Granulomatous Meningoencephalomyelitis (Gme)

[Guest welshbec]

I write dear friends after a dreadful week. Last Saturday we were out with Paco and friends in a country park. He was having a marvellous time off lead with his greyhound friend Cookie - sniffing and peeing on everything and anything! After about 30 minutes we were walking back through a field to our cars when all of a sudden, out of absolutely nowhere, he started screaming. It was a sound that I will never, ever forget - it was blood curdling. He had lifted his right leg as if he had hurt that, but we literally couldn't touch him at all, on any part of his body, without him screaming in pain. Luckily our friends ran off to find the warden with the landrover as Paco could not move. By the time he arrived, Paco had collapsed on top of me and his head was swirling. We rang our vets who told us to take him to the emergency vets, however, it soon became apparent that he would not make it, so we diverted to our vets. It was extremely dramatic and traumatic. By the time we arrived at our vets (5-10 mins after he started screaming) his gums and tongue had turned blue. It was horrendous. The vets put him on oxygen immediately but we were told that he had suffered a massive heart attack and was going to die. The vet sent us out of the room to try and revive him - which they did by giving him an injection to regularise his heart beat. However, he was still thrashing his head. Once relatively stable we transferred him to the emergency vets. They managed to stablise him there and kept him in overnight for tests etc. We were bought utterly distraught and traumatised. The vets rang in the evening to say Paco was much calmer and that the EGC they did was fine - as far as they could tell he had had an heart attack as a result of what they thought was a neurological condition. The following morning they referred him to a specialist hospital 70 miles away. We arrived on Sunday morning to take him to the hospital and he could barely stand without falling over - he seemed to have no control over his back legs.

 

We got him to the hospital on Sunday afternoon and he was weeing and soiling himself as he had no control. It was so upsetting. The following two days were a horrendous process of waiting and grieving - we were sure we were going to lose him. On Monday the specialist rang to say that there was definitely something going on neurologically and they needed to do a MRI and a lumbar puncture. The good news later on that day was that the MRI was clear, but that we would need to wait until Tuesday afternoon for the lumbar puncture results. We had a call on Tuesday to go to the hospital by 4pm - they told us nothing else. It was the worse journey ever - and hour or sheer terror. We arrived at the hospital and after about 10 mins the vet called my name and then I saw my gorgeous little boy on the lead, unsteady, but smiling. My heart literally broke!

 

So, it turns out Paco has a mild form of GME - inflammatory brain disease. There is no telling how he has it. He was prescribed Prednisinole, Zantac and Tramadol. The specialist has told us that he is a very fit and healthy dog and that he has a mild dose. Nevertheless it is a serious condition and until the medication process starts, he could not give us an indication of things to come. He told us that at a minimum he would need to be on tablets for six months. As ecstatic as we were our priority was, and is Paco. We made it perfectly clear to the vet that we did not want him in any pain or not to have quality of life. The vet assured us he was in no pain and was very confident that he would respond to the medication.

 

We brought him home - to my parents who live 20 mins away as they are retired and could watch him whilst we are in work - on Tuesday night and started the medication. Now, nearly a week later, we cannot believe the improvement. He is far, far less wobbly on his feet. In fact he ran around the garden yesterday and jumped off a low wall. He is perfectly steady on all fours and can stand completely unaided as before. He can get up, turn, twist and generally move as previous - sometimes with a little stumble but this is lessening every day. As per the side effects of the tablets, his appetite is ferocious!! And he is drinking a lot. But despite what the vet advised us he has not soiled in the house once, he always stands by the door and whines when we wants to go out. Personality wise he is as soppy and adorable as ever and does not seem to have lost any of his old traits. In fact, he is constantly rolling over (roaching) and grinning like an idiot.

 

We know there is a long road ahead but we are so happy with his progress so far. We actually cannot believe it and are still in a state of shock about the events of last week.

 

We love Paco more than anything in the world and are so, so proud of how he has coped. It has been the most appalling week for us - emotionally drained every part of us.

[Guest Energy11]

WOW! What a story!

 

I am soo happy that Paco is ok, and that this can be controlled. Bad news, turned out okay for a change :-)

 

You are also an excellent writer! I could see, feel and hear every word!

 

Thanks for letting us know about this, and that, for some, there IS a happy ending! Love, Dee and The Five.

[Charlies_Dad]

That is a scary story. It sounds like you did everything right to save your boy. I am very happy that Paco is better though and really hope he continues to improve. Please keep us posted...and a few pics of him would be greyt when you have time!

[rebeccamcl]

What a story indeed! I couldn't help but cry reading it and am so glad your beloved guy is OK.

[Guest welshbec]

- Paco enjoying an ice-cream!

- Paco and I last summer.

- Our gorgeous boy.

- Literally minutes before his collapse.

- Shaved head for lumbar puncture.

- Our brave boy getting better.

[fsugrad]

What a harrowing ordeal for you and Paco!

Hope he continues improving. He is absolutely gorgeous, by the way!

[Guest Greyt_dog_lover]

He is so fortunate in having such a wonderful owner! As I am sure you are just as fortunate to have such a great boy. Good to hear he should be better in the comming days.

[Guest eaglflyt]

I'm so glad that he is improving. HUGS to you and Paco. He is beautiful and handsome! I'm keeping him in my prayers for continued improvement and full recovery.

[brandimom]

OMG, what a horrible experience! So glad Paco is doing well now. We will continue to keep Paco in our daily prayers that this is all behind him now!

[Batmom]

Oh my word, what a sweet face he has!

 

So glad you were able to get him the help he needed and that he is improving. Sending best thoughts for a full recovery.

[TheFullHouse]

Wow, what a horrific experience! I'm so glad you got him the help he needed and that he's improving. Keeping your boy in my thoughts and prayers. Here's to a speedy recovery!

[3greys2cats]

My heart just dropped when I read the title of this topic as I unfortunately have been through this nightmare myself. I am so glad to hear that Paco is responding to the treatment for GME, it is a scary, debilitating disease that is so rare in greyhounds, it affects mostly small toy breeds. I joined GT 3 yrs ago this coming March when my Sara was diagnosed w/multifocal GME, she had it in several areas of her brain and her spinal column. I found only a few on this forum that were familiar w/this disease but was amazed @ the support of everyone. My Sara had 10 months of prednisone, phenabarbitol, and also needed cytarabine(cytasar)chemo injections, and pepcid for her stomach, metranizidole for the big d. She had seizures and severe ataxia, could not stand without falling over and needed to be in ICU for a week before it turned around for her. I sincerely hope that Paco continues to put this into remission as Sara has, she is coming up on 3 yrs since her diagnosis, if you read anything about this disease online, you will see that Sara and your Paco are walking miracles Please feel free to email me if you need to chat about this, it is so scary! robertaac@comcast.net

 

to you and Paco

 

Roberta

[iluvgreys]

Adding my prayers for Paco's continued progress. Your story was heart wrenching and that's a disease I've never dealt with, and hopefully will never have to.

[crazygang]

The poor darling........I started reading at first and my heart sunk anticipating the worst.....thank goodness he is recovering.

 

Sending healing prayers for Paco.

[greytpups]

How distressing...but so glad he is on the mend.

[Guest FullMetalFrank]

He is absolutely beautiful and I am so glad that he is beating the GME. Good boy, Paco! What a frightening ordeal...

[Guest welshbec]

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. It was truly an awful, awful week. I will never really be able to explain how horrendous and traumatic it was for us, or how hideous the waiting was. The good news is that he is improving every day. Today we find out if we can reduce his steroids. He seems to have made a remarkable improvement - he is hardly wobbly any more, constantly rolling over, eating like a beast and walking around the house and garden with some vigour. However, as you can imagine, we are very cautious and taking it one step at a time.

 

3greys2cats - I can't believe you've experienced this too. I've hardly found any breeds, apart from toy dogs as you say, that have experienced this. I'm sure we can both appreciate how truly horrendous it is. It is so wonderful to hear your successful tale of Sara. Really touched me this morning - my eyes were welling up in work when I read your post. When I have more time later on in the week I will email you if that is OK as some advise would be greatly appreciated.

[3greys2cats]

Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. It was truly an awful, awful week. I will never really be able to explain how horrendous and traumatic it was for us, or how hideous the waiting was. The good news is that he is improving every day. Today we find out if we can reduce his steroids. He seems to have made a remarkable improvement - he is hardly wobbly any more, constantly rolling over, eating like a beast and walking around the house and garden with some vigour. However, as you can imagine, we are very cautious and taking it one step at a time.

 

3greys2cats - I can't believe you've experienced this too. I've hardly found any breeds, apart from toy dogs as you say, that have experienced this. I'm sure we can both appreciate how truly horrendous it is. It is so wonderful to hear your successful tale of Sara. Really touched me this morning - my eyes were welling up in work when I read your post. When I have more time later on in the week I will email you if that is OK as some advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

Glad to hear that he is doing so well, "eating like a beast" yeah the prednisone will do that and constant peeing too! Yes, you most certainly can email me, it was the most traumatic thing I have been through w/my greys and sounds like it was the same for you.

[milosdriver]

Wow, what a recovery! You must be so grateful to have your handsome boy on the mend.

 

It's so incredibly stressful when they're sick - you feel so helpless. Thank God for good vets!

 

And by the way, "Paco" is a great name.

 

Patti & Milo.

[Guest welshbec]

 

The picture quality is not great but I think you can see from these photos that Paco is really improving and is very happy!

[RaineysMom]

Just seeing this now! How absolutely horribly and scary!!! :( :(

 

soooo glad he's improving!

[Guest larock]

We too had a grey with GME, Ward. Sadly, Ward was not in the best shape when we adopted him, I think he had been struggling with this for some time before his previous owner surrendered him. He was diagnosed roughly the same time we adopted him at age 8.5.

 

Quite simply GME is like an infection in the brain fluid. When the infection is raging the pressure on the spinal column is emense causing pain, mental and mobitilty issues. The Prednisone surpressed the bodies immune system stopping the infection from getting worse. It doesn't cure the GME but controls it (that's how I prefer to understand it anyway. I'm sure it's much more complicated than that and can vary in severity).

 

Ward was on Prednisone (PepsidAC and Metronidisol) for the last 3 years of his life. And, in addition, we added Chemo (Cytozar?) for the last 18 months. The chemo helped a lot becasue we were able to keep him on a lower dose of Pred. While we'd read and been told that GME can go into remission, this wasn't the case with Ward. The two times we tried to step him down off the Prenisone resulted in a relapse that took several weeks to get him back up to speed. He had a few relapses during his time with us, one eposide was particulary upsetting and sounded exactly as you discribed, and yes it was very scary.

 

All that said, Ward was a very happy boy and loved life (and cookies!!!). He was very much loved and lived a wonderful happy life with us, passing away in October 07 as a result of something unrelated to his GME.

 

I'm so glad your boy is doing a lot better and will pray that he goes into full remission. You can email me if you like lynn.roick@thecarlu.com

 

{{{{{{{{{{Paco}}}}}}}}}}

 

 

My heart just dropped when I read the title of this topic as I unfortunately have been through this nightmare myself. I am so glad to hear that Paco is responding to the treatment for GME, it is a scary, debilitating disease that is so rare in greyhounds, it affects mostly small toy breeds. I joined GT 3 yrs ago this coming March when my Sara was diagnosed w/multifocal GME, she had it in several areas of her brain and her spinal column. I found only a few on this forum that were familiar w/this disease but was amazed @ the support of everyone. My Sara had 10 months of prednisone, phenabarbitol, and also needed cytarabine(cytasar)chemo injections, and pepcid for her stomach, metranizidole for the big d. She had seizures and severe ataxia, could not stand without falling over and needed to be in ICU for a week before it turned around for her. I sincerely hope that Paco continues to put this into remission as Sara has, she is coming up on 3 yrs since her diagnosis, if you read anything about this disease online, you will see that Sara and your Paco are walking miracles Please feel free to email me if you need to chat about this, it is so scary! robertaac@comcast.net

 

to you and Paco

 

Roberta

[silverfish]

Oh, my goodness! How awful for you all! I'm so glad to hear he is doing so well! May he continue to do so!

 

Hugs to you both!

[Batmom]

Glad your boy continues to improve.

 

Gotta mention, he is soooooooooooooo cute!

[carronstar]

What a gorgeous boy. I've never dealt with Gme but a friend has. Our normally calm vet told him "Dude, you need to start the medication or your dog will die." Rugby (a Viszla) started the meds immediately and they completely solved the problem. Six years later he continues to be a happy, healthy and totally wonderful boy.

 

Kiss that lovely boy on the nose.

Edited February 18, 2010 by carronstar