Oh boy do I sympathize with this one. I adopted a puppy from a VETS OFFICE who was sent home to me with “kennel cough and some mild diarrhea”. Cough kept getting worse so three days later I took her to my vet. She had severe aspiration pneumonia and coccidia and I had to stay up 24 hours with her pounding on her chest to loosen the mucus, and giving her fluids and meds. Tried to get a hold of the vet at the office I had gotten her from and never got to her - but a volunteer told me that she had been dropped off at the vet clinic with Parvo, and had survived. A couple more days passed and the cough started to get slightly better - and then she went into seizures. It was distemper, and there was absolutely nothing I could do - she had it all along. The only thing worse than all this to me was that at the Vets office she had been kept with about 6 other puppies who were now possibly infected with distemper as well.
I know of a so-called rescue, and the owner thinks (and said in writing) that parvo is something they’re born with, it comes from the mother’s womb (she misspelled womb), and that giving parvo shots activates the virus. She was found to be selling contaminated kennels, and other gear without any attempt to clean, at a garage sale when she finally shut down her rescue. Her rescue, by the way, was getting Walmart parking lot free puppies, and free to good home puppies off Craigs list, no vet care, and reselling for something like $400 and up. She was a piece of work, and I’m glad she got out of the selling business, but fear she’ll start back up someday.
Ghazzu, if by “load of tripe” you are calling me a liar, why thank you!
I am a rescuer. So the two vet offices I use do help me out a bit. I did in fact successfully treat three puppies myself. I gave them fluids and several meds from the vet. I’ve also had some treated at the vets office and they averaged $250 each for up to a weeks care.
So I am very sorry that no alternatives were presented to the OP. Of course, it may have been that her little one was too far gone.
But parvo can be treated for less than the ungodly sum that was quoted to the OP.
[QUOTE=shea’smom;7518522]
Ghazzu, if by “load of tripe” you are calling me a liar, why thank you!
I am a rescuer. So the two vet offices I use do help me out a bit. I did in fact successfully treat three puppies myself. I gave them fluids and several meds from the vet. I’ve also had some treated at the vets office and they averaged $250 each for up to a weeks care.
So I am very sorry that no alternatives were presented to the OP. Of course, it may have been that her little one was too far gone.
But parvo can be treated for less than the ungodly sum that was quoted to the OP.[/QUOTE]
Ahm. Please read the OP’s update. They were talked to about alternatives. But for a puppy who is so sick it’s having breathing changes treating at home is not effective. That’s not a mild case of parvo, that’s super sick. That’s likely a bad outcome even if the OP went for full treatment.
I don’t know if you meant it that way, but your post basically inferred that ER vets only care about money and that they all are horrible human beings. It’s very hard after working a 12+ hour shift not to take that personally. Are some clinics crappy? Of course. We’ve seen some bad clinics and bad doctors. But don’t paint everyone with that same broad brush.
[QUOTE=shea’smom;7518522]
Ghazzu, if by “load of tripe” you are calling me a liar, why thank you!
I am a rescuer. So the two vet offices I use do help me out a bit. I did in fact successfully treat three puppies myself. I gave them fluids and several meds from the vet. I’ve also had some treated at the vets office and they averaged $250 each for up to a weeks care.
So I am very sorry that no alternatives were presented to the OP. Of course, it may have been that her little one was too far gone.
But parvo can be treated for less than the ungodly sum that was quoted to the OP.[/QUOTE]
To treat a full blown case requiring constant fluids and blood pressure support is incredibly time consuming for the support staff and costs money. $1200-$1500 is par for where I work. The quote the OP was given for what was described as an incredibly sick puppy sounds about par.
[QUOTE=shea’smom;7518522]
Ghazzu, if by “load of tripe” you are calling me a liar, why thank you!
I am a rescuer. So the two vet offices I use do help me out a bit. I did in fact successfully treat three puppies myself. I gave them fluids and several meds from the vet. I’ve also had some treated at the vets office and they averaged $250 each for up to a weeks care.
So I am very sorry that no alternatives were presented to the OP. Of course, it may have been that her little one was too far gone.
But parvo can be treated for less than the ungodly sum that was quoted to the OP.[/QUOTE]
I’m saying that the idea that an animal as sick as the one described by the OP could be easily treated at home with $200 worth of supplies is tripe.
And anyone treating a parvo dog in clinic for a week for $250 is making a donation to the owner.
Distemper CAN be cured…there is a lady in north AL named Anu Fields who cures them. Even in the neuro stages. She has a youtube video called Distemper Don’t Kill (her English is a bit broken). The rescue I work with sent five dogs and puppies to her, and three weeks later they are all well. I don’t know much about it except it involves a serum and a donor dog. May be unconventional but works. Any progress made in curing these diseases is worth mentioning.
My question for those who know more than I do: once a dog has survived parvo, are they immune for life?Is it the same for distemper?
[QUOTE=moonriverfarm;7518828]
Distemper CAN be cured…there is a lady in north AL named Anu Fields who cures them. Even in the neuro stages. She has a youtube video called Distemper Don’t Kill (her English is a bit broken). The rescue I work with sent five dogs and puppies to her, and three weeks later they are all well. I don’t know much about it except it involves a serum and a donor dog. May be unconventional but works. Any progress made in curing these diseases is worth mentioning.
My question for those who know more than I do: once a dog has survived parvo, are they immune for life?Is it the same for distemper?[/QUOTE]
I’d be curious to know if any of these CDV survivors end up with “old dog encephalitis” down the road.
Hyperimmune serum would quite likely be of benefit in an acute case.
Dogs which make it through a CPV infection do tend to have lifelong immunity, though they may shed the virus for weeks after clinical signs have abated.
IIRC the cost to treat the sicker of my two puppies about 13 years ago was around $1500, and I was friends with their vet, so he was using meds that were just expired that they couldn’t sell, etc to help cut costs… He lived in their ICU isolation for a week or maybe two.
His sister was cheaper to treat at first, because she wasn’t nearly as ill and she was at home getting meds and subQ fluids. Then she developed an intussusception that required surgery, so she probably ended up being the more expensive of the two. :sigh:
DANG I feel lucky. Not only because my dog recovered but because my vet is so reasonable. And conservative.
When posters come on threads like this one, and say:
“I fixed XYZ for $123” making it seem like vets over charge for stuff, makes me fume. Usually silently. This time not. This time not, because Parvo is not something you should deal with at home. First, the contagion. Second, it can present with few symptoms and then progress very rapidly to dead.
Do any of you know what it costs to set up a bare bones office? Have you ever priced things like xray machines, hematology analyzers, any of the various monitors used in surgery? That doesn’t include things like IV poles, clamps, and the various drugs that they have to keep stocked and current as in, not expired or the stuff that gets used once and tossed, syringes/suture packs/gauze etc. Things you just take for granted and basic Vet will have. Huge, big money.
I’ll spend the money needed, because I want her there the day I truly need her.
rant over, heading back to watching for posts about behavior
Parvo KILLS more often than not. I will not hesitate to get to the vet as soon as i even THINK one might have it. I watched my dog decline within one hour. Had I not taken her in when she had just started with diarrhea, my vet said she would have never made it. Don’t take this disease lightly people. I know about budgets, and I know when to call it “time”. Parvo is not something that you cure with Pepto Bismol any more than distemper is something you can cure with cough syrup.
[QUOTE=Ghazzu;7518872]
I’d be curious to know if any of these CDV survivors end up with “old dog encephalitis” down the road.
Hyperimmune serum would quite likely be of benefit in an acute case.
Dogs which make it through a CPV infection do tend to have lifelong immunity, though they may shed the virus for weeks after clinical signs have abated.[/QUOTE]
One of our fosters was treated with the distemper serum. It is made by injecting the donor dog with the Newcastle virus?(not sure if virus is correct). Our puppy never had any serious symptoms but was diagnosed by the vet and a blood test after we took him in for a URI. A couple other puppies in the rescue were treated a few months afterwards and also made it. None of them ever got to the seizure stage so I’m hoping they don’t have problems in the future.
moonriverfarm - I looked into doing this with my puppy when we knew she had distemper. My understanding is that it is a serum made from a chicken virus or vaccine (can’t remember) that they inject into the spinal cord. It is fairly effective if they are not in the neuro stages yet, not so effective if they are. When my puppy started having chewing gum seizures it was late in the evening, and if she had made it through the night she would have gone in for the serum in the morning three hours away (very few vets will do this procedure, mine was not one of them). When the seizures got worse I had to make the call, and I was not going to let her violently convulse all night to suffer through a risky procedure.
