GME relapse in different part of body?

Started by Corgilicious, August 23, 2021, 05:15:28 AM

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Corgilicious

It's been awhile since I last posted. My corgi  had been doing well for quite some time on 2.5mg Prednisone every 3 days.

My question is: his symptoms first showed in hind leg weakness. Lately we've seen him limping on his front, right paw. We've had the vet look at the paw for foxtails etc. but can a dog relapse in a new, different part of his body?

Thanks for any help..

Jo CIMDA

Hi

I am sorry that you are having problems with your boy again.  Of course it may not be AI related because there are so many other causes of limping that should be investigated first, and if it is a pulled muscle etc., it may well resolve with rest. 

A particular AI disease will show in the typical, documented way, but when a dog has a genetic predisposition to autoimmunity then it is possible that a different AI disease may be triggered, but the symptoms will show as being typical for that new AI disease.  For example if it is an inflammatory AI disease such as polyarthritis then there will be pain in all four leg joints and a high temperature.   So a high temperature is significant to this sort of AI problem, and it can often distinguish between and AI disease and an unrelated joint or ligament damage due to other, more common causes.

It could be that being on long term prednisolone could have affected his ligament/joint and if this is the case then a supplement such as Yumove might be worthy of consideration. Ligament damage can be a side effect of long term use of prednsiolone.  Also, as the dose of prednsiolone is very, very low and probably not doing much to prevent a relapse of AI disease, it might be worth discussing with your vet the idea of coming off of pred altogether and for a while using a non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug to ease pain and inflammation. 

To answer your question, if it is the same AI disease as before then the clinical signs will be the same, but if it is a different AI disease the the clinical signs will be different.  It is not always easy to diagnose the cause of a limp and often it is treated speculatively.  Unless he is showing typical signs of it being AI related, I would avoid upping the preds.

I hope thing improve for him very soon. 

Jo


Corgilicious

Thank you so much. I'm taking him back to the vet tomorrow and I've also been thinking we could safely stop the prednisone.

I really appreciate your help.

Best,

Kay and Farley