CIMDA

Hi,
I am an owner of a whippet.  We went through a long recovery period with her, having autoimmune.  We do not know for sure, but there is suspicion oral tick meds may have been the start of the problem.  That was over a year ago. We thought we now could breathe a sigh of relief.  We do everything we can to make sure she is healthy, good foods, good supplements etc.  This past week, on a Sunday she began to cough.  During the night it got worse and I knew she was having a hard time.  We took her to the vet immediately when they opened on Monday morning.  Many test and xrays, nothing conclusive, except the best they could decide was bacterial pneumonia. She is on meds and steroids again, as they felt the platelet count was low.  We are beside ourselves.  The whippet means everything to us.. but we are scared.. is this a never ending cycle with her.. anyone have any thoughts, or anything as whippet owners you can tell us to help our worry and fear. Does it ever get better, or our we always looking over our shoulder for the next thing and the next ....  Thanks so much.

Hi Louise

Yes preds do have an affect on hair etc., and being on pred does inhibit healing, which won't help. 

The good news is it is isolated to one nail  so it is very likely to be, as you say, an injury which is taking longer than normal to heal.  You could try adding natural Vitamin E and essential fatty acids such as evening primrose oil and fish oil to his diet to nourish the skin and encourage new cell growth.

Jo

Yes the plan is based on his clinical signs and the blood test results we will either continue to slowly reduce the prednisone or change or add different drugs in to hopefully get him more comfortable and happy after 5 long months of this and possibly another 4 months before we will hopefully have reduced his prednisone but day by day and fingers toes and paws crossed that he will be ok.

Just 1 at the moment it also has a poke injury where something went between the nail and the nail bed my vet did say he has brittle nails from the steroids his hair is thinner and he has crusting on his back today he is not well got tummy issues causing diarrhea he is on 2ml twice daily of lactulose syrup because he tends to get constipated .

Hi

Does Panda have a problem with all of his nails or just one?

Jo

Hi Louise

I hope now that Panda is back on a higher dose of prednisolone  it will bring the disease under control and eventually into remission.  If when you reduce the dose Panda still has clinical signs then perhaps your vet should consider introducing another immunosuppressive drug such as leflunomide or cyclosporine, or one of the other immunosuppressive drugs used commonly in a combination therapy.

Like you say, fingers crossed!

Jo

I did not notice a problem with my AIHA dog's nails when on high doses of Preds. It could be due to the steroids or that Panda is unwell.

You could try putting some socks on the affected paws, at times, to stop him licking them if he is doing that. Dog boots would also help protect his toes/nails being knocked when he goes outside, especially if you have other dogs as well that want to play boisterously. Just make sure that you keep his feet clean, dry and aired if you use the socks, boots.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed that when their dogs are on high dose prednisone that they can get brittle nails panda has had a nail cut right back to the nail bed because he had a poke injury and his nail was split so vet removed all the nail up to the bed to stop it bleeding he said that panda has brittle nails due to high levels of prednisone have to keep eye on it so it doesn't get infections.

Update on panda spinal tap results showed improvement so my vet has said that the cns disease is being affected by the immunosuppressive regime but possibly not controlled so we are doing 10mg prednisone twice daily for 2 weeks then reassess him he is due a blood test on the 20th just before he has been on the dose for 2weeks he is still sore and skipping also he had clipper rash and his hair is getting very thin fingers crossed that he will be ok now thoughts were initially the prednisone was reduced to quickly and we didn't have control of his inflammation before it was reduced.

Hi Elaine

I am so pleased your dermatologist is willing to work with you.  This is so important and it will achieve the best outcome.

As Catherine says, it is only while Woody's immune system is being significantly suppressed that you have to worry about him being vulnerable to infections.  When the dose is much lower he will be fine to go outside where other dogs will be walking.  When he is off preds altogether, his immune system will return to normal strength.

I do hope this new drug regimen will bring remission.

Jo