Neurological problem, seizures - help please - Page 3

I am very sorry for your loss. We will all keep your family and you in our thoughts. I am sure the rest of the dogs will be okay...You might clean your home with mild solutions of vinegar or choice of disenfectant like Peroxide or a none harsh one for pets.

Hot soapy water on all utensils and kennels will be good and treat your other dogs to yogurt and good fresh meats and veggies to keep their immune system up since they may be a little upset over their friend leaving them...

 

Thanks all for your sympathy. Just another thought, if the virus is so short-lived in the environment I do not know how he could have been infected as I am sure he has not been in contact with a dog with distemper (unless at the vets when he had the toe operation, that was in early jan).

 Oso,

Sadly, you will never know what this was all about, but my experience and gut instinct suggests this was NOT distemper. There are a variety of other potential diseases and or conditions that could have led to the final seizure stage. What happened before may or may not have been related. 

For now, all you can do is be vigilant. It might help to write down some of your thoughts, and memories about what happened when, just in case you have a defining moment where you remember about something happening and can come to some potential understanding of what happened. But, the best thing would have been a necropsy and that is out of the question. So let yourself grieve and honor his memory.

Best wishes.

My sympathies on your loss. It is never easy, especially when they are younger, and moreso when you can't really even tell why things came to pass the way they did.

Just out of sheer curiousity, during the various odd ailments the boy went through, was there ever a tick titer run to rule out Rocky Mtn Spotted Fever, Ehrlichiosis, and Lyme?

Lyme disease has occured here in dogs, but is rare, and all known cases were from the coast (we live in the mountains) but no, we never did any tests like that. Heartworm occured to me, but also I have never heard of a case here, and the Dr. said there were no indications of heart problems, and the heart was normal size on the X-ray. I have read quite a bit now and almost convinced myself it may have been a brain tumor, only thing is there must have been a lung tumor as well, and if it was malignant the Dr. would expect serious weight loss which did not occur. Maybe it was benign but fits with the other overgrowth of tissues he had before?? I had a long conversation with the vet yesterday, he is still pretty convinced about distemper but I am not so sure. I agree we should have done a necropsy but at the time I was so tired and upset, and the vet so convinced of the diagnosis that we did not do it. As for defining moments that you mention, Hodie, I would say firstly he was never exactly 100% after the toe operation although there was nothing to really pinpoint (vet says this indicates a geeral depressed state therefore low immunity and vulnerable to viral infections). One day he coughed a couple of times, but not really intense or frequent, could have been just an irritation. But the next afternoon I let him out of the kennel (he usually lived in the house but that day someone who doesn¿t like dogs had been round) and he sort of staggered out with his head in this wierd position, downwards and twisted to one side, he made his way slowly to the house looking drunk and was coughing again. I went to tell my husband to say something was wrong, but by the time he arrived (only a minute or so later) he looked a bit better then went on to eat his food normally. But the next day he still had these symptoms of the head position (not permanently), cough and general lethargy, although was still eating. We called the vet who said there were signs of a lung infection and we started antibiotics and steroid injections (the latter just twice). There was an immediate improvement, but then after a few days he was worse, and I already explained what we did next. There were a few days when he would just lie down, maybe occasionally lift his head, occasionally get up weakly to change position. When we gave the diprospan there was an immediate improvment again. The vet thinks this is another indication of distemper as he responded to steroids but not antibiotics, but I think this could have happended with a tumor as well, reducing the pressure on the brain??. Although at this time he was still being treated for a lung infection, there were not really any severe respiratory symproms, his tongue and gums were always pink and his breathing was only slightly laboured, he had not coughed for a while. However the X-ray had shown a white area on one lung. Then he was "OK" (but did seem tired) for nearly 2 weeks before the convulsions started dramatically and out of the blue. The first one was just like epilepsy and he came round quickly and started behaving normally, but after the subsequent attacks he never got back to normal and was pacing, salivating profusely, at one point just standing looking at the wall, confused. At the end he had continuous myoclonal convulsions all over his body which is what made the vet suddenly diagnose distemper, he said everything previously made sense with this diagnosis. What do you think Hodie (or anyone else with vetinary experience)? I know nothing will change it now and we will never know for certain, but I would be interested to know if there are alternative possibilities.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that several times during his semi-recovered phases he made a mess in the house, something that he never did before. We put this down to his general illness, but I have read that it can be a sign of a brain tumor. Also there were never any indications of intestinal, or metabolic problems, (kidney, liver, thyroid etc...). never any apparent fever, though the vet pointed out that this can be brief and easily missed in distemper.

Oso,sorry for your loss.

To me it still sounds like a brain tumour.All the symptoms you are mentioning mirror what happened with my old girl

The vet put my old girl onto steroids and it created an amazing transformation in her condition.

 

 Oso,

I do not believe this was distemper, even more so now that I read the additional clarification. I believe it was either some serious neurological condition and an infection (which most likely would have resulted in fever), or, in fact, a tumor. Weight loss is not necessarily seen in tumors. And it could have been that he had something like a hemangiosarcoma, for instance, and that had metastasized to his lung, brain and possibly elsewhere (or another type of tumor is also possible) and finally it was putting either too much pressure on the brain, or, it ruptured and slow bleeding was the cause of the seizures. The steroids certainly might have helped some small bit in a tumor, but tumors can be so fast growing that within weeks to days the condition of the organism worsens.

My money would be on neurological, rather than distemper. The important thing is that you did all you could and clearly he was a lucky fellow to have someone who loved him. 

best wishes.