Need Help Diagnosing Problem

[XTRAWLD]

Two nights ago Kasey had an "episode". We all went to bed, he came up to the bed as usual and lay down. I'd say 5 minutes later he started licking and swallowing and licking and swallowing. We got up and tried to figure out what was going wrong. Maybe something was stuck in his throat, etc. He hacked and gacked once after 5 minutes of licking and swallowing, and nothing came out. We were waiting for him to throw up but nothing came up. We got him off the bed to stretch and he moved fine and he was very with it. We got to the living room and again did the licking and swallowing thing while standing up. It eventually subsided and we went back to bed. 5 minutes later, it started all over again, with less intensity it seemed, he didn't gack and hack at the end this time. I grabbed the camera to video it and I've posted it here for review.

 

This is the 2nd episode roughly 10 mins after the first. You will note in the video it looks like he's struggling for air. The first time it happened I think he started to panic a little, but we were both there to reassure him. It's a little scary for us.

 

Licking and Swallowing

 

This happened once in the summer, and I realized he hadn't had his prednisone for allergies in a while and when I gave it to him, he got better and didn't have another problem. But this time, he received prednisone (10mg) the morning before this episode (he had itchy ears) and he had prednisone (10mg) again the morning after. I didn't want to give him prednisone today because I didn't want it to mask any symptoms when we went to the vet. I was thinking maybe his throat is swollen or something, perhaps an allergic reaction? He did it again briefly this morning before breakfast.

 

We took him to the vet tonight. After speaking to her and showing her this same video she's a little stumped. She plans to research it tonight and I am forwarding the video to her attention as well. (She owns a greyhound & whippet - and will ask her circle if this is a greyhound thing or not). Her suggestions were that perhaps it is acid reflux although she isn't sure of how common that is with dogs, and that the acid may be causing him discomfort since it's eating at the lining.

 

She sent us home with Sucralfate in liquid form. We are supposed to administer 5ml 3x daily for 5 days in combination with the prednisone (spacing pred out with Sucralfate) to see what happens. She thinks it could also be an ulcer somewhere and his throat could be pretty rough in general, esp if acid was coming up. Visually she cannot notice anything and feeling his throat on the outside felt normal. He doesn't leave any excessive drool behind, if anything at all either. This "episode" does not produce anything - no mucus. She said she is totally up for giving antibiotics but thought we should try this first because there will be zero side effects to it. My research last night suggested that for these symptoms that he would only require antibiotics for a 10 day period, this "cough syrup" I like to call it, will just help him feel better but might not be the solution because we aren't sure what the problem exactly is. At least this is a start though.

 

Anyone have experience with this at all? I searched here and couldn't find anything similar. He has been having regular bowel movements. We do notice when he eats his food completely dry (this has been for a long time - probably a year), he will grab the kibble and start to swallow only to have the food get stuck. He has to pause and cough it all up, or "walk it off" and try to swallow everything. We rub his throat and it seems to be better and he then continues eating. We thought that was just a usual thing but after this are putting 2 and 2 together. We will be giving him soaked kibble until this is resolved.

 

Any help would be appreciated for our "good ol' reliable boy".

[tbhounds]

Well, when you figure it out let me know! My girl will do that same thing on occasion too---only her episodes will involve trying to eat grass and vomiting. I think she may do this due to an upset tummy. It seems to resolve its self with the help of carafate and Prilosec.

[Batmom]

Probably a piece of grass or fuzz or crumb stuck in throat, causing tickle / irritation. Sometimes works to give a slice of damp (not sopping wet, but nicely damp) bread, broken into 2" pieces; that'll help carry down anything stuck in there.

[Yamaha_gurl]

Doolin was doing something similar...what was his diagnoses? Anyone remember?

 

Is Kasey alert when this is going on? Can you call his name?

[XTRAWLD]

Doolin was doing something similar...what was his diagnoses? Anyone remember?

 

Is Kasey alert when this is going on? Can you call his name?

 

Yup, he's completely there when it's all happening. We got him off the bed and distracted him and everything. I think he may have even went to drink. If we would have given him a cookie, he would have been there like a dirty sock too.

[TwiggysMom]

Twiggy has been doing something very similar. I was convinced that she was having focal seizures and brought her to a neurologist. (and showed him the attached video)

 

The neurologist felt that it wasn't neurological, and was leaning toward reflux. He recommended Omeprazole nightly. The omeprazole didn't seem to make a difference, but the episodes have decreased dramatically (even before starting the omeprazole, and no resurgence after stopping it).

 

Twiggy's episodes at their worst lasted up to 12 minutes, and repeated all night long with only short breaks in between. Lately, if she has episodes at all, they are only for half a minute or so, and only 1 or two usually in the wee hours of the morning.

 

Here's the video I took:

 

The neurologist didn't feel there was any need for an MRI, and I guess I agree now that they have mostly resolved on their own.

 

Still a mystery, but not so scary any more. BTW, Twiggy has never done this laying flat on her side - she is always standing or at least laying with her head up.

 

I'll be interested to hear if you get any concrete answers!

[Guest urbanski]

both mine have done this at times....love to know what it is for sure.

It could be dry mouth or a piece of grass, knowing my 2 its probably neurosis LOL

[Guest tore140]

My hound does something similar when eating- coughing up a kibble or two every so often. For a while he was restless all of the time and seemed uncomfortable. My vet did an endoscopy (camera down the throat into the stomach) and noticed his esophagus and sphincters (to both ends of his stomach) were very inflammed. Turns out my guy gets acid reflux and mega esophagus. So he's got me on Metocloprimide 10mg 1 1/2 three times a day (40 minutes before a meal)to help the sphincter muscles tighten up. I also give Pepcid AC (Famotidine 20mg) at the same time as the Metocloprimide before breakfast and dinner. For 2 weeks I was on liquid sucralfate 3 times a day 20 minutes after the Metocloprimide/20 minutes before food. At bedtime (on an empty stomach) he gets prilosec. Needless to say 2 weeks later he's feeling much better. The sucralfate was only temporary, but the Metocloprimide, pepcid, and prilosec are forever meds. He asks me to feed him 3 meals a day to keep food available for the stomach acid to work on instead of his stomach lining. Another thing my vet suggested was to have gravity work in my favor and help the food go down without a problem by having him eat elevated (with his shoulders higher than his hips (I was using a normal elevated feeder before this, but he would do that choking and coughing up kibble thing with that- so far he hasn't with this new step-feeder).

 

My dad and I created this after a trip to home depot Good luck with your guy- hope he starts to feel better!

 

 

[tbhounds]

Just an FYI-- during my girls episodes she'll maintain a greyt appetite--I've given her canned food hoping it would soothe her throat only to have her vomit it back up.

It's definitely throat or tummy irritation- not a seizure.

[Guest MorganKonaAlex]

My Kona did a similar licking thing when she was having a front tooth issue.

[macoduck]

Looks a little bit similar to a sinus infection/drip one of mine had years ago, even though not much if anything came out his nose.

Edited January 4, 2012 by macoduck

[tbhounds]

Just an FYI-- during my girls episodes she'll maintain a greyt appetite--I've given her canned food hoping it would soothe her throat only to have her vomit it back up.

It's definitely throat or tummy irritation- not a seizure.

Wanted to add- I just watched Twiggy's video- my girls episodes are more pronounced and violent. She does the licking but, also does a lot of real hard swallowing -- wants to eat grass, plants- anything she can to try to vomit. This is why I feel it's tummy related.

[TheFullHouse]

My guess would be an upset tummy. Maybe some acid reflux. If that's it the meds should help.

[Yamaha_gurl]

I checked with Doolins mom...it was acid reflux.

[krissn333]

Looks a little bit similar to a sinus infection/drip one of mine had years ago, even though not much if anything came out his nose.

Fritz JUST did this. I'm fairly certain he had some sort of a booger because after he did that a few times he's fine. He did just have his Springtime Joint Health tabs though, so maybe some dust/crumbs irritated his through too

[kudzu]

Venus did something very similar, approx 5-6 episodes. Started soon after she had a dental & disappeared after those episodes. Don't know the actual cause but my guess for her is some sort of irritation from intubation. Forgot to ask the dog at her last two visits though as we had more pressing issues.

[XTRAWLD]

Thank you all very much. This has been most helpful.

 

We decided we will change his food, since I think he was on this food when he had his first episode in the summer. Im on the fence about bringing his prednisone back up and then gradually bringing it back again, based on discussions here I'm no longer as sure that it is an allergy based thing, so pred might just be irrelevant at this point.

 

He's had 2 doses so far of the "syrup" and so far so good. I don't know though if this resolves the problem, it just soothes his throat, (even if it is only an irritation that will help a great deal) so if it is indeed acid reflux (I'm leaning more to that now) we will have to look into Pepcid AC? Is the human version cheaper than a dog version or vise versa?

Edited January 4, 2012 by XTRAWLD

[kudzu]

Human version is much cheaper in my opinion. I always just buy the generic famotidine (Pepcid) or ranitidine (Zantac). They are both very effective in dogs. If it really is acid reflux you might do better than omeprazole (Prilosec) instead of famotidine. I've not used it for my dogs yet but it is sometimes prescribed for them.

[Guest zombrie]

Yup... Doolin did/does the same exact thing.

 

Here is the video of his first episode

link

 

It went undiagnosed but we figured out acid reflux on our own. From time to time he has episodes but we give him pepcid before it escalates (he gets panicked, making it much, much worse) and it always takes care of it pretty quickly.

Hope this is the case for your pup!

 

ETA for tbhounds, Doolin tries to eat everything in sight (particularly plants and licking metallic things) after these episodes (which also are sometimes very violent and causing him to vomit). We always had to muzzle him during those times but the pepcid prevents it from getting to that point.

Edited January 4, 2012 by zombrie

[XTRAWLD]

Heard back from the vet this morning - "From what I've been reading through the vet lit so far, it sounds like esophagitis, which is essentially what we're treating him for now. I'd also like to start him on another drug that you can pick up from the drug store...it's an antacid called Pepcid (you may have heard of it) and will help with esophagitis as well."

 

Look at you GT'ers...helping to diagnose this. Thank you all very much. I'm truly grateful for your help. Looks like great minds think alike!

[Guest zombrie]

Good news it's something easily treatable! It's scary when you don't know what's wrong, isn't it? I love GT

[Guest Energy11]

Both our Cari and Staggerlee have done this before, especially Staggerlee, 11.

 

My former vet/employer from Florida, Dr. Beau, said it was nausea. It made sense, because Lee was also trying to eat grass. I tried a 20 mg Pepcid AC, and gave two Gas X. They really seemed to help. I am also a fan of giving a little pumpkin and plain yogurt, mixed together. This seems to coat their stomachs.

 

I would be leaning toward reflux, as well. Good Luck.

[XTRAWLD]

She just gave me info on his dose of Pepcid (15 mg every 12 hours based on his weight of 66.6 lbs - I cringed at the number when it came up on the scale LOL) and told me to make sure it only contains famotidine (in Pepcid) - perhaps ranitidine(in Zantac) might not cooperate with his pred? I will confirm this so you guys can be in the loop too.

 

I'll be picking some Pepcid up on my way home from work. Don't know if Pepcid will be a forever thing yet, but it will be for the next little while.

[Guest Energy11]

She just gave me info on his dose of Pepcid (15 mg every 12 hours based on his weight of 66.6 lbs - I cringed at the number when it came up on the scale LOL) and told me to make sure it only contains famotidine (in Pepcid) - perhaps ranitidine(in Zantac) might not cooperate with his pred? I will confirm this so you guys can be in the loop too.

 

I'll be picking some Pepcid up on my way home from work. Don't know if Pepcid will be a forever thing yet, but it will be for the next little while.

We use the generic Pepcid. You can get a great deal on it at Wal-mart. Good Luck!

[Guest tore140]

She just gave me info on his dose of Pepcid (15 mg every 12 hours based on his weight of 66.6 lbs - I cringed at the number when it came up on the scale LOL) and told me to make sure it only contains famotidine (in Pepcid) - perhaps ranitidine(in Zantac) might not cooperate with his pred? I will confirm this so you guys can be in the loop too.

 

I'll be picking some Pepcid up on my way home from work. Don't know if Pepcid will be a forever thing yet, but it will be for the next little while.

We use the generic Pepcid. You can get a great deal on it at Wal-mart. Good Luck!

 

Yep, I use the generic too. Make sure it is just famotidine, because there is also a delayed release pepcid and that is not what you want. I believe it comes in 10mg and 20mg tabs. Ramses (75lbs) gets a 20mg tab twice daily, 40 minutes before a meal. Ramses got a special famotidine stocking stuffer from Sams Club- 150 pills! And Santa tells me it was about the same price as I pay for the 50 pills from Publix... Glad you have an answer! Ramses does very well on the Pepcid plus Prilosec (omeprazole- treats GERD [gastroesophageal reflux disease, a condition in which backward flow of acid from the stomach causes heartburn and possible injury of the esophagus] once a day at night. My mom also takes Prilosec and told me that he should start feeling better within days of him starting it (she understands his pain