Unknown Illness--I'm Getting Desperate!

Hi all. I have been through a month of craziness with my dog, and the vets cannot seem to figure out what is wrong with her. Her symptoms have been all over the board, and she'll get better for a few days then relapse again. She has lost a lot of weight and is getting weak, so I'm really concerned what will happen if we don't figure it out soon.

Any input would be appreciated...here's what has been done already:

She stopped eating and started throwing up, so after two days I took her to vet to see what was up. They gave her fluids and some meds and sent her home. She did not improve, so I took her to another vet.

They did bloodwork, xrays, tested for Addison's Disease, parvo, pancreantitis, a surgery (to make sure there was no obstruction, the xrays had shown liquid inflating her stomach) and a biopsy of a piece of tissue from her intestine which looked inflamed. The only thing they came up with a viral infection, from the biopsy results. They gave me some meds and said we'd have to wait for her to fight it off.

By the next week, she seemed to be feeling much better. She was acting more like herself, and wasn't throwing up. She still was weird about eating, but she'd eat chicken breast. I thought she was on the mend and was fighting off this infection I was told about.

A week after that, she threw up a few times again, then didn't want to eat much, and seemed to feel sick again. After a few days, seemed to start getting better again.

Fast forward to the next week. She randomly started shaking and kind of burping or coughing like she had some pressure built up inside. She was extremely lethargic and clearly did not feel well. I brought her back to the vet. Since it had been quite some now, they redid xrays and bloodwork...still waiting on all those results. They informed me that while she was at the animal hospital, she showed signs that her neck was hurting her. Really random, but they gave her a pain injection and xrayed her neck, found nothing.

Today she ate a few bites (chicken, wouldn't touch anything else) and then was very uninterested in food. She seemed in good spirits for a short time, then laid down and acted like she felt sick again!

I am at a loss, if the most recent tests don't reveal anything new, I just don't know what to do. I don't want to put her down when we don't have any idea what it is, especially since she randomly gets better, and she is only about 7 years old and has been healthy up until now.

Any ideas?? Anything at all? Tricks to get her to eat more so she doesn't get any weaker? I apologize for the length, but I am desperate for any help I can get. I would take her to another vet, but I'm afraid they would just start over with all the stuff she's already had done, and I've spent WAY too much money already.

Sorry to hear this.

It sounds like you (and your vet) have pretty much done all the investiagtions so it's difficult to suggest anything really.

7 years old isn't 'old' so whilst I accept taking her to another vet might feel like a backwards step - it's probably the most sensible way forwards.

For what it's worth - Addison's (adrenal gland issue) was suspected with my last dog when he was young. Lethargy to the point of collapse was the symptom.

Various tests were done but didn't confirm anything. Prior to the results he had a huge crash and (as an emergency) he was given a 'non specific' steroid which had had an immediate effect.

For about 3 years we had the pills. Whenever he 'crashed' we gave him them and they worked.

From memory (once given) it was 4 a day for a couple of weeks, then 3 a day, then 2 etc then nothing for months but it was just a case of being ready for the next episode.

We never did get to the route of the problem but the vet had at least found something that worked.

Is it unheard of to ask to speak with a vet first and tell them a little background info before I actually have them examine her? My fear is that they will not realize how extensively she has been examined and start over at square one. It's like I want a doctor to have some idea or something to try before I bring her in...

I'm not really qualified to say but I would think that if you went to another vet the best bet would be for them to have as much info as possible from previous examinations / tests.

That is definitely true, but in my experience setting up an appointment you end up talking to the front desk staff who ask very general questions and tell you to just come in. I don't know that they'd let me talk to the actual doctor first...

Hi Lauren

From what you have said I would want to get her stomach PH tested and/or a stool test for H.Pylori. H.Pylori can lead to low stomach acid, which would explain the weight loss and lethargy.

I'm guessing they've already tested for things like Giardia?

Has she been wormed recently?

Also, if she was my dog I would seriously consider putting her on a species appropriate (i.e grain-free) diet. When Rocky had cancer I found that boiled potato (cooled) and cooked chicken (just the meat - no bones) was a good balance of protein and carb for him. It would also help rule out allergens in her food.

Regarding getting a second opinion - your vet would probably fax over all the tests she's had to date and the results, so the new vet shouldn't really need to repeat any of those.

Hope that's of some help and please keep us posted - sending some healing vibes your way too..

Hi Stoli,

If it's possible, might you be able to arrange an ultrasound of her chest and abdomen? I ask particularly as you mentioned that she "started shaking and kind of burping or coughing like she had some pressure built up inside."

I seriously do not want to alarm you, but I have encountered similar symptoms with two of mine. In both cases it has been an aggressive cancer-- hemangiosarcoma-- that is not often detected by blood tests as it hardly ever sheds any cells. Depending upon where it is, it can cause weight loss, fluid buildup, all kinds of muck. Ultrasound is uninvasive and your best bet to rule it out, which I very much hope it will.

I wish you all the best.

So sorry to read about your poor dog, but I had similar with mine a couple of years ago, to the extent I was going to have an endescopy to find out what could be wrong with her. The symptoms were exactly the same. Even the coughing bit, where they make their way up the windpipe.

As Azz has said, I would get some faecel tests done, either 3 days successive, or ask the vet to do the very expensive test which is around £60 instead of £30 odd and in that, they can see something which would point to parasites.

My dog had a build up of giardia, even though I had wormed her every 6 months as a routine, it hadn't been enough to kill this parasite and consequently, they built up. She vomitted intermittently, you could never put your finger on the WHY, she would refuse food again, you could never put your finger on the WHY, one minute she did a perfectly normal poo, and then an hour later it came out of her like a hosepipe, and then by evening back to normal again My vets were stumped, until one of her poo samples actually came back with a positive, so we used the Panacur for 7 days, then again in 2 weeks time and everything cleared up. Then it recurred 3 months later so I had to do it again, it's a terrible thing to get rid of. It's found in soil, in faeces and stale water. This went on for almost a whole year. We ended up having some very strange dollop of jellified blood on top of a loose stool one day which I instantly rushed to the vets. The worst was her vomiting up a very stringy, bloody, pink substance in the middle of the night when we rushed her to the vet and they decided she could have a build up of this parasite.

Please ask your vet about the possibility of this giardia and ask him if your dog is fit enough to do a course of Panacur. It's the safest wormer there is, and even when my dog was really lethargic with diarrhea, she was prescribed it and voila, within a couple of days she was absolutely fine again, eating like a horse and never throwing up.

There is more of this parasite about than they care to admit to and maybe they haven't even thought about it, so you do need to mention it.

Good luck with your poorly dog.

Thank you very much for your responses. I will ask my vet about H. Pyloria and Guardia. They wanted to test a stool sample when I brought her in again on Saturday but were unable to collect one, she hadn't eaten all day and barely ate yesterday. Maybe today I will be able to.

My vet did mention ultrasound and that it could be the next step if the most recent batch of testing reveals nothing. We are waiting on Valley Fever results right now even though her symptoms didn't really match up with that...her second round of blood work indicated infection they said...

If anyone thinks of anything else please let me know, I'm making note of all your suggestions so far, and really appreciate it.

Is it possible that you can just have a phone conversation with your vet and ask him about the pylori and giardia? I'd also tell him that you are going to get a stool sample in at the earliest opportunity, so call in to your local docs or vets and grab a pot which has a little spoon in the lid and take one as soon as you possibly can and get it down to them ready for them to send it off for a thorough test. It really is the only way to go next imo, before going through more extensive, expensive tests, because I'm sure this could well be the case.

Sometimes, vets don't think of the simple stuff first, I know mine didn't and that was an RCVS hospital, but out of FIVE vets that were seeing my dog over a period of almost a whole year, none of them, thought of this giardia until the night she vomitted up that vile, pink, stringy, substance, the very same substance that they had seen on top of that poo I had taken in to them 6 weeks earlier!! Having Googled until I was all Googled out, I then brought up the subject of a build up of worms/parasites/giardia and this last vet I saw said, we had to rule it out and voila, turned out I was right, and I could have lost my dog eventually if they had not have treated her. He told me that even though we might be unlikely to see the giardia parasite, if I had this more expensive stool test done, it would show up something else which would confirm it for him, BUT, thankfully, it showed up a giardia cyst, not the parasite itself, just the cyst, so he then knew along with what else he had back on the completed form they sent.

It's gotta be worth a telephone call to speak to your vet and ask about these things. Good luck. we're all rooting for your poor dog.