Exercise Induced Collapse

[Sasha's Mom]

There is a similar entity in humans, also termed EIC. I don't know that the pathophysiology is similar at all, though, as it's primarily seen in humans after endurance events. In humans, the skeletal muscle vasculature vasodilates a great deal during significant exercise, and almost acts as a second heart, pumping blood. When exercise ceases, the blood pooled in the dilated beds of the skeletal muscle is not pumped back to the heart, causing a drop in venous return to the system, which causes the decrease in blood flow to the brain and the subsequent collapse. The medical tent at the Boston Marathon "treats" this by pumping the runner's legs for about 15 minutes to mimic the exercise, and the patient usually wakes up pretty quickly. Other marathons and endurance events have different strategies, but it is all supportive care.

 

Note that it doesn't happen in ALL humans, and I don't think anyone is studying it. But it would be interesting if it was a similar problem.

[Juniperr]

Hi, I also live in Virginia and I too have a border collie that has developed similar symptoms to Tempe. I took her to the vet several times over the summer when the collapses were more frequent and they played around with an EIC diagnosis and malignant hypothermia. However, nothing was conclusive. Since the summer, my dog hasn't had any more episodes. But, I'm nervous about what will happen with the summer rolls around again. I was wondering what your vet has said and if you know anything more about the study that they were mentioning earlier in the thread. Thanks so much.

Jen

 

 

I would love to see video of it in labs so I could compare to Tempe.

 

This is part of the email I sent off to the contact in the link... I tried to explain it so they could tell me if they wanted a sample.

 

I first noticed an issue about 18 months ago. It was a cooler than normal day here in VA and low humidity. The only change from normal fetching activity was a new Frisbee that she went crazy for. I only threw the Frisbee about 10 times and then took her inside. Within minutes her back end was going out and she could not stand without falling. I thought she was overheated so I soaked a towel and carried her upstairs to a fan – I rubbed the towel on her belly while the fan blew on her. It only took a few minutes for her to recover.

 

I called our dog walker and gave them warning to be careful going forward. Well about a month later I got a phone call and the dog walker felt they over did it but collapsing did not happen this time. They said Tempe basically was zoning out (only way to explain it). She could not follow commands and did not go racing to her crate for her treat. The dog walker hung out for about 20 minutes and proceeded to follow cooling down exercises. About 4 months ago another dog walker (same company) was warned about the problem and I had left notes on what to do if it happened. Tempe was wobbly in the backend so they carried her up the stairs and proceeded to cool her down. Again there was not a lot of exercise.

 

The dog walkers are no longer allowed to play much with Tempe even in cooler weather. I have given them very explicit instructions on signs to look for in the eyes, mouth and just her in general.

[2 Devils]

I did receive Tempe's results back and she does NOT have the EIC gene. They are keeping her bloodwork for whatever other DNA testing they decide to do down the road to help figure out possibly another gene for these heat intolerance problems.

 

My vets and holistic vets are not sure what Tempe has but they have brought up the Malignant Hyperthermia and some other things but it is hard to test for things or to really show them what happens. I purposely avoid getting her to that point any more.

 

Even in cold weather she has the episodes so please still watch for signs.

[sonstar]

Hi all,I found this thread and joined the board yesterday. I too am in Australia and my 15mth old dog has all these symptoms, summer or winter. She is only 1/4 BC being mostly Australian koolie but she has the coat of her BC grandmother. If she was black and white she would easily pass for a BC. Our vet hasn't done any blood tests, but just reassures me that she's fine after giving her a thorough physical exam and I get the feeling he thinks I'm a bit paranoid.

She's had these episodes since she was a small pup and recovers quickly but I'm at the point where I'm afraid to excercise her as much as she needs.

It always happens when we play ball and she loves her ball so much. She's a pretty mellow dog, in fact that's her name, "Mello". She is an outside dog (we live on a small farm) and she has a very shady pen with shadecloth and trees all around so she should be well acclimatised. She was born about three miles away and was one of a litter of nine so she had plenty of playmates. She plays with our mini poodle and they go quite crazy at times wrestling and racing around the yard and so far I've not seen her take a turn from this. It only seems to be when she's playing ball. She falls over, gets up and comes back with the ball, waiting for us to throw it again, then her back end gets wobbly and she seems rather dazed. We stop straight away and make her drink and I pour water on her tummy and she recovers quickly but I wont let her run for the rest of the day. I'm worried she could die from this. Does anyone know if that is possible? I have been assuming she was overheating (although it happens in winter a well) and I had not heard of EIC

Lyn Chambers

[Riley-dog]

Riley is prone to heat exhaustion even in moderate temperatures. The main variable seems to be humidity since he is fine in the desert. His worst bout was one night when I was staying with my parents my mom let him out around midnight to run with her two dogs one last time. He seemed fine, came inside and up to my room panting heavily the wobbled and fell head first into the closet door. I scooped him up, ran outside and jumped clothes and all into the pool with him until his panting ceased.

 

If we're walking on cement or asphault the first signs are a sort of manic panting then I can hear his toenails click on his forward stride meaning he's starting to drag his feet a bit. One rather cool evening I put a ball in my pocket and proceeded to walk him down to a field. He was jumping about like an idiot knowing there was a ball and within two blocks he started weaving. I threw him over my shoulders and carried him home. Got some interesting looks from passing motorists! In the summer we don't exercise anywhere there isn't water he can jump into. This wasn't nearly as much of a problem when we lived in New Mexico or Nevada, even in much higher temps.

[sonstar]

If we're walking on cement or asphault the first signs are a sort of manic panting then I can hear his toenails click on his forward stride meaning he's starting to drag his feet a bit. One rather cool evening I put a ball in my pocket and proceeded to walk him down to a field. He was jumping about like an idiot knowing there was a ball and within two blocks he started weaving. I threw him over my shoulders and carried him home. Got some interesting looks from passing motorists! In the summer we don't exercise anywhere there isn't water he can jump into. This wasn't nearly as much of a problem when we lived in New Mexico or Nevada, even in much higher temps.

 

At least it's good to know that others have the same experience. I always carry water in my backpack. I doubt I could carry Mello, although adrenalin helps a lot. I'm just not that young anymore. I'm scouring the autumn sales for a pool for her. She has a tub and she's usually in it a lot in summer but she has a tight fit these days

[Guest amylobdell24]

I've posted about this in the past, but my 4 year old BC Kenna has the EIC/Hyperthermia issues as well. I work at a vet clinic, so we had the opportunity to check her parameters both just before an incident, and just after. She was calm & resting in her kennel pre, then we took her outside (it was about 80 degrees - not hot really for this area) and threw the ball just 6 times & rechecked her right away - her blood sugar had dropped from 68 to 24, and her temp went from 101 to 106. She's in perfect condition, does agility & flyball, but does show up with the glazed eyes, unsteadiness in her back legs and subsequent collapse - usually only after fetch sessions. She does better with other activities. And if she has access to water to swim in, I never see any signs, regardless of what we're doing. My vet did start her on a few supplements which have definitely helped - apparently her problem is not in storage in her cells, but in conversion of her food to usable energy. So she takes CoQ10, B12, and Carnitine to help her metabolize her food & make her cells more stable. I still have to be careful with her, but it's made the difference in being able to throw the ball in the back yard every evening with the other dogs & having her miss out. It sounds like there's a lot of different factors leading to collapse for different dogs - hyperthermia, sudden glucose drops, low blood pressure (that's something I didn't check on her pre & post, but I should have!) - without the actual DNA test, it seems hard to differentiate between the issues, but even without the gene, it's something that should be addressed. I'd be happy to get the dosing info from my vet for the supplements if anyone wants to give them a try...I did also notice that my previously very svelte dog I could barely keep weight on suddenly gained a ton of muscle - she's still not even close to being overweight, but I notice she's filled out a bit.

[2 Devils]

I would be interested in the supplements you are giving and the dosage.

 

Since I have been monitoring Tempe very close when we play we have not had any incidents in awhile. This past weekend, Tempe made me proud and actually performed flawlessly in a flyball tourney. She has many issues and the overheating is just one of them. I was worried about her overheating even though the weather was nice but exercise is not the only factor for her. She becomes over excited and then add exercise and that is a disaster so this past weekend her running well and not having problems with overheating made me very pleased. I also did give her melatonin at dinner for a week to help and it did I think...

 

Tempe finally put on some weight when I changed the food to Before Grain - Buffalo and started adding Syner-G food supplement. I wonder if this is helping Tempe metabolize her food better hence decreasing her chances of

[Guest amylobdell24]

Dang it, I keep forgetting to look at the bottles & write the dose down. I'll get it on here tonight...

I did just find out Kenna has hip dysplasia - at 4 years old has a lot of arthritic changes in her hips that cause limping off & on :-( But I don't think it has anything to do with the other symptoms. We're headed to a surgeon next week to get options for her.

[Jedismom]

Dang it, I keep forgetting to look at the bottles & write the dose down. I'll get it on here tonight...

I did just find out Kenna has hip dysplasia - at 4 years old has a lot of arthritic changes in her hips that cause limping off & on :-( But I don't think it has anything to do with the other symptoms. We're headed to a surgeon next week to get options for her.

 

I'm interested in the supplements also, since Jedi has had this problem. His last episode was last Sept. The vet asked me to take his temp the next time it happened and for some reason, it hasn't happened again. It did happen about 4 times in Sept. I'm getting worried though, since we're heading into summer again here in miserably humid Florida. Thanks so much!

[Guest amylobdell24]

Alrighty, I just got the original doses from my vet again so you can modify it specifically for your dog - Riboflavin (B2) is 5mg/kg/day - I just give a 100mg tab once daily to my 42.6# dog, CoQ10 is also 5mg/kg/day - and I also give a 100mg capsule of that once daily, and Carnitine is 50mg/kg TWICE daily - I give #2 500mg tabs in the morning, then #2 500mg tabs at night. I didn't see any other side effects from giving these supplements - I was worried it would give her more energy - like drinking a Red Bull or something, but she was her normal self, other than less tippy when playing! Hope it helps as much for your guys.

[Jedismom]

Alrighty, I just got the original doses from my vet again so you can modify it specifically for your dog - Riboflavin (B2) is 5mg/kg/day - I just give a 100mg tab once daily to my 42.6# dog, CoQ10 is also 5mg/kg/day - and I also give a 100mg capsule of that once daily, and Carnitine is 50mg/kg TWICE daily - I give #2 500mg tabs in the morning, then #2 500mg tabs at night. I didn't see any other side effects from giving these supplements - I was worried it would give her more energy - like drinking a Red Bull or something, but she was her normal self, other than less tippy when playing! Hope it helps as much for your guys.

 

Thanks so much. It just so happens that Jedi is 42 lbs., otherwise the math might tax my pre-menopausal brain.

[Brad]

My guy just suffered from this tonight. I had four dogs out chasing the ball tossed with a chuckit, and I noticed they were starting to look a bit ragged so layed them all down for a rest. After about 5 minutes we got back up, and Rig staggered up, was dragging his back feet and started vomitting. He had been drinking some water, outside temp was only about 14C (high 60s??), so not really a heat thing. The other 3 dogs were all fine, but Rig took about 30 minutes to fully recover. I was beside a stream, so took him it up to his shoulders, which seemed to help.

This all happened in a period of about 15 minutes of sprinting. I recall he had something like this once last year, but I didn't recognize it as anything other than really exhausted. It's odd, since he can run a full weekend of flyball, train in July sun for an hour at agility or chase stock around for an hour and no such problem. He also runs 10k with me frequently without issue.

Seems to just be the sprinting when with the other dogs chasing the ball. I wonder if there is a mental trigger to this?

[Jedismom]

There was a more recent discussion on the board about this. Not sure if you saw it.

 

http://www.bordercollie.org/boards/index.php?showtopic=27421

[flyer]

I've posted about this in the past, but my 4 year old BC Kenna has the EIC/Hyperthermia issues as well. I work at a vet clinic, so we had the opportunity to check her parameters both just before an incident, and just after. She was calm & resting in her kennel pre, then we took her outside (it was about 80 degrees - not hot really for this area) and threw the ball just 6 times & rechecked her right away - her blood sugar had dropped from 68 to 24, and her temp went from 101 to 106. She's in perfect condition, does agility & flyball, but does show up with the glazed eyes, unsteadiness in her back legs and subsequent collapse - usually only after fetch sessions. She does better with other activities. And if she has access to water to swim in, I never see any signs, regardless of what we're doing. My vet did start her on a few supplements which have definitely helped - apparently her problem is not in storage in her cells, but in conversion of her food to usable energy. So she takes CoQ10, B12, and Carnitine to help her metabolize her food & make her cells more stable. I still have to be careful with her, but it's made the difference in being able to throw the ball in the back yard every evening with the other dogs & having her miss out. It sounds like there's a lot of different factors leading to collapse for different dogs - hyperthermia, sudden glucose drops, low blood pressure (that's something I didn't check on her pre & post, but I should have!) - without the actual DNA test, it seems hard to differentiate between the issues, but even without the gene, it's something that should be addressed. I'd be happy to get the dosing info from my vet for the supplements if anyone wants to give them a try...I did also notice that my previously very svelte dog I could barely keep weight on suddenly gained a ton of muscle - she's still not even close to being overweight, but I notice she's filled out a bit.

 

Interesting info. I just asked my vet about the possibility of Colt not using all his food. It has been on my mind for awhile. Takes a lot of food to keep weight on him.

 

Thank you for posting the dosages.