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[mhitesman]

Wonderful topic.
Comet's Case:
SW Virginia:  Puaski, Virginia
Contracted either on our 45 acre training ground (mostly creek frontage!) OR our back yard landscaping project
4 year old intact male golden retriever
Comet always had a little something going on -- conjunctivitis, ear infection, bad teeth, ear hematoma, hot spot, ....
A few months before blasto, we started on holistic food (Canidae kibble) and immune system supplement (Missing Link) in addition to his little bit human food (meat)
First and only symptoms:  red, itchy, then swollen eyes
Three vet visits in first two weeks...eyes getting worse...blind and glaucoma by the third visit
Went to tech teaching hospital and got diagnosis after two days for testing testing testing...
Urine antigen test showed WEAK POSITIVE
Lungs and other organs clear
On Itra for 4 months
Right eye ruptured and had to be removed to save his life
Immediate improvement
Months til energy improved -- weeks after stopping the Itra til he began to have his "normal" high energy
three weeks and counting since stopping the itra


In reading some of the other case studies, I read about "cysts".  Comet had a "cyst" on the back of his neck for months.  Numerous vets have looked at it.  At times he was on antibiotics, the cyst went away.  The vets that looked at it said it was nothing.  They are dubious that we are accurate in saying it "goes away" when he is on antibiotics.  It is gone now -- after 4 months on Itraconozole.  It never ruptured, oozed, or was open at all.  It did not appear to be painful to the dog.  It was not particularly "hard".  Could that be related???

[weluvmoose]

Definitely related -

My dog had a cyst in his back leg which was causing his lameness.  That was his first symptom which they tried to treat with a steroid.  Within days he wasn't eating, was coughing and running a high temp.  Then we looked at blasto and he tested positive.  The cyst never ruptured just got smaller and went away.  If two of my friends hadn't lost dogs to this disease I never would have known about it and Moose would have died too.  Our vet here never sees blasto - we got it while staying in Canada for a month in the summer.

[mhitesman]

HMMMM.  Comet had that single, pea sized cyst for a couple months before his eye was affected.  No other noticable symptoms. The cyst you describe -- just a small thing?

[Jen]

  Lee wrote: "When I stop to chat in the local park people will say "oh I know who you are, your dogs had that horrible disease".  We CAN make a difference and that is very motivating."

   That is wonderful.  I'm also amazed to see the number of replies vs. the number of times a topic is read. It tells me that we have quite a few lurkers, and I hope this information is helpful to them. I also hope that some of them are vets...we may not be docs, but we've got experience.
   I tell Dirtbike that she's a "helper-dog", as she's done well enough that other dogs can learn from her illness.  Our daughter was sooo grateful to see her fat and sassy when she came home for Christmas. Every day is worth the work.
thanks again-
jen
   

[gunner]

Wow!

You guys got off easy with the cysts!  Right now Gunner looks like a bulldog version of the Elephant Man.   She has been on just about every imagineable kind of antibiotics for months now and it hasn't affected the cysts or absesses one bit.   Poor Gunner has moderately hard lump cysts that haven't ruptured.  Of those she has 5.  Four of them are about the size of my thumb to the first joint from the tip.  She has one on her front paw, one on her chest, one on her butt, one on her back leg and a HUGE one that completely fills my whole hand (the size of a lumpy really large half grapefruit) on her shoulder.  She had a weeping absess on her forearm, that one was really small, but the one on her flank was just slightly larger than a tennis ball.  It ruptured at Christmas and shrunk, healed over when she had her eye removed then started growing again and it burst today.  Of course it had to happen in the car when I was picking up my daughter from school.  There was so much pressure in it that it was like a gieser going off. It squirted and drained for an hour or more.  What a mess!  Thank goodness for leather seats and clorox.  Poor dog.  I call her "my one eyed lumpy puppy"  Fortunately she thinks that is a really favorable comment.   

I really hope these lumps will go away  They will eventually won't they???