got her at age 2 until she was 14. She doesn't leave the house/property anymore except to go to my fiancees once a week. She's too arthritic for her walks around the block and she's retired from rescue events. I'm not fostering anymore except in a desperate emergency because of her blindness and deafness -- it freaks her out too much so the vet just said they weren't going to recommend exposing her to the extra chemicals.

my Dane had No. Other. Thyroid symptoms but frequent staph infection. Her weight was good, her coat was gorgeous glossy black, she was bouncy and perky. I worked for the lab back then so I did my own labs and I always did the big panel. The T4 was off. My vet didn't believe it because she had No. Other. Symptoms and asked to send out to MSU which I was fine with. She was hypothyroid. Do the test. Worst case is it comes back normal and that's not the problem

HI from Fort Wayne!

I loved Poodle stories and based on those stories I know you gave him a great dignity sparing gift of freedom from his diabetes and decline. And while you've spared us the details, based on your comment in his other thread about a not peaceful passing, I'd say he went out in Poodle style. My poodle bit the vet and then peed on the vet before he crossed over. Must be that's just the way of their kind!

I suspect, not seeing any of the test results or anything, that you have misdiagnosis. A dog with DCM has a hugely enlarged, friable heart with thin walls and little pumping power. As others mentioned it is always progressive and requires multiple medications to increase the pumping power and allow the heart to move the blood through the dog effectively since the heart is so weak. An old friend of mine had a Boxer that actually lived to be 9 or 10 with DCM and it's not her heart that took her, but a ruptured hemangiosarcoma (Boxer are prone to both diseases). Ohio State was fascinated and really studied her case intently. My best guess would be, again, not having seen the tests or being there or anything, that your hound would have immediately been placed on Vetmedin, Enalapril and Lasix immediately after diagnosis with the option of Spirolactone being the last resort addition. OT - I wonder how much CoQ10 an IG can have? Mousie has total left sided heart failure. she's doing well on the above meds, but now I have to go research this addition

NOOOOO What about for tiny dogs????? Mousie has been on half tab once a day because she thinks her head itches (long story, looking in to a second opinion) and this is the only thing that keeps her from carving sores in her chin and the bridge of her nose. EEK

Dr Cooltoes? I love autocorrect I've never met him but we should start calling him this I have nothing useful to add except thoughts and prayers, and that from way back when while I worked at the vet lab. those values look predominantly normal - "blood cancer" which is leukemia or lymphoma would have mucho drastic skews in your WBC and the cells would look funny on the slide. Cell morphology was normal and the counts were fine. Platelet clumping is not uncommon, (it's particularly common in cats, cat slides were hard to read). Until late last year my 15yo IG and I used to walk a mile per day. She started slowing down last fall either from the CHF or the arthritis. She struggled to walk a block comfortably just this past weekend and it was in the 60s here. I need to keep her moving around because it's great for her heart failure and good to keep her joints from being too frozen, but I think her power walking days are over. We'll start slow and see what happens

My 15 yo Mousie has three of those and three or four more in development. My vet doesn't remove them unless they cause problems. They must itch periodically because sometimes she'll scratch them. One has abscessed twice but it's easily treatable with antibiotics. He said that just happens sometimes. They're ugly but harmless

I'd choose Natural Balance, but keep a close eye on the ingredients as it was just recently bought out by Mars or P&G or DelMonte or something. I'm still using their duck roll, but I check it carefully before I give it to her. Or I'd go Wellness. My dog didn't care for Pinnacle, but I've heard great things. I used to use Nutro 17 years ago, but don't care for some of the changes since then. I used Calif Natural also but again, it was purchased by a mass marketer, and their quality has gone down while their recalls have gone up, just like Nutro. My cat is on Royal Canin prescription S/O for crystals and he loves it and seems to do well. I used one of their formulas for a short time for the dog until she got tired of it. Right now in addition to the Wellness she's getting Nature's Variety raw bites. I don't think she loves it as much as she did a few weeks ago, but she eats it. I can rotate between chicken, duck and lamb for her so she doesn't get too bored.

Miss your posts Chris, miss your pictures and now miss BabyGirl too Hard to imagine she was 14, I still remember your early posts to the board like it was just a few months ago.

My vet office refuses to write Rx for mail order places for all of these reasons. I can get Rx for Mousie's Tramadol and Enalapril to buy at my local pharmacy where they cost $4.00 each, but they phone it to the pharmacy instead of writing it on an Rx pad.

Telfa pads too, instead of gauze. I use nothing but Telfa because they don't stick. Telfa and coban (aka: Vetwrap).

(OT) Thanks, that's good to know. I know when I was actively nursing if it was over 6hrs old we'd steri-strip them up, tell the patient it was going to likely leave some scaring and send them on their way.

In human medicine, and that doesn't mean it applies to vet medicine, wounds need to be sutured within 6 hours or it's more difficult to heal

It might be more of a pick up time issue. When I worked at Antech we were open on Saturday well in to the evening and the Indy lab overnight. But the couriers only ran until 1pm because that's when the clinics closed. Anything after that had to wait until Monday pickup time, which depending on the clinic location could be afternoon or evening. Weekdays our stuff had to be to Indy by 1am so the couriers were back in the lab by 7pm. Again no problem for the city clinics but anything outlying (we had all of northern Indiana) were out of luck until the next day's scheduled stop. Culture needs to be set up within a certain hours after collection or the goodies will die. They need warm and dark to thrive.

I stand (or sit with her in my lap since my dog is an IG) and reach up from under her head to use my thumb and forefinger to pinch a small gap/pocket in the lower eyelid and put the drop in the gap.

I did from the back for my IG. The vet gave me a long, narrow plastic container that I bleached and now use to contain pens and pencils. I slid it under her tail from behind and don't think she even realized I'd been there!

I can't say of course if it's the same thing but many years ago my dad developed a raised pink blister on the white part of his eye. I don't recall that they tried to sample it but the ophthalmologist said it was an allergy reaction. He was on Claritin for several months and it resolved and never returned. Hopefully your strange situation is as simple and quick to cure!

From a human medicine standpoint - it is not Bells. The facial symptoms sound like Bells but in peeps it doesn't affect the limbs. I agree that it sounds more like a neuro event though. The knuckling is because he either can't feel or can't control the limb. Could be from one of the upper cranial nerves or in the brain itself.

Young dogs can get histiocytomas which are benign and normally resolve on their own in 6-8 weeks. MCT very much resemble histio and they are related, wacko reactions of histamine cells. MCT are cancerous. The drug an earlier poster is thinking of is Palladia and it does work. We've had a foster dog on it for inoperable MCT and you can't even see the tumor now. If she's taken off the drug the cancer will leave remission and be terminal. A needle aspirate with examination of the stained cells on a slide should be able to tell which kind of lesion you're dealing with. Surgery definitely for MCT. Leave it alone for a histio.