Lymphosarcoma? - Page 6

Here's a dirty little insider secret. Lyme diagnosis is incredibly difficult, with a lot of false positives. Even human testing is reliably done only at a few places in the country. Unscrupulous people use non-specific tests, get a positive result then pump with antibiotics and repeat process.

OK, I see what you're getting at.  Truth of the matter is that there still remains a lot of 'unknown territory' when it comes to Lyme disease in virtually every capacity--some experts swear the organism can be completely cleared in infected individuals, while others maintain the agent DO reservoir in the body in a similar manner as does the Herpes zoster virus in humans who have had chicken pox.  And the 'snap' test can have a positive result in response to exposure to the organism that was successfully fought off, or in response to one of the earlier Lyme vaccines...but by the same token, one has to decide which is worse: for a patient to be infected and left untreated, or to treat based on a combination of a positive snap test and clinical signs being present?

I'm in the camp that espouses the latter--I've seen the damage that untreated Lyme can wreak on a dog, and it literally can be the cause of the dog losing it's life because of neurologic effects from the disease have changed the dog's temperament to the point where it became dangerous.

And given that the cost of the antibiotics generally used to treat Lyme is almost negliable, I'm hard pressed to consider that a 'rip off'.

Rip-off refers to the potentially unnecessary antibiotic treatment due to the false positives. Consider that it can build antibiotic resistance in bacteria, will require unnecessary vet visits, delay the actual diagnosis. Is that still cheap ?.

As with everything medical, you have to consider to pros and cons on a case-by-case basis. 

As far as the situation with Rasto goes, treating him now based upon the presumptive positive on the snap test AND the enlargement of all the significant lymph nodes is NOT going to interfere with a confirmed diagnosis. The tissue biopsies are already in progress, and if the path report comes back with a diagnosis of lymphoma, the antibiotic therapy the dog has been on in the interim will not have done anything adverse or that will impede, delay or obscure the situation and interfere with the treatment plan that will be constructed. The short period of time between when the snap test results became available and when the path report is returned isn't going to require any additional veterinary visits unless the dog acquires additional clinical signs of illness.  At present, there is no solid consensus regarding whether treatment should be instituted immediately for dogs that test positive for Lyme using the 4D test AND which have one or more clinical signs that could be observed in a dog with an active case of the disease.  There's not even a solid consensus regarding whether to treat dogs that test positive for Lyme during a routine visit and HW test, with NO clinical signs of Lyme, for that matter--solid arguments can be made for each side.

I could understand the 'rip off' comment if the drug of choice for treating Lyme were $100/dose, but c'mon--the cycline family of medications are well-established and not under patent protection, and therefore cost just a tick above nothing, in the grand scheme of the cost of veterinary care.

Reasonable to give antibiotics. My original comment referred to the test being a rip off since the test is not very specific. The test providers should know better.

If this dog is positive for lymphosarc/lymphoma/leukemia and the OP opts to have him treated with the big guns, he should not be taking any steroids for about 10 days before the start of the chemo, antibiotics should be OK and should not interfere with that line of treatment. Steroids delayed the treatment for my dog for almost 2 weeks, the oncologist wanted them out of his system for at least 10 days.

My sister had Lyme disease. She has never fully recovered from it either. When she first got sick, the hospitol misdignosed her saying she had MS, while they waited for the test results to come back. Well they treated her with steroids while waiting for the results. While steroids are good for MS, it was not so good for Lyme Disease. My sister suffered irrepairable damage to her entire nervous system by this mistaken treatment. While giving antibiotic while waiting for confirmation, is alright, I certainly would wait until ALL tests are back before giving any other treatments. I am hoping for the best possible outcome for this dog.

Well I was hoping all the well wishes would bring us some good news but no luck.

Lymphoma was diagnosed today.

Thanks for your kind thoughts and comments.
Mike

So very sorry.

So sorry to hear that Mike.