Lyme's and doxy

[Guest pax]

Despite being innoculated and being on preventative, my young dog (1 1/2) tested positive for Lyme's Disease on a routine screen.

 

The old ladies, on exactly the same program, were both negative.

 

The vet suggests the doxy route.

 

I am so aggravated with myself. I never saw this dog go lame. I never saw her run a fever. I did see the occasional tick, but I check them daily, if not more often. I handle my dogs every day. They go to work with me, they are constantly in motion, I watch them move ALL the time, it's an occupational hazard when you do horses to constantly be analyzing how something is moving.

 

Ugh. I am pretty pissed off with myself for not doing better.

 

Anyway, sorry, personal vent over..

 

My question is, when I treat the horses with doxy I give some kind of buffer at the same time. Generally Gastrogard.

 

I've never used doxy in a dog. Would I be smart to give her some kind of buffer? I can't do this Gastrogard in small enough increments for her, I'd need to use something like liquid Prilosec to get it right, but I'd need to start like three days ago to have it useful....anyway, if I start now it would be better than nothing, right?

 

I just gave it to her in yoghurt I flavoured with Better than Bullion and she sucked it down. That might help a little bit, the acidophilus, but it's not much of a buffer.

 

Am I being too worry wart?

 

Thanks.

[juliepoudrier]

First off, no need to beat yourself up over it. There may never have been lameness or other symptoms to see. And mst tick preventives require the tick to bite to kill the tick, and in the act of biting the tick can transmit Lyme. Merial claims that Frontline paralyzes the mouth parts of the tick before actually killing it, but apparently there's still a chance the disease can be transmitted before the tick dies (also, if you find ticks attached and are not careful with how you remove them, you can cause the tick to inject the contents of its mouth/stomach, and therefore Lyme, into the dog as you're removing it). I assume the test the vet did differentiates between dogs that are vaccinated and dogs who are infected?

 

Anyway, some "rules" of giving doxycycline:

1. Do not give with calcium-containing products as calcium can retard absorption of the doxy (a small ball of cheese or something like that is okay, but if you have other options, it's better to use them, and don't feed a yogurt meal, for example, with the doxy, as you'll be negating the antibiotic effects of the doxy).

2. Do give with food as it will help prevent gastric upset. If you normally feed once a day, split the meal in two and feed when you dose (ideally every 12 hours).

3. IIRC, if you are using gastric protectants, you need to give at a different time than the doxy (maybe an hour?).

4. If you got capsules from your vet, take them back and exchange them for pills. The capsules can get hung in the esophagus and dissolve, causing damage to the esophagus.

5. If your dog has chronic illness or liver problems then you'll want to do liver function tests if the dog is on doxy for a really long time. If you're at all concerned, have your vet do a screen periodically.

 

I'll go check my sources and see what other advice is usually given on Tick-L.

 

J.

[juliepoudrier]

Here you go, from Gil. Ash's Canine TBD information page, http://blackgsd.googlepages.com/treatment. This information has been compiled from numerous sources, and Gil. especially credits the participants of Tick-L and Dr. Tom Beckett, one of the vets who is active on Tick-L and has treated many, many racing greyhounds for TBDs:

 

Doxycycline

 

A semisynthetic tetracycline, doxy is the drug of choice for ehrlichiosis, Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

 

The dosage we recommend on Tick List is an aggressive one: 5 mg. of doxy per pound of body weight given every 12 hours for 8 weeks. For those who prefer to figure body weight in kilograms, this is approximately the same as 10 mg per kg, the difference being not enough to mention.

 

This is twice as high as the dose that is generally recommended and here I should probably remind you that I am not a veterinarian or a medical professional. Well, that's true. At the same time, I should tell you that your vet is the one to decide what dosage to use. Well, no. In my opinion and that of everyone on Tick List, ehrlichiosis and Lyme must be hit hard the first time out and lower doses and/or shorter treatment times all too often mean recurrence. Unless your dog is one of the few that cannot take doxycycline or take it in this higher dose, insist on it! Each time ehrlichiosis or Lyme recurs, it's harder to stop or contain it.

 

According to the University of Georgia, the common dosage of doxy for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) can be as high as 20 mg/kg by body weight given twice a day. That may be because this is a fast-acting disease that a dog without treatment will either recover from or die from, but the slower acting ehrlichiae are just as capable of killing and half that 20 mg/kg amount of doxy as an aggressive dose to combat them decisively, which is the key word here, is surely warranted when so many dogs may suffer all their lives from the effects of ehrlichiosis even if they don't succumb to it.

 

Caution: Do not give out-of-date doxycycline! Tetracycline drugs can cause kidney damage if given after their expiration dates.

 

When giving doxycycline, be sure to give it with food, just before a meal or with it. Unlike other tetracyclines, doxy is not greatly affected by the calcium in dairy products; so, while you should err on the safe side and not feed a lot of them, it's not necessary to worry about poking a tablet in a small amount of cheese or slipping a capsule in a spoonful of yogurt if that will help get it down your dog.

 

Tablets appear to be easier on the dog. Capsules may stick in the esophagus and cause irritation if they dissolve and release the doxy there instead of in the stomach so, if you use capsules, butter them or coat them in grease to make them go down easily.

 

Opening capsules or breaking tablets may also irritate the esophagus.

 

If your dog is nauseated by being given the dose for a 12 hour period all at once, you can divide the dose and give half that amount twice in 12 hours, 4 half doses in 24 hours; as long as he gets all he needs in a day, that's all that counts. Always, however, give it with food.

 

Tetracyclines, including doxycycline, can sometimes cause yellowing of the teeth that are still being formed in the gums. The teeth of pups six months or older shouldn't be affected. Amoxicillin at 20 mg/kg PO (by mouth) for eight weeks can be used instead for Lyme disease but it is useless in the treatment of ehrlichiosis.

 

Since doxy is the most effective of the drugs you can use to fight ehrlichiosis, most forms of which are very dangerous, you have to ask yourself, in the case of a very young pup, if you really care that much about yellowed teeth.

 

Doxycycline is an antibiotic. All antibiotics destroy or inhibit bacteria and don't differentiate "good" from "bad"; they wipe out beneficial bacteria in the dog's gut right along with the disease-causing organisms. It's a wise idea, then, to give the dog probiotics as long as he's taking doxycycline and for several weeks afterward to avoid the gastrointestinal problems that can develop if he's left without this help for eight weeks or more.

 

Probiotics such as lactobacillus acidophilus are available in capsules in health food stores. Plain yogurt with active cultures is also useful but probably not as effective. Stoneyfield is one of the most recommended brands of yogurt. Be sure there is no flavoring or sugar in the kind you buy.

 

Important! Give probiotics two hours "after" doxycycline.

 

Because doxy will wipe out the beneficial bacteria you've given your dog in the form of probiotics, you have to keep giving them after every dose. If you give probiotics before the doxy has cleared the dog's digestive system, you may as well not bother. So stick to the two hour delay and keep it up after every dose of the antibiotic until a few weeks after your dog's treatment is over.

 

One last note on doxycycline. It is processed mainly through the liver and a dog with a damaged liver may not be able to take it. Amoxicillin, on the other hand, leaves through the kidneys and is an acceptable alternative to doxy as a treatment for Lyme as long as the dog doesn't have renal disease. (Amoxicillin is not effective against ehrlichiosis.) More than likely, your vet will have done a CBC and serum chemistry before putting your dog on any treatment for TBD and will have identified any problem areas to take into account, so this is just a heads up.

 

If the dog still has problems with nausea, you can ask your vet about giving him Reglan (metaclopromide)

 

Note: When I treated Twist, I didn't use probiotics and didn't have any issues.

 

J.

[Pipedream Farm]

Additionally, there are two types of lyme vaccines: whole killed bacterin (LymeVax) and recombinant outer sphere protein a (OspA). Both have 1 year duration of immunity and the newer, more expensive OspA (Recombitek lyme) is reported to have higher efficacy than the older whole killed bacterin.

 

Mark

[MrSnappy]

I have used Doxy on a few dogs, mostly ones coming from the states with a secondary infection to kennel cough. I never saw a tummy upset from using it.

 

RDM

[Guest pax]

Thank you.

 

I bungled this morning with the yoghurt but I've got a tonne of tubes of probiotic I can use, so I'll start that. I don't know why I didn't think of it, I have a case of it in the barn fridge. Doh.

 

I rang the vet's office to check on the dosage, what I have 100 mg once a day for 25 days. The vet is out and will ring me back in the morning.

 

Poor Sweet Pea.

[ShoresDog]

I am so aggravated with myself. I never saw this dog go lame. I never saw her run a fever. I did see the occasional tick, but I check them daily, if not more often. I handle my dogs every day. They go to work with me, they are constantly in motion, I watch them move ALL the time, it's an occupational hazard when you do horses to constantly be analyzing how something is moving.

 

Ugh. I am pretty pissed off with myself for not doing better.

 

Ha, do NOT beat yourself up. I didn't notice it when my HUSBAND came down with Lyme's disease!! He tolerated the doxycycline well.

 

Every house on our street in Connecticut that year (1995) had at least one case.

[juliepoudrier]

I rang the vet's office to check on the dosage, what I have 100 mg once a day for 25 days. The vet is out and will ring me back in the morning.

 

Some vets can be very reluctant to allow the higher dose. When Jill tested positive for Lyme I couldn't convince my vet to give the higher/longer duration treatment. I ended up getting what I needed from Jill's former owner, who happened to have a supply....

 

With Twist, I went to a vet who is willing to give the higher dose.

 

Lessons learned from Tick-L is that you really should do the longer-duration high dose if you want to knock it out and not have to deal with recurrence or the transition to chronic Lyme. So be insistent. I can point you to additional references from the tick list if you need some backup to show the vet.

 

J.

[Guest pax]

I have two bottles of doxy in my meds cabinet. My horse vet just throws stuff at me left and right cause I'm an hour from his office.

 

We have 30 horses, 15 at home, 15 client horses in a commercial barn nearby. I am very often able to save him a trip. We both like that.

 

I'd like to do this WITH this dog vet, though, he is a new vet to me and I like him so far. I am guessing he's going to be pretty reasonable to talk to.

[Guest pax]

edited due to general boneheadedness..

[stockdogranch]

Julie's really covered it all with the info from Tick-L (which I agree is the GREATEST list ever!). Anyway, when my girl needed the Doxy, she was in the final stages of pregnancy, and had a hard time tolerating the higher dosage. (The ER refused to put her on the higher dose, so she was on the low dose for a day or 2, then my regular vet agreed to the higher dose after printing out info from Tick-L). The poor girl spent an entire day not able to keep anything (even water) down, and this was like 4-5 days before whelping, so you can imagine how freaked out I was. Someone on the list suggested this: feed a meal first. Wait about a half an hour. Then wrap each pill in a bit of raw hamburger and give them as a treat. She couldn't wait for her pills, and tolerated them for 12 weeks (I wanted to hit it hard and long so as to never have to go through that again, and it WORKED) through whelping, nursing, and weaning 8 pups. That was easier than dealing with probiotics, I thought.

Anna

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Caution: Do not give out-of-date doxycycline! Tetracycline drugs can cause kidney damage if given after their expiration dates.

 

Julie, remember we were wondering about the expired LA? Oxytetracyline. I knew keeping that one after its shelf life was a no-no but couldn't remember why exactly.

[juliepoudrier]

Julie, remember we were wondering about the expired LA? Oxytetracyline. I knew keeping that one after its shelf life was a no-no but couldn't remember why exactly.

 

Yep, I thought the same thing as I was reading that information. Time to go buy a new bottle!

 

J.