Lyme disease

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Dan R
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:06 pm

Lyme disease

Post by Dan R »

I wanted to pass on a recent experience I have had with this tick born illness. As scholarly articles report most dogs will not react to lymes even if they have it in their system. I recently had a female that came back from the running pen and was really not her self. It started with her having issues with her front legs. The following issues were noticed.
1. Front leg or paw was elevated and would not put pressure on her front feet. (had a limp that transferred from front legs over several weeks)
2. Her body was sore when picking her up.
3. loss of appetite( would eat but not as much as normal)
3. Low grade fever (103)
4. would not run around the yard as before

At first I though it was a thorn or she had hurt herself in the kennel. I moved her to another kennel just to monitor her. Some days she seemed better and other she did not. The breaking point was when I normally go out to feed the dogs and let them run around she took a little longer to get up and out of the dog box. I would compare this to a older dog with arthritis. She just seemed slow and not the same. My folks had a dog with the similar front leg issues. It was Lyme's. I decided to take her to the vet for blood work. The results were Lyme's with supporting blood profiles. They gave me Doxycycline for thirty days. After her first couple doses she has came around and is acting a lot better. The doxy is really making things better and quick. Ticks were still on the ground in November. According to the vet the best thing to do once a dog is positive is to give them the annual Lyme booster vaccine. This will help prevent the disease from showing its sighs again. It will always be with the hound but the vaccine will help build antibodies to fight the symptoms and disease. The total cost for blood work Lyme's test and medicine was $230.00. The only thing I might have done different was only allow the vet to do the Lymes test as felt this was the issues after monitoring the symptoms. It would have saved me $130.00 on the blood testing that just supported the positive result from the lymes test. The vet said do not run the hound for at least 30 days for a full recovery. It takes a while to get this stuff defeated. If you have a dog that suddenly is over heating when it normally does not and not acting itself don't rule out this disease. Hope this helps

Thanks
Dan

billpapas
Posts: 92
Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 6:44 pm
Location: schoharie ny

Re: Lyme disease

Post by billpapas »

My vet said you can take them hunting as soon as they are ready, no need for them to rest for 30 days , it won't make any difference.!

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