Anyone Have Experience With This

[Guest Keevabat]

 

I don’t know where else to turn and I am hoping someone here might have some advice or may have unfortunately experience this same thing with there greyhound.

 

Wednesday night around 6:15 my 4 year old male greyhound just didn’t seem right. I called his name and he walked up to me and yelped. He stood frozen stiff like a statue along side me. His neck was tight, his ears were pinned back to his head, and his mouth was closed. Then he started to shake, but only from the shoulders forward. He never lay down and the shaking lasted about 15min. After which he couldn’t seem to get comfortable and was panting a lot. He also had kind of a drunken gate and almost fell over a couple of times. I gave him ½ of a Rymadal and we took him to the vet. Our regular vet was not available so we saw the vet on call. The following tests were done:

 

Hw/Lyme/Ehrlichia Combo Test

Heartworm Occult Antigen Test

X-ray of his stomach to make sure he had not eaten something foreign

Fluids Subcutaneous large (for the supposed dehydration)

Health Profile/CBC

CBC (sent out to the lab)

 

The following medications were prescribed:

Proscribed

Prednisone

Pepcid

Tramadal (I have not seen a need for this)

 

At first the vet thought my gray’s platelets were low and his red cells were high and that he was dehydrated but after doing some research she found out all his levels were normal for a greyhounds. Last night we got the call that the entire series of tests they sent out came back negative. The only apparent thing wrong with him was his neck was sore and due to his chronic yeast infections in his ears the vet suggested I do a course of treatment for that. I was also told that we should wean him off the prednisone and just wait and see if this happens again. My greyhound seems fine now but I am on pins and needles dreading that it may happen again and that all this was not due to a yeast infection in his ears.

 

[turbotaina]

The drunken gait is often the sign of a vestibular event, so it's very possible the chronic ear problems played a part. I have no answer for the yelp and shaking episode. I think that seizures are generally shorter in duration, but not necessarily. I do think I'd run a full tick panel, however. There's a lot more out there than just erlichia and lyme.

 

Hope you can get to the bottom of it!

[Ragsysmum]

Sounds like a reaction to sudden pain. May actually be nothing more serious than a bad cramp in a front leg or shoulder muscle and as with human leg cramps massaging and walking round to ease the muscle may be the solution if this happens again. Hope that's all it is anyway. Good luck with your boy.

[Guest LJMandBBM]

Deleted. Wrong thread. Sorry!

Edited April 18, 2008 by LJMandBBM

[Loveofgreys]

I have just gone through this with my girl, BeBe. We were traveling in our motorhome, and the same thing happened She also had a fever. She did have a fever. the first vet (Myrtle Beach, Banfields, Petsmart) I think gave her too much predisone for too long. She came right out of her dizziness, but a week later we were in Jacksonville, FL and she vomited digested blood and it was in her stool. The second ver, also Banfields at Petsmart, put her on IV's for 2 days and I am weaning her off prednisone, and giving her meds twice a day. She is almost back to her normal self but lost lots of weight. It was scary for us since we had little choice about where to go, but beware of prednisone!! I am hoping she is on the mend now.

I don’t know where else to turn and I am hoping someone here might have some advice or may have unfortunately experience this same thing with there greyhound.

 

Wednesday night around 6:15 my 4 year old male greyhound just didn’t seem right. I called his name and he walked up to me and yelped. He stood frozen stiff like a statue along side me. His neck was tight, his ears were pinned back to his head, and his mouth was closed. Then he started to shake, but only from the shoulders forward. He never lay down and the shaking lasted about 15min. After which he couldn’t seem to get comfortable and was panting a lot. He also had kind of a drunken gate and almost fell over a couple of times. I gave him ½ of a Rymadal and we took him to the vet. Our regular vet was not available so we saw the vet on call. The following tests were done:

 

Hw/Lyme/Ehrlichia Combo Test

Heartworm Occult Antigen Test

X-ray of his stomach to make sure he had not eaten something foreign

Fluids Subcutaneous large (for the supposed dehydration)

Health Profile/CBC

CBC (sent out to the lab)

 

The following medications were prescribed:

Proscribed

Prednisone

Pepcid

Tramadal (I have not seen a need for this)

 

At first the vet thought my gray’s platelets were low and his red cells were high and that he was dehydrated but after doing some research she found out all his levels were normal for a greyhounds. Last night we got the call that the entire series of tests they sent out came back negative. The only apparent thing wrong with him was his neck was sore and due to his chronic yeast infections in his ears the vet suggested I do a course of treatment for that. I was also told that we should wean him off the prednisone and just wait and see if this happens again. My greyhound seems fine now but I am on pins and needles dreading that it may happen again and that all this was not due to a yeast infection in his ears.

 

[Trudy]

You gave a rymadal before going to the vet. So if you found reason for the rymadal, then there's reason for the tramadol.

 

It sounds like pain to me, maybe in the neck. But there are so many things that could cause those symptoms.

If it was sudden, then maybe a pinched nerve, was laying wrong and tweaked it when getting up, just a quick owie that hurts a lot.

 

 

We went for a long walk 6 months ago. Toward the end we had to stop and lay in the grass with Ryan. Then a little slower the rest of the way home.

Next day we went to a local dog show. He yelped when Jet ran into him. Pooped liquid when there and was just a little slow. The next day he could barely walk around the block. It took us about 30 minutes to do what would normally take 5 on a slow day. We were at the vet later that day - turns out Ryan had a huge clot in his neck - which started a long chain of events/problems that we still don't know what is. He would shake when he was hurting.

 

Hopefully what you are seeing is something simple with an easy fix or even better, something that has already resolved itself.