Favorite veterinarian misdiagnosis's - Page 2

Molly had a case of diarehea which I noticed ha some blood in it.  Took her to the vet who told me she had colitits and which was probably caused by stress of training her in Schutzhund.  I was told to stop training and let her be a dog.....  It cleared up in a few days with some medicine and her training has continued.  No problems.

Cheryl

Spent money on a Sonnigram on female and told only three pups to be born. She birthed 9 pups about three weeks later.  A big waste of my money.

I generally just stick to lurking :) but felt I needed to drop my most recent vet misdiagnosis into the mix.   My bitch had began losing hair litterally by what seemed to be the bucket full along with terrible itching.  I'd taken her to the vet to have her looked at.  He told me at first that it was a flea allergy.   After explaining to him that I'd not had a problem with fleas on any of my dogs in a number of years, he insisted it was a flea allergy.  Mind you there was no evidence of either fleas or flea dirt on her.  I treated her for fleas anyway, more to humor him than anything I guess, but as I figured it did no good to correct the problem.  So I took her back again to prove my point it wasn't fleas :)  and he then did some bloodwork on her including a thyroid test.  Meanwhile I pointed out the sores that she had on her belly and his next thought was ringworm.  Well this girl sleeps about as close to me as possible without being directly on top of me.  I told him "Trust me, if she had ringworm... I'd be the FIRST one to know it".  We waited for the bloodwork to come back and in the meantime he perscribed an antibiotic because he thought it "might" be a skin infection.  The antibiotic seemed to be helping.  According to him, the bloodwork showed her thyroid was " a little low" so he perscribed a medication for her low thyroid.  I told him that I didn't feel the thyroid was the issue because the antibiotic had been helping.  He insisted that it was a thyroid issue, so I picked up the perscription for the thyroid medication and promptly called another vet that is just over 2 hours from me, but I know the one vet on staff specializes in GSDs so, off we went for a road trip.  Got to their office and the vet told me that she didn't believe that it was a thyroid issue at all, she felt it was a staph infection.  She offered to redo the thyroid test if I wanted to be sure, but thought that a couple weeks of antibiotics were probably gonna do just wonderfully for her.  Sure enough, it cleared right up.  She has been right as rain and has an nice thick coat back again.  Big difference in a staph infection and a thyroid issue.... go figure.  Just my two cents on the subject.

Kim

Trulight German Shepherds

Posted below is my most favorite misdiagnosis...This owner of DR. Pepper , was told at   4 mos old , when she only went for a rabies shot,,,that  1. This dogs ears would never stand. 2.  See how crooked your gsd sits? He has bad hips.  3. Your dog has ear mites. 4. I am prescribing a $65.00 bottle of  Glucosamine/Chrondrite

OFA GOOD and he sure never got any of this vets meds...owner cried all the way home till she called me and I laughed...I called my vet and he said,,yeah sure send her to me,,I'd be more than happy to sell her a bottle of vitamins at 4 mos old that will do no good.....joking of course...Pepper is three years old and creme de creme of the sables I have produced.

O.K. not a disdiagnosis but worth mentioning.  One morning I noticed my female Vida about 18 months at the time was not moving right.  I called my vet and he told me to bring her in.  Well I had been doing alot of ob work w/her so when I handed him the leash he pranced her around the lobby giving her commands and having fun.  He said he would run some tests and I could pick her up later.  About 1/2 hr later I rec'd a frantic call from his receptionist telling me Vida just bit the vet and went thru 3 doors, she has escaped and is running down the street.  When I got there 2 minutes later, (I worked around the corner) the entire staff was stopping traffic and trying to catch her.  If it had not been so scary it would have looked ridiculous.  I got out of my car yelled her name, gave her the down.  She looked at me and dropped like a sack of potatoes.  Turns out she had a twisted ovary and he dropped the leash and picked her up by her waist to place her on the xray table.  It must have really hurt her, well she bit him, then she ran off.  (I got a real good deal on her spay)  It's been over 7 yrs and he still talks about that.

This is my first post here, so I hope I'm doing this right. But I HAD to respond to this one.

One of my puppy buyers called me one morning, sobbing, and carrying on about her vet 's diagnosis of her pup.  The pup had been exhibiting some wobbliness. He told her the pup had cauda equina and it was a death sentence.  This was a seven month old pup!  He felt it was best to simply put her to sleep right away to avoid the "inevitable".    Thankfully she insisted that she call me before she did anything.

After four days, four different vets and several thousand dollars in diagnostics, it came down to "tick paralysis".  My vet friend diganosed that on Day 2, but for whatever reason the puppy owner kept trying other things to make sure it wasn't something more involved.  Finally my vet friend convinced her to put her on Doxycycline, and voila!  In about a week, she called me to let me know that Dana had just caught a bird in midflight.  LOL

This pup was completely paralyzed from the neck down by the time the Doxycycline was administered. It was one of the scariest things I've ever experienced.

A huge lesson I learned from this was "if you hear hoofbeats, don't look for zebras". 

Not a favorite but an avoidable one.

Mom and 4 month old pups ( 3) managed to escape from the yard one day. Came home from work and there they were waiting to get back in. About a week or so later I notice one of the pups was breathing heavier than usual. I had started taking the pups back and forth to the shop with me for socialization.  It just so happened that someone came in with a cat that had been hit or something and they picked it up and asked if I could help it. Me being the sucker I am took it in and called my fav vet across the river. She said bring it in. Since I had the pups with me I figured I would go ahead and get their rabies since I was there and it was time. When the vet was done looking at the cat I mentioned that the B&T pup was breathing heavier than usual. She had noticed it also. She gave a listen to the chest and asked if the dog had been hit or kicked in the ribs? Aint no way that happened around my house, there is a pasture at the end of tmy road with cattle in it and some calves and related about them getting out  previously. The pup had a bit of a temp and after listening she diagnosed her with bronchial pnemonia from a blow to the chest partialy collapsing the lung, probably from being kicked by a calf. Put her on 10 days of Rymadyl, pred and antibiotics. Pup was breathing much better but still huffy. Took her in on day 4 because I didnt think she was progressing as well as she should have been. Vet listens again and said it does sound better, go ahead and finish up the meds. finish the meds on day 10, last dose saturday night of anibiotics. Sunday she was wheezy again but not alarmingly so, just a little heavy breathing but it was getting pretty hot out. This vet is closed on mondays and does not do er calls. On monday morning I go to the shop and take her as usual, as the day progresses she steadily breaths heavier. Thats it, we go straight to the local vet. He gets her in and I relate what had gone on so far, as he is listening to her chest he asked me if  the vet had done xrays or reinflated the lung, I said no. He tried to get xrays but everytime she was laid on her side she would start going out. They finally got an xray and discovered she had a diaphramatic tear and her liver and other organs had gone thru. Even if they were able to do the surgery, when the liver was flipped back it would have released toxins and more than likely kill her. If she would have been properly diagnosed and xrays from the get go she could have had surgery to repair the tear but it was to late. She crossed over to rainbow bridge, I called the other vet and told her and have never been back to her. The local vet did an autopsy free of charge to confirm the diagnosis and called to let me know it was accurate.

T

Shandra...thats so sad.  I'm sorry about your loss...

I titled this "Favorite..." , but the "Favorite" was meant to hold sarcasm.    Through all these stories, you will notice that not one penny is refunded...  these vets have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  At least from postings such as these, it will give us the nudge to get second opinions, or at least to question the diagnosis. 

Because of my original experience with the vet with my small dog, I went to a different vet when my GS started limping one day (front leg).   Long story short...This new Dr. Doom and Gloom couldn't find any pain from palpation, wanted to do full blood work and some other things unrelated to his limping, so by the time she mentioned doing a full set of xrays I just wanted to get the hell out of there.  I told her I would think about it, but she still guilted me into buying some Rymadyl.

I got home...looked up side effects of Rymadyl and said hell no.  I checked my dog again, and found he was flinchy at this toenail.  And BELIEVE IT OR NOT.... HE WAS SOUND THE NEXT MORNING!!!!!!   OMG...  a total repeat...different vet....of what happened to my little dog on the original post.

I have now decided, that unless it's life threatening...I am going by the 2 or 3 day rule.  I'm going to wait it out... limit exercise..and make any decisions for medical help then.     Thank God my dogs are healthy otherwise, because I still am researching vets in my area that I can trust.

I still have the bottle of Rymadyl sitting in the cupboard unopened.  Cost me $53.00 bucks.  But at least it didn't end up unnecessarily inside my dog.

My Reno was diaganosed by a specialist with a Sinus  tumor and given 3 to 6 mos to live.  I was told Radiation and Chemo treatments could extend her life - 6 to 9 mos.  She was 8 at the time and I opted to decline treatment.  She passed away just shy of her 14th birthday,  Needless to say he was a little off on his diagnosis.

Cheryl