Feeling pretty low

digitalscream

I was out of the house all day today - fairly rare, but necessary in my new job. My wife came home at around 5pm, to find Ruby (our chihuahua who fell down the stairs, broke her neck and skull etc back in January but has made a miraculous recovery since then) really unwell. She wasn't walking properly (barely at all), was shaking like mad and then - on the way to the vet - had a major fit.

They've dosed her up on painkillers, and she's improved a hell of a lot since I came home tonight, but she still seems really unwell. She keeps stretching her neck, but in a really ungainly fashion and she's breathing really fast; the problem with her is that she's not very communicative and not vocal at all (she only makes noises when she's angry). We've managed to get her to eat a bit, and she's had plenty to drink, but...

I feel really shit. There seems to be nothing we can do to help her, because we can't figure out what the problem is (same for the vet). All we can do is sit and watch

Nitefly

Oh, not good, mate - best of luck with her.  I know SFA about dogs, but you're doing the best you can, hope she's better soon.

johnnyurq

Bad news mate and sorry to hear it after the wee bugger improving.

Hopefully as she is a tough wee doggie she may bounce back again, fingers crossed and good thoughts for yiu all. 

monquixote

Sorry to hear that mate. 

Hope a speedy recovery is forthcoming.

littlegreenman

Hope a happy outcome is forthcoming soon Lee, had a similar thing with me little furball a while back.

Fuzzies for you and yours...

PolarityMan

my sympathies

TTony

Nothing I can say that'll help, but I do know the pain.

Give her plenty of reassurance.

Emp_Fab

Have you thought about taking her to another vets for a second opinion ?  Vets are no different from GPs - if anything, their knowledge is spread even thinner as it's not even a single species they have to treat.  http://findavet.rcvs.org.uk/find-a-vet/advanced-search/

Wishing you and your pup all the best mate.

equalsql

I'm with Emp on this, definitely worth getting a second opinion. A friend of ours has a Yorkie who had a problem with his back legs and was told there was nothing that could be done by her vet, however she got a second opinion from our own vet and he was able to 'fix' him and two years later the little chaps is still going strong.

Hope he gets better soon.

digitalscream

Cheers, guys. No improvement today - she's holding her head at a funny angle and still breathing hard, but her left eye's practically closed (it was half-open last night). I'm starting to wonder if it's actually the eye that's causing the problem here, because she's always reacted to pain in exactly the same way, no matter where it comes from.

Emp_Fab said:

Have you thought about taking her to another vets for a second opinion ?  Vets are no different from GPs - if anything, their knowledge is spread even thinner as it's not even a single species they have to treat.  http://findavet.rcvs.org.uk/find-a-vet/advanced-search/

Wishing you and your pup all the best mate.

Absolutely - good suggestion, but we already have our vet and Queen's Vet Hospital in Cambridge on the case. In this case, it occurs to me that they're the best bet because a) there's a lot of individual vets between them, and b) both places know her history in much more detail. I think she's actually got a total team of about 10 vets on her case...

JAYJO

Best of luck mate!

guitarfishbay

Really sorry to hear this. Hoping for the best.

TPReggie

Yeah sorry to hear this mate - just know though that you are not alone, I have just come back from the vet myself with a very poorly cat - our dog is fine thank goodness, but the cat is bleeding profusely from the nose, can only breathe through his mouth, sneezing blood everywhere and is generally in very bad shape. He has had to go in for tests, including a camera up his throat to look in his nose at a cost of £400

I am right now just sitting waiting for a call at some stage later in the day to tell me whether it is a tumour or not, and whether it is treatable. 

I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone and that I am probably going through very similar emotions to you and your missus today, lets hope the result is a good one for both of us  

MazzaG

Keep us updated mate, the pain of seeing a pet suffering (especially not knowing why) is absolutely awful.

Phil_aka_Pip

Wishing a good result for you and her doggyness

digitalscream

At the vet now. They think it's completely unrelated to previous problems - most likely an eye infection. The good news if it's that is that was can finally use the insurance that's costing us a fortune...

digitalscream

OK, it's almost certainly an infection of some sort. She's breathing a bit heavily, and her eye's improved but still a bit dodgy. She's had an antibiotic injection and we've got a week's course for her. It looks as though the pain from the infection probably caused the seizure last night, which is a relief - she was starting to improve on the seizures (every two weeks to every four weeks-ish), and going backwards on that would've been really bad news.

We've also made a decision - we're cancelling the insurance for the three dogs, and paying that money to the vet by standing order instead. It's about £80/month, and there are so many exceptions for all of them (no dental care on any of them, no musculo-skeletal stuff for Ruby or the big dog, no neural problems for Ruby etc) that it's just not bloody worth it. That's nearly a grand a year that we'd much rather build up with the vet for times when we're skint...and, on top of that, doing it this way means we'd be able to cover most costs and not have to pay an excess. Win.

hubobulous

Just out of interest, the first thing that sprang to mind was a stroke.

Our dog had similar symptoms last year. Now, obviously I'm not vet, so this is just based on personal experience, but it was all about making our dog feel comfy, secure and safe. He's 16 and still with us.

We are true dog lovers in my family, so completely understand how you feel and what you're going through. Sounds like you have a real handle on this though, and are doing absolutely everything you can.

When an animal is unable to communicate, its the human's responsibility to make sure that its well treated and looked after. You've obviously got that part nailed :-)

digitalscream

There's a huge element of safety - thing is, she's a bit of an odd dog and doesn't behave like you'd expect her to (for her breed or her species, usually). It's definitely not a stroke, but the added issues from the catastrophic injuries earlier in the year make everything far more complicated. So...yeah, more than with most dogs it's very much a case of knowing her, what her normal behaviour is and how she reacts to stuff.

That's another reason that we're sticking with our normal vet and the crew in Cambridge - they're very much aware of her habits now, so it's much easier to explain stuff to them than to start again from scratch and have to go through all the ways in which she's different from the norm. She also trusts them because they were all around constantly when she was recovering from the accident, and that's a huge benefit because she doesn't get stressed when she's left with them like a lot of pets might.

Funnily enough, Mac (our husky/collie cross) has Horner's Syndrome, which at the time that he got it (very suddenly) looked almost exactly like a stroke. Total loss of muscle control over the right side of his head, including the mouth, ear and eye. He's got a lot of it back now - he can eat properly and his eye and eyelid are fine - but he can't move his ear much except by skin tension from other movements.

Incidentally, I've just worked out that if we'd paid that £80/month to the vets since we got the dogs, we'd have more than covered all of the lifetime expenditure we've ever had on all of them thus far. If your vet allows it, I'd venture to suggest it might be a significantly better idea than insurance. Of course, it comes with the caveat that you don't get it back...but then, you wouldn't with insurance either. Sure, you probably won't use any of it in the first few years, but trust me when I say you'll need it when they start to get older.

Fretwired

I'm sorry read about your poor dog ... I really hope everything works out for you.

hubobulous

Don't you just love dogs that battle through the real adversities :-)