SchnauzerMax

15 minutes ago, BDJ said:

Hi,  

 

My brother recently changed vets, and a general blood test was done by the new vet.   No symptoms or 'triggers' - it was a general 'new patient, let's do one to check everything is ok and to get a baseline'.  The dog is a 9yo whippet who appears to be happy and healthy.

The results have come back with a very high lipase reading (3 x normal level).  Vet and owner are surprised as that level usually indicates pancreatitis or other issue which should be resulting in a sick/unwell dog.   However, he is happy, noisy, bouncy etc and showing no indications that he is unwell.

Vet advice is to change his diet and reduce fat, and then do another blood test in 6 months (obviously respond sooner if any other indications)

Does anyone have any other thoughts or suggestions?

thanks

It might be his normal level? 
I would just make sure his food is good quality and I would probably lean towards raw / barf.

Do you have any scented diffusers? Some essential oils are really bad for dogs and the symptoms you described are similar. It’s interesting that the symptoms recur when you got home.

I’m so sorry. I was hoping for a foreign body. Have you talked about chemo options? You would probably need to talk to a vet oncologist. I don’t know if it is a suitable option for your boy but if it is, it can stop it getting bigger, at least for a while. 

 

Correlation is not causation. Just because one event follows another does not mean the first caused the second. 
Also, the reported adverse effects and the time intervals between dose and effect are very variable in these reports, which makes it difficult to evaluate properly. 
Perhaps it is similar to ivermectin, some animals with a particular genetic makeup don’t tolerate it?  
If I gave my dog tick meds and 3 weeks later they got really sick, my first thought would not be the tick meds. 

1 hour ago, giraffez said:

So  a nasal tumour easily treatable and has a good chance of survival?  Did they just remove it while he was under for the scope?

 

...

They scoped first and then planned the subsequent operation. Survival rates are very dependant on tumour type and location. Kitty’s was high up in a difficult spot to get to, so vet removed as much as they could but could not get it all.  So greatly improved quality of life in the short term but it will eventually come back. 

3 hours ago, Rascalmyshadow said:

I would go and have him scoped, we had a very similar thing happen with our previous chi, spent months treating for so called allergies/infections but she had a nasal tumour which was very high up and ended up spreading to her brain, we lost her at 5 years old.

I personally wouldn’t be mucking around, hoping it is nothing serious.

I too would have him scoped. A friend’s cat had similar symptoms and after a lot of faffing around went for the invasive option which showed a tumour high up in the nasal bone which they operated on to remove. 
I too hope it is nothing awful but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and get a definitive diagnosis so you treat it effectively. 

Depends on the vets. My specialist vet includes the prescription as part of the consultation fee but my local vet charges the prescription fee as a separate item. 

Animals are considered property in the eyes of the law. So, in effect, you have purchased a defective product. 
The usual legal remedy is you return the dog to the breeder and receive a refund. There is no avenue for damages. The breeder may offer to pay for some treatment at their discretion or replace the puppy again at their discretion. Threatening and pursuing legal action for damages will only waste your money.

I’d ring them and describe it and see what the vet says. Max had something similar. It turned out to be absorbing sutures that weren’t behaving as described. If I remember correctly, they had to remove them like the old style ones. Post surgery consults should be free unless they have to do something unexpected and major.

Gastrointestinal disorders can be associated with stargazing and licking their lips.  Someone on another Schnauzer Facebook page posted this link 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204840/

I don’t know if they are connected but lip smacking is considered to be a reaction to nausea or pain. 

She was a special little madam and will be missed. 

Insurance is a gamble.

If you pay your premiums and don’t get anything back, you feel it’s wasted money.

But....

We have had a a couple of catastrophic illnesses (2 emergency once offs and one long term chronic) and even with rapidly increasing premiums, we are still tens of thousands of dollars better off. And yes, I do mean tens of thousands better off.

We could NEVER save enough to cover those costs by putting money away in a bank account.

if you don’t get to claim against your insurance, you should be happy, you have a healthy dog. 

He sounds like he has vision problems. It may have absolutely nothing to do with a coccidia infection. 

Max did all those sorts of things. Running into poles, not being able to judge distances when jumping on and off the sofa etc. He was diagnosed with SARDS which meant he had gone from 100 to 0 sight in about 2 months and we didn’t realise the severity of his vision loss.

You might need a eye specialist examination because with Max, our local vet thought something was wrong but was uncertain as to what exactly.

We use kangaroo mince (human grade) mixed with Vets all Natural Mix. It’s a mix of rolled oats and other stuff that you soak and add to the meat in a specific ratio to mimic their diet in the wild.. Kangaroo because  Max got pancreatitis while we were trying out other  commercial diets that were supposedly good for diabetic dogs and hence everything else has too much fat or is so tasteless that he would not eat it - which is dangerous for a diabetic dog. You could use whatever meat you think appropriate.

From memory, normal stitches are 10 days to 2 weeks to be removed. So, if they are still in evidence then, ask your vet. 

On 12/06/2019 at 6:54 PM, teddybeans said:

My boy ended up getting more than a handful of teeth pulled as the X-ray showed bone loss and it had to go.  Including the molars.

 

He is doing well well after surgery, almost like nothing happened.

 

im curious about how the stitches work, vet says it will desolve over time.  How do they desolve, they look pretty thick to me.

With most dogs, they just dissolve. With my Max, they didn’t and had to be removed.

Just keep checking his mouth and if they don’t dissolve, take him back to the vets.

I forgot to add - always read the fine print and know what you are covered for.

If you are going to get insurance, do it as soon as you get your puppy. Otherwise anything diagnosed before insurance is a pre-existing condition and not covered. 

We have had a couple of serious health scares where the insurance meant we could cope financially - emergency doggie open heart surgery and diabetic ketoacidosis (different dogs). 

We could not have put enough money away each month to cover either of the above. So look at it as an emergency life saver not as something you have to get your money’s worth from.

To much tripe. Should be a treat. Not everyday.

Could be pancreatitis. A blood test at the vets will prove it / rule it out.

On 01/03/2019 at 11:26 PM, Loving my Oldies said:

What’s a UX designer?

 

Hard to understand why you are assuming at the start of your research that there is a problem?  

User Experience a kind of web developer.

2 hours ago, Zena's mum said:

Wow. That’s difficult. I had no idea really. How old is your fur friend? Is he not interested in food? The dog I was looking after was hungry all the time. Really hungry. I found that difficult as he was only allowed his two meals a day. All measured and just vet prescribed biscuits as he doesn’t digest the raw food. It’s such a difficult life. 

Sorry to hear that you are going through a bad situation.

Max is 7.5 years old. The total lack of appetite was due to the pancreatitis, but he is a fussy eater. He refuses to eat Hills Prescription Diet which is what the vet wants him to eat. It smells disgusting to me, so I can’t blame him. We have discovered he loves kangaroo so fingers crossed...

Winston Churchill was quoted as saying “when going through hell, keep going”.

So true.

10 hours ago, Zena's mum said:

I just recently had my first experience dog sitting a diabetic dog too. I had him for a full week. A week  of morning and evening injections. It certainly is very daunting. Pretty easy as you say but secretly I was happy to see him go home. I hated dealing with it. Totally out of my comfort zone. He is type 2 bought on by bad diet. I feel sorry for the poor dog and his family too but they have learnt a valuable lesson.

 

Schnauzer Max - I don’t know much about diabetes in dogs and didn’t even realise they can get type 1. Must be hard for you.

Zena’s Mum,

yes it is hard. We thought he had more bladder stones but it turned out to be diabetes. 

Diabetes complicates any other disease or illness. 

He was diagnosed in April and it still isn’t under control. He developed pancreatitis a month ago and that in conjunction with diabetes is life threateningly scary. A diabetic dog that won’t eat ends up in intensive care in hospital on a drip with glucose in one port and insulin in the other. 

My understanding of diabetes in dogs is that a large proportion are type 1 diabetics I.e. autoimmune induced rather than diet. 

My Max is diabetic - type 1.

The more carbohydrate you feed, the more insulin you will need. 

High blood sugar is dangerous, really low blood sugar is just as dangerous.