Petey on the mend
The last post left off at a critical point in our journey. Petey’s prognosis was not looking good, and we could only hope that the new combination of medications would help turn things around.
Our follow-up appointment was on October 6th, and Petey’s numbers remained fairly stable. He developed a rash on his hind end which ended up being a reaction to the Metronidazole. We switched to 150 mg of clindamycin, two tablets – twice daily. We were able to decrease the prednisolone to 20mg every other day. We scheduled a two-week recheck.
Progress
October 20, 2009 was the first happy (ok ecstatic) day since Petey’s initial diagnosis. One of the Techs who was now like family, raced out to show me the lab results. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everything fell into or very near the middle column which was “normal”!!!! His red blood count was still a tiny bit low, and the RDW which measures the variation of red blood cell sizes, was still on the high side. This however, was the best CBC result since August. I think even our vet was a bit surprised at how resilient our Petey had proven to be. It was so good to receive positive news.
We were able to stop the clindamycin, Lasix, and prilosec, and scheduled a re-check for one month.
The eighteen months or so since that time have been a series of baby steps moving in the right direction. After a small setback due to a staph infection, Petey is down to two medications. Imuran every other day, and Soloxine .5 mg daily. The Soloxine was prescribed earlier this year when his lab work showed that his T4 levels were almost non-existent, and he was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. He will be on those two medications for life.
We are eternally grateful for the amazing care from Dr. Slusser and his staff. They are the reason Petey is still here to share his success story. If you are in San Diego and ever need an internal medicine vet, he is the absolute best!
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Hi Elizabeth,
We haven’t heard from Brady in a while, I’m hoping for the best. Petey battled with ascites for a few months. They drained his abdomen (via needle and anesthetic) a couple of times. Have they taken a full chem panel recently, or just the bloodwork?
Please let us know what you find from the ultrasound. We’re keeping you in our thoughts and prayers.
What happened to Brady? We just got back from the vet. Our Sadie has IMHA and was doing better. She is on Imuran and pregnisone. Now she has ascites and her PVC is going down. She is not eating. The vet said she is critical. She is going to have an ultrasound in the morning. Something about maybe getting her spleen removed. What happened to Brady? Thank you, Elizabeth
Brady,
Your experience so far sounds just like ours, I am wishing you and Lola a very happy ending.
You can tell how bloated Petey was in some of the pictures. Poor guy looked like an over-filled water ballon at times!
If you opt to have the vet drain Lola, keep a really close eye on the drain site. Since her immune system is already taxed, it’s very easy for an infection to develop – which is what happened with Petey. The fluid retention was particularly bad in his front leg and three drains were put in for a few days. After they were removed, two of the drain sites took forever to heal, which is when the staph infection set in.
Don’t get discouraged if it feels like you take one step forward and three steps back sometimes, it sounds like Lola is a very resiliant girl with great parents!! Please keep us posted, it’s stories like these that give people in the midst of the battle hope. Thanks for taking the time to share!
Thanks for putting Petey’s story here. It’s inspiring to read. Such an nice story to read how things started to work and turned out well. Many times I see stories about dogs with IMHA on websites…there are some updates and then the thread goes silent.
We’re dealing with a very complicated case of IMHA with our Lola now. (She’s a cute tan staffie-mix rescue dog who’s won our hearts.) It’s been almost 2 months and we are a few trips to the emergency hospital, several different medications, and several different natural therapies, and we still have a lethargic, bloated dog. The ascites is quite bad…our baby is so swollen, it’s difficult for her to breath when she is lying down. We’ve cut back on the prednisone and completely azathioprine to give her liver a rest. Tomorrow we will more blood work to see if her liver enzymes are going down. Will also ask the vet if we can drain some fluid from Lola to relieve the swelling. Anyways, that is our story. Hopefully we can post a happy ending like Petey’s
@ForPetsSake – love the site, will be back!
@ i love puppies, thankfully for the moment, Petey has fully recovered. He blood levels and chem panels have returned as normal more than once. We are very diligent about keeping an eye out for any changes, his health is something we never take for granted. Thank you both for the well wishes!
Thanks for stopping by
Petey seems strong… sad to say that this illness is kinda like life-threatening… a dog of a friend died due to IMHA with complication of pulmonary hypertension… it is indeed a long term medication… but hopefully he’ll get well soon… 🙂
As a vet nurse, we’ve seen too many cases of IMHA – too many because every one is ugly. Very glad your baby is doing better!
Also glad to have found you through Blog Paws. Please check us out if you get a chance:
http://arwenspack.blogspot.com/
Thanks!