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Sick so fast


n0mad
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Three days ago I noticed one of Ceile's mammary glands was a tiny bit swollen.  She's due to start cycling soon so I thought I'd just keep an eye on it - that it was probably hormones.  She was her usual crazy-busy self.  We went for a long hike and, other than she was being picky at mealtime seemed normal; we coaxed her a little and she ate.  The day before yesterday was the same.  In the morning her mammary gland was the same and she was as lively as ever; even at 9:30 that night she was still trying to goad us into playing ball in the living room.  We had company so when she disappeared at 10:00 we thought she had gone to bed but after 11:00 she hobbled back out.  She was standing hunched a bit and was obviously hurting I felt her tummy and the mammary gland had swelled a bit more and was a little warm but not hot.  I decided to take her to the vet in the morning. 

At 1 am she woke me up and begged to get into bed with me.  I let her but she was having trouble getting comfortable.  I propped her hind leg up  with a rolled night shirt to prevent it from putting pressure on her groin and she slept a little.  I spent the next hour and a half scouring the internet to help me decide what to do.  Her skin wasn't discoloured or I would have called the vet right away.  Kind of wishing I had but, thanks to covid, I am basically unemployed and couldn't afford to pay the double fee for an emergency visit if it wasn't a real emergency.  Again, she was warm but not hot so I waited.  At 3 am she vomited up her supper and was in too much pain to lie down.  I helped her onto her side and held her hind leg so it couldn't touch her tummy at all.  She was asleep in seconds and now I was really worried.  I held her leg until she was asleep enough to let me prop it on the rolled nightshirt again.  By now it was 4:30 and I was in no condition to drive the hour down winding lakeside roads. The mammary gland had swelled a little but wasn't huge or red or any thing so I prayed and turned off the light and went to sleep.  

At 7:30 when I woke up, Ceile had moved herself to her crate, which I thought was a good sign until she came staggering out with an obvious fever.  Her groin was swollen to twice the size.  I called the vet and told them I was on the way. 

They gave her antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and fluids.  I got her there in time but the vet said to watch her closely.  I've had my share of sick dogs but I've never seen an infection progress so fast.  She is doing much better although I'm having to cook her meaty soups to get food and fluids into her and she's only eating small portions at a time; she's not out of the woods yet but I'm comforted by how quickly the antibiotics are working.  

I'm sharing this because it was so terrifying to see how fast she went from being a relentlessly busy 18 month old to being in peril.  Nothing I read on the internet suggested how fast the infection could spread.  Every single article I read suggested there would be discolouration by the time the infection got serious - there was, and still is none.  

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Thank you for your kind thoughts. 

She's almost back to normal.  After the swelling began to go down she did get a wide red streak alongside the swollen gland, but this was after she was already on the mend.  It may even have been due to the insane swelling that almost doubled the size of her one hind leg causing rubbing in the groin area.  That freaked me out a little but the vet said it was normal enough, that it was just the lymph as things were being cleaned up in the mammary.  He wasn't too worried as long as she kept showing signs of improvement and nothing turned black and hard.  I was just to apply compresses.  So cold on the leg, hot on the tummy (she liked that :) ) and she's back up and running with only a soft swelling a little smaller than a golf ball left.  

 

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Thank goodness she is OK, and I hope the rest of her recovery goes smoothly.

 I fully understand what you are saying about not wanting to go to the emergency vet unless it is for certain an emergency, as I am also a person who needs to watch the budget and it is hard to be sure when something really is. I have had to make that same call a time or two, and it's hard.  Now that I have read your story, though, I am going to take a clue from it and if one of mine seems to be getting rapidly worse, no matter what the problem is, I am heading to the emergency hospital.  

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I'm not sure how - or why - pets seem to have these emergency situations on weekends or after hours, but it seems that's when they present themselves.

Sunny gave me a scare just last weekend when she ate a bunch of coffee grounds I'd foolishly left w/in her reach. (Especially foolish b/c I know she scarfs up any stray crumb of a ground that falls on the floor.) Fortunately I caught her in the act, checked on line to confirm that making her vomit them w/ Hydrogen peroxide was the right course of action, and had them out of her in less than 10 minutes, then followed up w/ activated charcoal. By the time I called the vet to confirm that this was the right thing to do, all I had to do was watch her. She never skipped a beat and I've been thanking my lucky stars ever since. I will never be without these items in my house.

So glad Ceile's on the mend. Let's hope she stays healthy from now on.

 

 

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I have a small 5 ml dosing syringe (no needle). I gave her 2 of them. Started w/ one but when she didn't throw up right away I gave her an second. Dunno if it goes by weight or not - probably. She's ~30 lbs. I figure it's not gonna be an issue w/ too much b/c they're going to throw it up anyway.

But here's a site that gives dosage: https://animalwellnessmagazine.com/hydrogen-peroxide-vomiting/

A word of caution: Not all inappropriately ingested toxins should be vomited up. Be sure that whatever it is should come up and not do more damage coming up than staying down. Some things can cause more damage coming up and other things should be done instead.

I gave her two 260mg capsules of activated charcoal. It should be readily available in drug stores and other places vitamins and supplements are sold. Probably in health food stores. You might want to some research into its use. It's not appropriate for all types of poisoning and can have some side effects. That said, I've also seen it as an ingredient in a pet treat recipe.

 

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GentleLake, I have another BC Facebook friend who keeps packets of bicarbonate of soda (I think what you call baking soda in the USA, also known as bicarb soda) in her car for use in emergency poisoning situations.  In South Australia, the local and state governments will bait foxes (an introduced pest) with poison baits, and these baits can be picked up and carried outside known bait areas, so accidental poisonings are not unknown, and in rural areas, it can take too long to get to a vet.  Apparently this will also induce vomiting, although it may be a little harder to get down the throat of a dog.  It has a long shelf life, but you may get the police having a closer look at you for having measured packets of a white powder in your car...

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I keep hydrogen peroxide on hand as well.  Ceile decided to chow down on mushrooms last year on a hike.  My vet told me to check the expiration date as it will become less and less effective overtime requiring more to get them to vomit.  A new bottle every so often is an inexpensive investment.

Diane Allen:  Yes it was her mammary but the vet thought maybe pyometra first even though there was no discharge. The thing that concerned her was that both pyometra and mastitis should have (normally) showed up long before now.   We might never know the exact cause.  There was also nothing able to be excreted from the teat.  I did find one site that suggested it could have been both, starting as pyometra and spreading via the bloodstream,  but when I tried to find it again afterward I couldn't locate it.  

She has one more week of meds to go and is back to normal - as normal as she gets.  She decided the moon was very suspicious the other night and alerted the whole neighborhood to the danger after suddenly coming to the conclusion it was in cahoots with the street lights.  Never a dull moment.

 

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2 hours ago, n0mad said:

She decided the moon was very suspicious the other night and alerted the whole neighborhood to the danger after suddenly coming to the conclusion it was in cahoots with the street lights.  Never a dull moment.

:lol: One of mine can't stand it when the neighbors put their trash bin out near the end of my driveway. You'd think an army was invading. :rolleyes:

Strange, some of the things that go on inside their heads. But it sure can be amusing. :P

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On 10/9/2020 at 10:13 AM, GentleLake said:

:lol: One of mine can't stand it when the neighbors put their trash bin out near the end of my driveway. You'd think an army was invading. :rolleyes:

Strange, some of the things that go on inside their heads. But it sure can be amusing. :P

Ohhh yes. the garbage men and the trash bins. This must be barked at. And then, where I live, there are coyotes and javelina as well, and they are definitely invaders who have to be not only announced but also frightened away with paroxysms of barking until I encourage them to stop, always thanking them for letting me know about it. What's kind of fun is that I can always tell whether they are barking at a coyote or javelina because the barks are different. Of course they also have special individual barks for the people they like who come to visit. Except no one comes to visit any more, now. :-(

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