RE: To Judy

[Guest guest]

Judy, I hope Mark can get a neck brace that is helpful. As I said, my mother went through many before finding the best at a local hospital ER.

As for Otis's symptoms, I will give you the short story. First, he is a laryngeal paralysis dog and had a unilateral tieback on his larynx May 2000 -- they had to tie back one side of his airway passage, so it is permanently opened now (otherwise he would have suffocated). This ailment is part a larger neuropathy. Anyway, vomiting is VERY dangerous, as tieback dogs can easily aspirate.

He started with gagging and coughing that was constant. It often ended in the dreaded vomiting or regurgitating. We had him on cough meds. He continued to gag and regurgitate -- we thought it was reflux or megaesophagus. Both were ruled out. Then he started not eating and vomiting. We found out his kidney values were sky high (this was acute, as we took weekly blood tests at this point, among other things). Had him on IV fluids. Then they thought he had leptosporosis, which affects the kidneys and liver (liver values were up, too)--ultrasound showed abnormal liver and kidneys. He had IV antibiotics (luckily, they let me do all the IV therapy at home). In the meantime, he was failing. I came within minutes of letting him go twice two weeks ago. He turned 14 in March. Then as a last measure to try to get him to eat to give him more time so that we could figure this out, he was given prednisone. That was 2 weeks ago today and he is totally normal clinically. In the meantime, they suspect pancreas cancer, as his insulin levels are twice as high as the high normal. But his blood sugar is normal. The only next step would be exploratory surgery. There is no way that is happening. So we are sticking with the prednisone. (I have been able to reduce his dose and will continue to try to reduce it week by week.) What is good is that if it is insulinoma (or brain cancer, which it could be, too), prednisone is the treatment anyway.

Aren't you glad you asked?? Take care, Debbie