FCE and catheter

[riley'smom]

Riley suffered an FCE last Friday and lost use of his hind legs. The vets are not able to express him without a catheter, so we go to the vet twice a day to have his bladder drained. I would like to know if anyone else has experienced this problem with their FCE dog, and if so, how long did it take before the dog could be expressed without the catheter? We are so optimistic that he will recover, but his inability to be expressed is going to become a real problem and we are getting very anxious about his condition. We did put him on two medications that are supposed to help relax his bladder but haven't seen any changes yet.

We are willing to keep him on the catheter treatment for as long as we can, but there is going to come a time when we can't keep this up. He goes to physcial therapy tonight -- we are doing everything we can think of to help him.

Thank you,
Christine

[CarolC]

Hi Christine,

What kind and size of dog is Riley?

If you are talking about phenoxybenzamine, it takes several days to build up. The Veterinary Drug Handbook, Fourth Ed, says

Onset of action of the drug is slow (several hours) and increases over several days after regular dosing.

I can understand if you can't keep running him to the vet twice a day to have him catheterized. Hopefully it will not be necessary for long because the medication will help, and most FCE dogs recover, improvement is the norm with these dogs. However, you might want to consider catheterizing him yourself if it gets to be too inconvenient. Murphy's Dad did that with Murphy because he was too hard to express. (Murphy was a disk problem, not FCE, but the expressing difficulty was the same.)

http://mybeagleworld.com/murphy/recovery.html (EDIT: link corrected)

BethT catheterized Waffles at home for a long time. Karkorny catheterized Bully, a bullmastiff who was 117 lbs. and quadriplegic after his FCE. Here is one of her messages, with information from Beth as well. Bully recovered the ability to walk and lived 5 more years...

http://handicappedpet.net/helppets/view ... 07&p=31877

[riley'smom]

Thank you so much for you quick reply! That drug you listed definitely sounded like what he is currently taking. My husband said that he thinks he will be able to peform the cath procedure on Riley. I hope so, because the emergency vet charges $50.00 each time and that is where we need to over over the weekend if we can't do it ourselves. Murphy's story was an inspirational for sure. Thanks Carol, you have no idea how much you helped me get through this day!

p.s. Riley is a 65 lb German Shepherd/Boxer mix. We got him in February from a shelter in Ohio (we live in NH) because we saw that he was marked "urgent" as they were ready to put him down. We then were told he had heartworms but they would treat it. Unfortunately, we learn after that he never, ever should have made that trip half way across country and he should have been crated. We had him running around withou us --- the worst thing possible! He then developed a host of other issues related to the worms dislodging. Just when we got him back on solid ground he had the FCE. He is our miracle dog so I just know in my heart he will get past this.

[Christine]

from one Christine to another.

Bless you and your husband for saving Riley. He sounds like such a trooper. Best of luck with all the issues you are dealing with. We would love to see a picture when things get into a routine for all of you

[Murphy's Dad]

Hi. When our Murphy was paralyzed due to a ruptured disk, the hospital gave a brief instructions on how to express his bladder manually. Needless to say, the instructions just didn't do it and I was not up to the task. On top of that, Murphy didn't like it. After 2 emergency visits to our vet to have his bladder drained, our vet instructed me in how to catheterize Murphy until I could express his bladder manually. I was able to catheterize him for six months without infection until he and I came to an agreement about expressing his bladder. Be sure to follow sterile procedure.

Now... that being said. This is how I would it. Stand or kneel behind Riley and gently feel for his bladder. I should be about the size of an orange or small grapefruit. You want to cup it in one hand while gently pressing in and down on the opposite side. You need to control the location of the bladder with your cupping hand, trying to keep the pressure centered. Keep the pressure enough so the urine comes in a good flow. As the bladder gets smaller you will need to flatten out your cupping hand and press with it to get the rest out. I found that closing my eyes, helped because I could imagine what I was doing, since I couldn't actually see it. If you lose it, don't panic. Try again. if Riley resists, give Riley a few minutes to settle down and his bladder reposition itself. Then start again. We found that 3x-4x a day for a beagle was about right. Setting and keeping a regular schedule helps avoiding accidents.

Good luck and belly rubs to RIley.

[riley'smom]

Murphy's Dad,

Thank you so much for your time to reply and the instructions on manually expressing! I'm sure I will be referring back to your instructions. We were told by the vet that we would try to manually express on our visit on Tuesday, with hopes that the medicine had started to kick in to relax the bladder. I am thrilled to say that my husband did the catheter at the vet yesterday, and this morning we did it together (meaning he did it and I patted Riley!). We were doing his leg exercises this morning and he most definitely pushed back slightly with his legs on his own a few times. I do mean slightly, but that was the first time he did anything like that since his accident last Friday.

I am so glad that we didn't give up too quickly with Riley. I really think this dog is going to make it.



Riley's Mom