Yes, that golden has a permanent PEG tube. He cant eat anything, had to wear a muzzle at all times. Its very sad. Sweetest dog ever, but he couldnt even swallow his own saliva without getting aspiration pnemonia. Its the worst case Ive ever seen. He is 3 I think…and although he has beenin our ICU 4 times for AP, he has done verywell this past year. He is a typical golden and will eat anything in site, but is apparently living in a well controlled home environment without a muzzle now. He cant drink water, but he can eat/lick ice cubes. He is still fed through the PEG tube, but can be offered certain treats if his owners make him “stand up” for it. His life isnt ideal, but its all he has ever known and somehow tolerates it just fine.
As for can it get better - absolutley. It wont always, and I think it really has to do with the cause of it.
My personal dog has idiopathic megaesophagus. Its a very mild case, where she can 95% of the time keep food down, but she does regurgitate water on a near daily basis. If she is quiet afterdrinking, and I make her sit calm, she is fine. When she was younger, she couldnt drink at all. We did a barium swallow and it was all in her upper esophagus. However, mix the barium with kibbles and it passed just fine. We put her on metaclopramide and ranitidine and that helped her immensley. She eventually “grew out of it”… or at least it became less severe. Not on any meds (except PPA) now.
We always always always do barium swallows to asses esophageal function before common surgeries such as laryngeal tiebacks. Sometimes anesthetic, or other reasons from the surgery can stimulate a latent motility problem in the esophagus. Id say about 25% of labs that need tiebacks, have some form of esophogeal disfunction. Its pretty common,but they dont all show symptoms.
So glad to hear your sweet girl is doing well. Iwill keep my fingers crossed that once her meds kick in she could go back to eating normally!
Still waiting on the Addison’s test. She is doing really well…feeding tube has been in 8 days now, she has gained 4# and is only regurgitating a bit of drool 1-2x per day. Feels SO MUCH BETTER!! Not even trying to offer anything by mouth at this point but will hopefully work back to eating normally in the coming weeks. As of now she is on cisparide, cephalexin, omeprazole and thyracin. Mix of meds and high calorie pureed food via the tube seem to working well.