Kinley has Lyme disease. This is not related to his Epilepsy. Ya know, Baxter has Anaplasmosis (diagnosed a year ago), Kinley now has Lyme and I'm done with Frontline. The ticks don't die until they bite anyway.
Turns out Lyme in dogs is not the hysteria inducing disease (in dogs) that the companies would like you to believe. Shocking, I know. Yes, a very small amount of dogs will have kidney issues. But the vast majority show no signs at all and the disease self resolves or like Baxter, they just always test positive.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blase about it. Anaplasmosis, for instance is fine unless is becomes clinical. Then your dog bleeds to death internally and through it's eyes and gums, etc. SO, yeah, I'm not all yippy skippy. My thought is that they both were bitten when we were camping in Shenandoah. Even though they were both Frontlined a few days prior.
Lyme disease, if it manifests at all, does so in lameness which is treated with medication. You watch for excess peeing and drinking in case kidneys get involved. It doesn't hit them like it does us. Now God willing, Kinley will be like MOST dogs because up until this point he sure are the hell hasn't been medically.
Seems we have to raise his meds every three weeks and that's racking up. In fact he's seizing now so a call is in order tomorrow. In case I sound cavalier remember this are focal, not Grand Mal, so I can type away. I don't want to give the impression I'm merrily blogging along while he's in the midst of a grand event.
We haven't maxed out on the Keppra yet so we are still avoiding the pheno.
We hit $120 a month last week. But the antibiotics for Lyme are cheap. He's on those now and had a titer (not cheap $123) and needs another in six months.
Here is a good measures accounting of Lyme in dogs vhttp://www.2ndchance.info/lyme.htm
So, yep.
good luck with all this--we live in an area heavily infested with Lyme Disease (Cape Cod deer ticks seem to test almost 100% for it and other diseases) so we are all pretty familiar with it. the anti flea meds really don't work on ticks--at least not in our experience. I've had Lyme pretty seriously myself and have had several dogs with it. Once they test positive, like me, i think they will always test positive? Anyway, we had mixed experiences with Lyme and our dogs but they all lived their long lives with it, though one had pretty bad kidney issues and arthritis as a result. Our latest dog has been vaccinated with the new Lyme vaccine and we're hoping that will be good....as I said, good luck....and pui on the ticks....;-)
ReplyDeleteI am sure sorry to hear that yet another thing is not going well for Kinley, and I too hope that he's at least not going to have kidney involvement for this!
ReplyDeleteYou know, when I got Kinley at six months he was supposed to be a foster. At seven months it became very clear he needed an experienced dog owner home. All of which were full up with dogs that couldn't be rehomed to average homes,lol.
ReplyDeleteHe was a LOT of work for the first year or so. Worth every minute.
I can't help but think he was never meant to be a foster and given his medial issues I'm grateful, albeit broke, that he is in a place he can be tended to. Plus, he's really an amazing dog. Most interesting dog I have ever met. Ever.
The titers is done to test the level of antibody from the start of treatment to the finish. I think you are right that they always test positive, but they look for an increase. If I'm remembering correctly.
When she first told me I had to have a minute to compose myself because I was going to totally lose it. When she saw that she started explaining that it really wasn't the kiss of death the companies make it out to be.
Snoopy had the Grand Mals. He wasn't really a woods dog though (he was more a "put nose down and run until has run into a tree, the redirect and repeat" dog), so we never had to worry about anything like Lyme.
ReplyDeleteI used to wash dogs at a groom shop, and a lab/golden mix came in once with literally 100-150 ticks. Maybe more. Owner said it had been on the medicine, so I dunno how good that medicine is.
Poor Kinley :(