Mystery paralysis

Neurological Disorders Resources. Treatment and care for pets having pain or trouble walking or standing due to spinal injuries or neurological disorders like IVDD, FCE and DM.
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LisainCAN
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by LisainCAN »

I agree with Critters. I, too, have had less than ideal experiences with specialists. This past summer, for example, I had to take my Cane Corso to a private hospital because she needed an oncologist. The dog died before we even got the results, though I had asked pointedly if she even needed the tests as she seemed quite far gone when she went in. Because it was the rarest form of the rare form of cancer and an aggressive one that killed her 13 days after showing symptoms, I figured the specialist would be intrigued. She was not. I was somewhat saddened that my dog's case could not be used to help others down the road especially since her initial presentation of symptoms was atypical. She was actually horrified when I suggested she could use my dog's case for studies and I would allow her to take samples for that reason. She sneered and said: "Oh no, we do not do that in private practice." I would have switched hospitals at that point, but my beloved dog was out of time, and I was out of options.

I think in the end, that like with human care, you need to advocate for your dog. Don't let their degrees make you feel any less capable of saying what your dog needs. You know your dog best. Be kind but firm and expect answers. At the very least, you are a client and a paying one. On a business-level, it makes sense. On an animal level, well, I realize very few people care for animals as we all do.

Do not give up. You are amazing and brave. You are doing right by your dog. He may never walk the same way, but he is still the same dog: your little ball of furry cuteness.
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

Thank you for your replies. I was unclear. The use of his legs decreased over 4 weeks with only one front leg now at about 50% affected. When I was home last weekend he had some strength in the other three (one front, the one he injured falling, and both rear). I thought there had been some slight improvement but perhaps its was wishful thinking. I was away for two weeks pet sitting.
When he fell off the bed my sister was in another room. She heard the fall and when she got to her bedroom he was standing.
- 1 hour later fetching but with a limp on the injured front leg
- 4 hours later went for à walk limping but running.
- Did a " pratfall" where he collapsed down a small step about 2"
- 24 hours later another collapse, after which I started crating him for the injured leg. He still had use of all limbs.
4 days later we noticed he was having trouble with his back legs. Tried to get into his vet but couldnt get an appt until 8 days after the bedroom fall.
- 8 days later at vet he still had proprioception in all four feet, that is he could right them if they were curled under, a test for nerve function. He was walking with a very strange gait. He had deep pain in all four legs.
- 10 days later he could stand up if put square but not hold his weight up for walking. Went to the vets , they discussed IVDD or other possible cause and suggestd meloxicam and wait and see. PT and cage rest etc.
- 2 weeks later we took him to vet emerg in Guelph because he hadn't peed in 24 hours and we couldnt express him. He peed when we got to the vet. That vet thought he felt a disc hernia in Robins neck and reccomended seeing a specialist. We made an appt thru our vet who was reticent because she thought we should just wait and see.
Sorry for the long post. Surprisingly to me the specialists don't care about the timeline of his gradually losing feeling. To me it seems like a clue as to what has happened.

Robin is a 20lb smooth fox terrier. Always hyper active and obsessed with fetching until about 4 hours after the fall.
You are the only people we can talk to. Thank you. We have a "rehabilitation box" with a sling that supports him in a standing position with his feet touching an inflated knobby pad thing. My sister is vigilant about gentle exercises. We express his bladder every 8-12 hours. He eats great, no meds at this point. Bless.
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

LisainCAN - my hearts breaks to hear about your beloved dog. Im sorry that the vet didnt realize how sever your dogs condition was. Our dogs might just as well be children to us. I did call Guelph back and speak to the Dr on call We had a long talk. I wanted to ask if BOARD CERTIFIED neurologists had reviewed the MRI. We did a lot of talking and its hard to remember everything. Basically they do tests to rule out the most likely causes, then see whats left. We have an ultrasound scheduled Tuesday. They are still pretty certain its cancer and want to prove it . We told them we wont treat cancer, that would be the end. We are going back and forth on the value of the ultrasound. Of course we want to know but the costs are adding up. Thanks for your words, they mean so much to us.
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LisainCAN
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by LisainCAN »

Thank you.

Having dealt with cancer, and an aggressive one, you do have a bit of time as long as quality of life is there. You can take him home and love him for a bit. You do not need to PTS right away, though that is certainly an option if that is what you know is right. Again, you understand your dog best. I just don't want you to feel pressured to PTS immediately, unless YOU feel it is best, not them. They wanted me to treat my dog with chemo though they knew, and I later discovered, there was only about a 5 percent chance of it helping at all. Should I have PTS right away? Maybe. But I needed to say goodbye and she was still eating and drinking. I do not regret taking her home for that time (3 days). I also do not regret that I had her PTS when they were still pushing me to treat her. I did what was right for my girl. I miss her every day of my life, but I have no regrets about her ending.

Please keep us updated.
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CarolC
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by CarolC »

Thanks for the details. (You gave a good history before but I just couldn't tell if there had been a change, sorry you had to write it all twice but it is even clearer now.) Thanks for specifying he is smooth-coated, and his weight. I want to say, I agree with your family vet who advised to wait and see. He isn't in pain, and you/your sister are clearly competent at the nursing care (perhaps having cared for your previous dog for 3 years). Some families might have difficulty handling it, but you are already on top of that.

Like you, I have taken a dog to the vet twice for being unable to be expressed, so I would have done the same thing. You say you are expressing him 3x/day, that's good. If you run into repeated instances where it is hard to get him expressed, you might consider a medication to relax the sphincter.

Like you, I would want to clarify if the images were read by a board certified neurologist. You didn't say what their reply was, but I assume the answer was yes.

Here is what I think about the ultrasound. Like critters I would have thought (?) the MRI would have been useful to detect a spinal tumor as well as IVDD, but they found neither. But ultrasound is noninvasive, I don't think he'd have to be sedated again, so if you can afford it, it won't hurt anything. But you have already done the gold standard tests (MRI and myelogram). If it was my dog and I was trying to save money, I would be inclined not to do the ultrasound at this time. You could always do it a week or a month from now, if you start to notice any new symptoms that make you suspect cancer, but I really don't expect that. This is a dog that was fine before he fell off the bed. He wasn't walking funny. He wasn't having trouble picking up his ball. He wasn't having trouble jumping up on the bed. He wasn't off his food. He didn't look sick in any way. Then he had a fall off the bed. He jammed his leg, and it is unknown how exactly he landed, but it could have been his shoulder or even his face. If he fell off headfirst backward, he could have landed on the back of his neck, or neck and shoulder, then rolled and got back up. Whatever he did, he didn't rupture a disk because you have state-of-the-art MRI images to prove it, and his neck does not hurt.

I don't know if it's right to call this an FCE specifically, but that is the closest thing it sounds like. He is not painful except in his leg. He is bright and his normal self. FCE is where there is a blockage (piece of cartilage) in a blood vessel somewhere along the spine. It may be brought on by physical activity such as playing flyball, or sometimes it just happens. It isn't something they can operate on like a herniated disk. It gradually resolves on its own and feeling returns and in time the dog is back on his feet. It does take time and PT is a help. It sounds like he had trauma to some place along his spine in the neck area, then he kind of aggravated it by running around during the following days. I'm not saying it would not have gotten worse if you had crated him immediately, because it is hard to limit movement in the neck, even when crated the dog moves his head, it is kind of hard to immobilize the head. But anyway, you did crate him as the symptoms developed and he has been crated since then. And it hasn't been getting any worse and he still has DPS. It sounds like the worst is over and he's stable now.

It seems like if it was a tumor that was growing (which is a possible explanation of why symptoms suddenly began to show up and then progressed over the course of 2 weeks), then wouldn't you be seeing the symptoms continue to advance? Progress to loss of deep pain for example? But you're not. I'm just really skeptical about what they're telling you about this being cancer. It apparently grew aggressively for 2 weeks and caused progressive loss of mobility, but then stopped growing all of a sudden and he's gotten no worse? Call me skeptical.

We had a shepherd/akita mix here named Rajah who fell while playing in the yard and in a freak accident her spine hit a rock and she went down. They did get her walking again with a lot of PT. We had a boxer named Buster who hurt his neck blasting through the doggy door at 4 a.m. and lost the use of 2 legs on one side. They got him walking again with PT. We had a 21-yo dog named Winnie the Lemon Beagle who was shaken like a ragdoll by a 90 lb dog and was down in all 4 legs for weeks, but Nancy kept nursing Winni and she was able to walk again in spite of a previous history of neck surgery at age 5.

I don't know. Dogs are resilient. It seems like he hasn't been getting any worse, and I would really want to try rehab. It's a judgment call, has it been about 4 weeks now? You may want to rest him another 2 weeks to be conservative, I don't know if that is needed, maybe with a trial of steroids (what do you have to lose trying them?), and then start physical therapy. I would ask the rehab about that. This is the best I can figure. I would ask your family vet what she thinks about this. The cost of PT can add up over time, but you can get a lot of PT for $700, at least you can here, and they will give you exercises to do at home. Like in Lisa's story, you weigh the options and politely do what you feel is best for your pet, after listening to whatever advice they have to offer.

Also, you said you were older, I don't know if you're both retired or what. There is something called Care Credit, which is a loan for veterinary care. www.carecredit.com. You use the loan and then pay it off over time. It could be helpful if you are retired and your income fluctuates throughout the year.
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LisainCAN
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by LisainCAN »

I would add to CarolC's excellent post that there is the Farley Foundation in Ontario to qualified recipients. Veterinary care for small animals is certainly not cheap. Crazily enough, the same diagnostics are cheaper in large medicine and the animals can be huge.
https://www.farleyfoundation.org/
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

Wow Bless you for your support. I think we have decided not to do the ultrasound. We agree with every point that you make. We cried realizing that we need to maintain hope and that so many caring people have been devoted to the animals. We are too.
It's hard not to want ro know the answer. We have been sceptical about cancer from the beginning, it was just too sudden, but we went through this with our older dog and did four biopsies that were negative, in the end he simply couldn't go on from old age and pain etc. The vets all seem to want to attribute everything to cancer. Even if the ultrasound showed cancer, what then. It means to them that he has cancer somewhere in his nervous system causing these symptoms. That would be the end. If the ultrasound was clear they wanted to do muscle and nerve tissue biopsies. The treatment would be just what we are doing now or euthanasia.
We have made contact with a Rehab center who has a hydro pool. In spite of being a terrier Robin loved swimming in our pond more than anything. Initially we will get an assessment and exercises to do at home. I just finished saying that we could do a lot of PT for that 700.00. We are both retired (61/63) and we have savings, and as my sister says, good credit. Thank you for all your suggestons and help, you have made our decisions much easier. And to LisainCAN for your support too. We will keep you apprised. PS I just wanted to mention something we saw yesterday. A fly landed on Robins leg while his head was turned away but he turned to that leg and snapped at the fly(while I was watching) then licked the spot where it landed. So......he seems to have delicate feeling? Anyway....
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

We are at 4.5 weeks with no sign of recovery. No improvement at all in fact Robin is less able to roll onto his sternum from a "flat" position or shift his thorax. He has no other deficits, if these are not rnough. He is wasted away. We are not giving up on him but feel it may be cancer after all. Still he has a good appetite and urinates with our help, defecates when needed. I guess time will tell. We love him and will support him as long as he needs us.
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CarolC
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by CarolC »

I guess anything is possible, and I know you don't say that lightly, and I hope it isn't the case.
:angel:

Looking at it from the usual standpoint of a paralyzed pet, my first thought would be UTI. UTI can occur from incomplete emptying or waiting too long. For a human example, I had a roommate once who was travelling and did not want to use the restroom on the plane and waited till they landed, and she got a UTI from simply waiting too long.

During the first weeks you are expressing, it is almost to be expected that you are not getting the dog completely empty every time. Also, in cases where a paralyzed dog still has the ability to urinate voluntarily, and it appears everything is normal so the caregiver is simply taking the dog out to the grass, in some cases the dog is initiating urination and voiding urine but still not emptying completely, either because he does not have complete feeling yet, or complete muscle control. So there are many ways a newly paralyzed dog can get an infection.

They say you should be alert to any change in color or odor in the urine, and I assume you already are. That is easiest done if he is expressed onto a clean white pad where you can see and smell the output if desired. But I am also aware of that, and yet a couple of times my dog has had a UTI where I did not see any obvious signs such as blood in the urine or a strong smell, I knew what to look for, nevertheless there was an infection. I only knew she seemed a little off.

If it was my dog, I would just take him in to have his urine checked. If he has a UTI, antibiotics will normally clear it up pretty quickly. If they want you to collect a specimen at home in a clean container and run it in, just make a note of the time collected and take it straight in, because urine will start to form crystals in a short time, I think something like 30 min, and you don't want a false positive on crystals. I express into a clean Pyrex brownie pan, then pour it into a new Glad storage container, and note the time on the lid with a Sharpie.

It may be something else, but you know that old rule about checking the simplest thing first. I would just want to rule out something that is common and almost expected for a dog in his conditon at this point before truly fearing something worse.

A couple of people here have commented on how much muscle mass their dog lost, and how quickly. I hope it helps to know those dogs did not have cancer. Here is a post about that, at about the same timeframe you are in. I hope this helps.
Re: Paralyzed dog with FCE

Post by Jenna123 » Fri Mar 22, 2019 11:37 am
Hi
I am sorry to hear about your poor baby. My dog suffered from ANNPE which is an acute non compressive disk herniation. Very similar symptoms to FCE and the same treatments advised. The initial diagnosis was FCE but an MRI confirmed the disk ruptured.
She too had severe almost immediate muscle waste and complete paralysis mid back down with no deep pain sensation and no bladder/bowel control.
5 weeks later she still had no deep pain sensation and only very small improvements, the neurologist said it was unlikely to return now, 6 months later however, she has started to walk around in a drunken stagger and lots of new leg movements, her muscles have started to come back, although this is taking a long time. The biggest improvement came after being prescribed steroids of severely itchy paws caused by an allergy, this may have been a coinsidence or there may still be inflammation.
I didn't think we would get to this stage so don't give up hope it just can take a long time.
P.S. Jenna123's dog had a slow recovery but did recover walking. Muscles :lift: come back as the neurological status improves.
:grouph:
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

Thank you. Every day is a rollercoaster of emotions. We will get his urine checked and hope to stay positive for longer. Rehab in 8 days, looking forwad to his assessment.
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

We are beside ourselves with grief. Robin can only move his head, but with great effort and not "right" himself in any way. He refuses to drink water for some reason? We are givng him wet meals to compensate. He just pees and defecated as needed now, we don't have to express. It seems like he's failing. We were willing to support him for months with PT if need be but he is so weak and helpless. We called him Robodog because he was such a force of nature. Now he is completely limp. I'm angry, sort of, that they couldn't find a cause
Perhaps it is cancer after all. I hate it that they suggested it from the beginning and that they're right. I know it makes no sense........ we've already lost a child this year, we shouldn't have to lose another.
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critters
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Re: Mystery paralysis

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I'm sorry he's not doing well. :(
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CarolC
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by CarolC »

I have no idea what's going on.

I assume you had him checked for UTI. I wish I knew what else to suggest. Maybe check his temperature. :|
https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/taking-your-pets-temperature wrote: Normal body temperature for dogs and cats is 101 to 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit (38.3 to 39.2 degrees Celsius).
clonmel08
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by clonmel08 »

Thanks. Sorry I forgot to add that we had him to the vet at 130am on wednesday/thursday of this week. I felt he was very dehydrated from not drinking. We discussed UTI and after a thorough exam the vet felt it wasn't that. We did a urinalysis and sure enough it was negative. We've been monitoring his temp. The neurologist from OVC called tonight and we have made an appt to have a recheck. They know we are not doing anymore invasive testing but he says there may be some drug options, which I hope means steroids. Anyway we'll try anything at this stage, if he continues to deteriorate it will be his breathing next. He has lost his voice. Sounds so much like coonhound paralysis, doesn't it?
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LisainCAN
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Re: Mystery paralysis

Post by LisainCAN »

I was wondering about Coonhound Paralysis myself. The only other time I have heard of it was in a JRT. Eventually, she did recover. Have you spoken to the vets about this?

https://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/ne ... _paralysis

Let us know if this sounds like your dog.
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