Good Thoughts/insight For Lucy?

[vjgrey]

Our vet has been treating Lucy for a month now for what she initially diagnosed as vaginitis. The area is irritated, has dark brown/red discharge, and she tries to lick it constantly. Other than that, she doesn't have any symptoms - urination doesn't seem painful (though I'm not sure how it could NOT be, as irritated as the area is). She's not going any more frequently or having accidents in the house.

 

She tested negative for a UTI, although this is her third round of vaginitis (??) in the last year and a half, and she did test positive the second time for a UTI. She hasn't responded to amoxicillen, clavamox, or the medical wipes. She just started Zeniquin yesterday.

 

Our vet took a culture yesterday (yes, probably should've done this sooner, but she was pretty confident that it was just vaginitis and would clear up with the right antibiotic), so we should have those results in a few days. She's also recommended that we schedule an appointment with an Internal Medicine specialist to rule out urinary polyps/tumors and to discuss whether we need to consider a vulva tuck. Her vulva is, uh, more of an "innie," than an "outie," if that makes sense, and she thinks that may be causing the recurrent infections. However, Lucy does have a heart murmur, so I want to avoid surgery/anesthesia for her if at all possible. I read somewhere that Incurin can sometimes treat this without surgery?

 

Lucy is scheduled to see a specialist on Friday, and hopefully we should also have the results of her culture back by then.

 

Anyone have any advice/thoughts/insight? If not, I'd appreciate good thoughts for my puppygirl.

 

Edited to add - When she was spayed four years ago, they only found one uterine horn. Is it possible that this could be related at all?

Edited August 14, 2012 by vjgrey

[vjgrey]

In googling around for the "one uterine horn," thing, I read that cats with one horn will still go into heat after spaying if both of the ovaries aren't removed. Is this also true for dogs? Is it possible that what we've been treating as an infection every six months is just a heat cycle because they didn't remove everything in her spay? She has had "issues," before the three this last year and a half, although I'd have to look back at her records to see how regularly.

[mom2four]

Hi, I have some experience with this, but it was with our Lab, Heidi. She had recurring vaginitis, which would lead to bad UTI's and it took twice as long on antibiotics (clavamox or baytril) for that to go away. The vet suggested and I did, put her on a cranberry pill per day (she was on that for at least 6 years) and it helped in her case. Way fewer UTI's than before and the vaginitis seemed to disappear. . Oddly, Heidi had an "innie" too. Just a suggestion, it did not cure it completely, but improved it by 80% for Heidi.

 

Good luck to Lucy!

[galgrey]

No experience with the issue, but I'm sending lots of good thoughts to you and your girl.

[tbhounds]

Sounds like your girl needs a vulvaplasty. Innies are common with our big thigh girls :-). The procedure is not complicated at all but, there will be a approximately 2 week recovery period. Regarding the heart murmur-I'm not saying to follow up on that but, are you or your vet aware that many ghs have heart murmurs (flow)? Basically they have huge hearts with "normal" valves so your vet will hear the whoosh sound as the blood passes through the valves.

 

[vjgrey]

Sounds like your girl needs a vulvaplasty. Innies are common with our big thigh girls :-). The procedure is not complicated at all but, there will be a approximately 2 week recovery period. Regarding the heart murmur-I'm not saying to follow up on that but, are you or your vet aware that many ghs have heart murmurs (flow)? Basically they have huge hearts with "normal" valves so your vet will hear the whoosh sound as the blood passes through the valves.

 

Yeah, that's what we suspect. Her vet wanted her to be checked out by internal medicine first so that we make sure we're not overlooking something worse.

 

Her heart murmur was confirmed via echocardiogram by a cardiologist with greyhound experience. I do appreciate the advice, though - I know they're often misdiagnosed, so we sought out the specialist.

[TwiggysMom]

I have no experience with Lucy's problem, but hope things get sorted out.

 

It sounds like this may not be UTI-related, but if it is, or if Lucy becomes prone to UTIs, my vet highly recommends Uro-Maxx. Twiggy has been getting this when she is on chemo (b/c she got a couple UTIs, which never happened pre-chemo). It does seem to help her to stave them off.

[Batmom]

Hopefully the culture will tell you something useful.

 

Zema had a period of "perivulvular dermatitis" -- basically, what your girl has -- which cleared up when we -1- got the right antibiotic for her UTI, and -2- stopped her slight incontinence (which was diet related, of all things). Before it cleared up I would clean gently @ every day and smear on some antibiotic/antifungal ointment. Not a process she loved, but it did help and she tolerated it.

[vjgrey]

To update this, we still have no answers, and after multiple visits to our vet and an internal medicine specialist, Lucy is actually getting worse.

 

The culture showed nothing amiss - no signs of UTI or bacteria.

 

We saw the specialist who prescribed three weeks of Prednisone to reduce swelling. She improved some but worsened rapidly when we weaned her off the Prednisone. Now, she's as bad, or worse than, when we started (horrible brown/red discharge and swelling).

 

She's also developed some sleep incontinence - at least twice in the last week. It's almost clear urine, though - it doesn't have much, if any smell. If it weren't for a very slight yellow tinge, we wouldn't have been sure it was pee.

 

A UTI (despite the negative test results)? Kidney problems that are carrying over into vaginal problems? We're seeing the specialist again today and will discuss the incontinence issues. I suspect she needs more tests.

 

Poor sweet puppygirl. I just wish we could fix this for her already.

[RaineysMom]

no advice, just sending prayers! your poor girl!

[JJNg]

In googling around for the "one uterine horn," thing, I read that cats with one horn will still go into heat after spaying if both of the ovaries aren't removed. Is this also true for dogs? Is it possible that what we've been treating as an infection every six months is just a heat cycle because they didn't remove everything in her spay? She has had "issues," before the three this last year and a half, although I'd have to look back at her records to see how regularly.

 

Have you looked more into this possibility? Or has it been ruled out based on history and additional tests?

 

Would it be possible to find out from the vet who did her spay whether they found and removed both ovaries? Especially if this problem has been happening consistently every 6 months, then it does sound a bit suspicious of a heat cycle. But not all dogs cycle on a regular schedule either.

[MaryJane]

You might want to discuss with your vet whether a vaginal culture would be warranted. The vaginal area typically has tons of bacteria but in this case they might be able to look for "bad bacteria".

 

They also have vaginal creams that have flagyl for people, you might want to check whether they have the same for dogs and whether it would be worth trying.

 

I hope you find out what is causing this.

[KF_in_Georgia]

Would it be worth trying hormones similar to what is used to keep dogs from going into heat? If this stems from a removal of just one ovary, could hormones help?

 

ETA: I'm shockingly ignorant about this stuff in dogs, so feel free to laugh if that was a silly suggestion.

Edited September 27, 2012 by KF_in_Georgia

[tbhounds]

Would it be worth trying hormones similar to what is used to keep dogs from going into heat? If this stems from a removal of just one ovary, could hormones help?

 

ETA: I'm shockingly ignorant about this stuff in dogs, so feel free to laugh if that was a silly suggestion.

Not a silly suggestion-its done on the tracks to keep the girlies from cycling.

[MaryJane]

Would it be worth trying hormones similar to what is used to keep dogs from going into heat? If this stems from a removal of just one ovary, could hormones help?

 

ETA: I'm shockingly ignorant about this stuff in dogs, so feel free to laugh if that was a silly suggestion.

Not a silly suggestion-its done on the tracks to keep the girlies from cycling.

 

In the same vein, what about using a hormone cream on the privates and see if it helps. Of course, as noted previously you need to rule out whether this might be a "heat cycle".

[vjgrey]

Our internal med vet agreed that it might be a heat cycle from leftover ovarian tissues. She even consulted ANOTHER specialist about that (ugh!). But she said she became less convinced of that theory when the issue responded to steroids. She said she wouldn't expect to see that if the problem is hormonal. To be safe, though, she's taken and is holding a blood draw, which she'll submit for testing in the next few days if we decide to go that route. Our hesitation is that the test is really expensive and isn't always conclusive.

 

She took a second culture yesterday (first showed no "bad bacteria") and is doing another test for UTIs. In the meantime, she's back on the Prednisone temporarily. We have to be careful with the steroids because of her heart murmur.

 

The consensus (among two specialists and our regular vet) seems to be "we have no idea," but the first round of steroids did help, so we're trying that again.

[Batmom]

Did they culture the urine or the discharge (swab of sore area) or both? She could have some fungus going on there (sore areas).

[vjgrey]

Did they culture the urine or the discharge (swab of sore area) or both? She could have some fungus going on there (sore areas).

 

They tested both back in mid-July when all this started. They took another culture and urine sample yesterday just to recheck/double check.