Hello Everyone,
I'm new here. I lost a dog 17 years ago to blasto (confirmed case) and now I have another dog that I suspect might possibly have it. I came here looking for more info and possibly feedback. Here's a little more of the story...
I live in a rural area in Northern Alabama. I currently own several American Bulldogs. My family has around 40 acres in a remote area, that is fenced-in with a pond. My husband and I quite often take our dogs to this property, to let them run loose and just be dogs.
We have been going through a drought though and the last time we were there, my dog got on the trail of a deer. He chased it until he gave slap out. He came back all hot and tired and plodded around in the pond (which due to the drought only has a couple inches of water left in it). It's mostly muck now. After that leisure pond getaway, I started noticing some skin lesions crop up that have not healed, regardless of what I put on them, and has also had what appears to be conjunctivitis off and on. Approx a week or so ago, he developed a gagging type cough.
Having lost a dog to blasto in the past, it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps we might be dealing with the same thing, so I started reading up on it again to help refresh my memory. I must confess it's been such a long time, I had forgot about blasto, let alone how dangerous it was for me to be letting my dogs plod around in the pond or dig in the dirt all of this time.
After refreshing my memory on blasto, I took my dog straight away to the vet and told them what I suspected. The vet checked him and said he had a bit of fever. She drained fluid from one of the lesions, but didn’t find anything. She felt his lymph nodes and said nothing seemed swollen. She also did some bloodwork and said everything came back ok with it. She did a chest xray and that’s where it get’s a bit tricky.
For the most part, the lungs looked normal, but there were some things that didn’t look right. She said he did not have the typical snowflake pattern that is often seen with the blasto, however he did have several of what appeared to be unidentified masses. She gave me a run down of things it could possibly be.. areas of infection or inflammation, swollen lymphatic tissue or tumors (benign or malignant).
She more or less felt he had pneumonia and put him on antibiotics to see how he does. She said she is not ruling out blasto, but after the antibiotics will probably follow up with another chest xray and to see if there has been any improvement and we go from there. For now, he doesn’t seem to be coughing as bad and his temp is back to normal (course I know none of this guarantees anything). I have also been giving him 2000mg vitamin C and also a little extra vitamin E, hoping to help boost his immune system.
One thing I am worried about is being able to afford the medicines, in case we need to start him right away. We talked about Ketoconazole, which she said they had had pretty good results with. I actually have around 30 of these pills that are not very old already. I can probably afford the Ketoconazole, because I can get it at a little discount, however the other drugs they treat this condition with, esp the Itraconazole, I may not be able to afford, esp if they are much more expensive.
I’m also worried about the toxicity with any of these anti-fungal drugs. I’m wondering would it be ok to give milk thistle in between dosages, to help protect the liver from being damaged. Also I own a nebulizer and I make HVAC colloidal silver for my own personal use and wondering if anyone else has tried milk thistle for it’s protective benefits or used colloidal silver with this disease?
I used to give my dogs a product called Nzymes and Oxi-drops, but it has been a while since I ordered from them. Their plan seems to help yeast infections, although I have no idea if it would work on something systemic like blasto. Any thoughts or feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long-winded post.
Thanks again,
Lou
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Topic: New Here (Read 1604 times)