Flea/tick Suggestions For Newly Diagnosed Auto-Immune Disease Dog

[gr8mama]

My little just-turned-three year old greyhound girl was just diagnosed with "Immune-mediated Polyarthropathy". She literally fell apart over about a two day period and went from a happy, bouncy, loving-life girl to running a 105 fever with no energy, no appetite, pain in every joint, high bilirubin, etc., brink of death little skeleton of a girl. Her weight plummeted from 60 pounds to 42 over a 2 week period. After an MRI, lots of bloodwork, tick panels, neurologist consult, then critical care and internist consults and a full week in ICU, we had a diagnosis and treatment was started with Prednisone, Mycophenolate (immunosuppressant), gabepentin and tramadol for pain and omeprazole (prilosec) for her tummy.

 

Thankfully, she's on the mend now.....she's regained 8 pounds of weight and a good bit of her spunk and is back to being the terror of the squirrel population in the back yard. The internist says we will probably never know what triggered her immune system to attack her body. We adopted her 17 months ago and she has not had any injuries and has been kept on flea/tick medicine and Heartguard religiously since we got her. Two tick panels came back negative.

 

So besides tick bites and injury, the internist advises that we need to be very cautious about vaccinations going forward. Several veterinary professionals that I respect and trust have quietly told me that if she were their dog, they would not get her vaccinated again because of the risk of reactivating the immune response. I'm OK with that, but I'm in a quandry about what to do about flea/tick protection as well as parasite protection.

 

We have one other 7-year old greyhound and we often foster. I have been successfully using Heartguard Plus and Nexguard for years. Is it safe to continue using these two products for our little auto-immune girl? We live in the mid-Atlantic area and have a 1/2 acre fenced yard in a fairly wooded area. Deer, foxes, possums, and squirrels all live in our neighborhood. I'm open to other ideas, including natural or homeopathic remedies, but only if they really work. I loathe fleas and don't want to take a chance on her getting a tick bite.

 

Suggestions? Think we can stay with the Heartguard + and Nexguard?

[GeorgeofNE]

What did your vet say? Surely his/her opinion is more important than ours?

[Remolacha]

I agree, ask your vet. My vet has successfully used Soresto collars on a dog with severely compromised kidneys, that might be an option.

[countrypaws]

Yes, please ask your vet about using the Seresto collars. They seem to have almost none of the drawbacks of the topical preparations like Frontline or the old tick collars which irritated the dogs skin with their chemicals.

[gr8mama]

I did ask the internist that we're working with directly and he said he wasn't really sure and looked at the vet tech in the room as if it was her role to answer. I got the impression that fleas and ticks weren't in his wheelhouse.

 

I think I might try the Seresto collar.....a major advantage is that if it appears that she starts to have a reaction, the collar can be quickly removed unlike one of the systemic options such as Nexguard.

[seeh2o]

I've been trying to find the right flea and tick prevention for my girl going through chemo. Her oncologist prefers topicals to oral ingested solutions. Of the topicals he prefers Advantage to Frontline, said Advantage stays on top, something about Frontline allows it to be absorbed into the skin. I asked about the collars (that are know to be safe for greyhounds) he said Seresto seemed like a good choice, it won't absorb. Last week a friend talked to another vet about Preventic vs Seresto and the vet said Seresto actually has less toxic stuff in it than Preventic (of course Preventic isn't good for fleas). So, I bought a Seresto collar and am going to give it a go.

 

Good luck, please what you choose and how it works. I hope your sweet little girl makes a full recovery.

[racindog]

I think if she was mine I would be afraid to assault her body with any unnecessary chemicals-especially poisons of any kind. I did recently find out that Preventic tick collars-which I love because I have found them safe and effective-ARE contraindicated for use in a dog on Tramadol! Something about the active ingredient amitraze being an MOI inhibitor or something- don't recall the details. Anyway of course vaccinations of any kind would be off the table. And If she really needed outside flea/tick prevention I personally would just use Adams. It is the safest flea/tick preventative I know of-even safe for kittens- it is a spray on so you hopefully are not getting too much poison into their system-and for an 'old fashioned' product it IS effective and sometimes gets sold out. I'm not saying it is as effective as some of the new strong spot ons etc but it probably is much safer. And for me I would be willing to trade off just being extra diligent in my checking her and checking he more often in return for the increased safety. Also you can use the Adams more frequently than the instructions provided. I called them and they told me they were req'd by law to label it the way it is and it didn't necessarily reflect reality.

Edited June 13, 2017 by racindog

[tbhounds]

I would also suggest a topical-products like frontline are not absorbed systematically. I would call the makers (Bayer) and ask if the seresto collar works in the same manner.

[cleptogrey]

the nexguard dosages are for a wide range of weight. annie who is 65# tried the up to 60# dose. she never reacts to anything except she did react to the nexguard. so it's back to frontline plus or gold for us.

 

my vet is leery of the skin contact w/ the Soresto collars, which should not get wet. i did speak w/ both the Bayer and FL customer service departments, neither have any information about greyhounds and their sensitivity to their products.