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Vertigo in dogs

The Menagerie
#1

Anyone have any experience with this? 13 yo female lab mix rescue dog

Had the dog at the vet Friday, and prior to that as well, not eating , won’t stand etc. bloodwork is great, nothing on the x rays or ultrasound.
She has nystagmus. They got her to eat a teeny bit on Friday, sent home with meds for nausea and an appetite stimulant, and done prescription vet diet that they usually hate. Neither did Jack. We offered the vet diet, big nope. I offered her a Little Cesars with sauce and everything, big nope.
Last night we had Mac n cheese cups that didn’t congeal like they’re supposed to so we had cheese liquid. She wanted that so I mixed a little water and kept diluting it yesterday and got her to drink about 4 of them by mouth (!!) . That’s it by mouth in over a week.
Over the weekend she deteriorated, we actually thought she might not make it through the night. So I threw a Hail Mary and yesterday I got her some Bonine and pedialyte and spent yesterday and last night syringing it into her 1:1 with water .
This am she looks much better . She’s holding her head up on her own and felt well enough to try to move her head away from me with the syringe lol. Still can’t stand or walk. Although I think that’s partly this vertigo thing and partly being weak from no food and dehydrated.
I had a stint myself a couple weeks ago w vertigo so I know how bad it sucks.
We are here at the vet now , drs come in at 9 so I’d like to have some fluids run and see if we can get her through this.
Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions?

#2

With my dog, this was due to a very deep ear infection that was only visible on MRI.

Before going that route, I’d ask your vet to retest for tick borne disease if you’re in an area where that can be a concern.

Your vet might be able to help you with sub-q fluids so she’s not at risk of becoming very dehydrated.

#3

Has the vet looked in her ear to see if a tick is lodged there? That can cause vertigo.

#4

We are at the vet now for that very reason.
Had not thought about the tick thing but will ask.
Would that not have shown up on the full blood panel we did last week?

#5

The specific antibodies for Lyme, Anaplasmosis, Ehrlichiosis etc have to each be tested in order to identify the disease.

On a regular CBC/Chem test, there are some things that might suggest tick borne disease, but it can be ambiguous. Like slightly low white blood cell count which could also be due to any number of other causes.

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#6

My first dog had a bout of vestibular disease and got over it within a few weeks. It seemed really awful, but she recovered fully.

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#7

Thanks. OK I asked about the tickborne diseases and she said that they had already tested for all of that. She’s going to retest her pancreas in a couple of other things just in case it might be pancreatitis, but she doesn’t think so. They did say there was a mass that showed up on the x-ray, but she’s not sure what it is and when they did the ultrasound, the ultrasound and everything didn’t see it, but they did see some abdominal thickening and I’m not sure what that means. So there’s a possibility she said that there may be some sort of cancer in there that has metastasized and gone to her brain that could be causing this along with nystagmus, but without doing more very expensive diagnostics, we won’t really know. And I’m still recovering from $7500 worth of Vet bills I spent on my French bulldog a year ago and almost $4000 worth of Vet bills. I spent on my horse three weeks ago taking him to the horse hospital for a colic. And she is at least 13 years old so there is a limit to my budget, what I’m going to do, and what I’m going to put her through. If it’s fixable, I would like to fix it, but I don’t want her suffering and I’m not going to allow it to turn into torture either.

For now, they are keeping her for the day to run some fluids and they’re adding some anti-nausea meds, and some antibiotics into the IV and then we are going to go home with enough supplies for me to do some sub q fluids for a few days if I need to, and hopefully we can get her around the bend at least where she will start eating and we can try to get her thru this

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#8

I hope you’re able to get her more comfortable. I love old dogs.

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#9

Me too. Thank you.

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#10

Have you de-wormed horses and the dog possibly got into some ivermectin? We had this happen once. My Belgian Malinois must have found a little dripped spot of ivermectin unbeknownst to us. He started almost hallucinating. Vet checked him and sent him home with anti-nausea meds and said to put him in front of the fan. We knew this wasn’t going to help, and he got worse. We got to an emergency vet clinic, and they asked if we de-wormed horses when we mentioned we had a farm. I immediately knew what it was and explained that, yes, we did. I was heart broken at my stupidity of letting him get the ivermectin. I’m now much more careful on de-worming day. The dogs are not allowed in the barn when we do it, and we leave the horses in their stalls and the dogs are not allowed in stalls even when they are empty. After a few days (and more than a few dollars) he returned home back to normal. Whew.

Good luck getting to the bottom of this, poor pup.

ETA – I just uploaded a video of my guy when he went through this. He was NOT a skittish dog, so you can see his erratic behavior. I guess I just am putting this out there as a public service announcement. https://youtube.com/shorts/cD5l9fLC5sE

2 Likes
#11

I love that you have such a great heart to help the animals in your life.

I will add this anecdote, feel free to ignore it. Many years ago my 13 yo horse had a serious colic, 10 days in ICU, almost lost him. The vet was optimistic about recovery but did point out that he was older (not old by any means, of course). We went ahead with the full regimen.

The horse recovered completely – in a reporting sense. But he was never again the same or in true good health. I remember over the next few months feeling shocked at how his overall condition went downhill while technically he had fully recovered. The horse’s life for the next 5 years was one small or large health event after another. Seemingly all unrelated. Culminating in his last 3 months with a cascade of onset conditions from Cushings to chronic minor respiratory illnesses to something that seemed to be neurologic.

He went to full retirement on pasture by 17, just didn’t seem fair to even be trail riding with him. This horse who had rarely ever retreated into the barn unless called for meals, was spending his time choosing to being alone in a dark corner of the barn, to being outside in pasture with his herd. The vet agreed that it was more fair to let him go over the rainbow bridge than to keep him like that.

In any case … looking at his health records, it all started with the colic at 13 yo. If I had it to do over again, knowing what was coming, I would have let him go then.

Many years ago a cat vet said that his decision criteria is: “Does he/she enjoy being a cat?”

I went through the same process not long ago with my 14 yo dog – does he have a treatable, recoverable illness that is making him so miserable, or is it the final decline? The vet specialist didn’t have a good prognosis. I let the dog go peacefully over the bridge.

It is very hard when we can’t know the future. If this animal could have a few good future years – or if the future years won’t be so comfortable, even if this condition is treated.

Thinking of you and your lovely dog. I hope you and your dog can enjoy your time together. :heartpulse:

1 Like
#12

Thank you everyone.
I have an update and unfortunately it is not good.
Vet called around 2 pm and said that Bonnie was comfortable , getting fluids etc but the new blood work was not good.
Last Monday the kidney values were 1.2 , which she said was just a tad on the high side of normal. Today the values were 3.4.
For a dog that is stage 3 of 4 stages of kidney failure.
So my husband and I went to the vet and Bonnie went over the Bridge this afternoon.
Thank you all so much

8 Likes
#13

Thank you for sharing this. No, it wasn’t anything like this, but it may help someone else. I’ve seen it before in both horses and dogs, although I do use liquid ivermectin for my monthly heartworm and deworming for the dogs

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#14

Sorry for your loss.

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#15

So sorry it worked out this way. You did all you could for Bonnie. It is always hard.

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#16

I am so sorry to hear this. It’s never easy. Sending you hugs. :cry:

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#17

I’m so sorry about Bonnie.

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#18

Sorry to hear you have lost Bonnie, she was lucky to have you.

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#19

Thank you all. She had really been through something really awful before we got her, based on her behavior, and was scheduled for euth the next day at the shelter she ended up in since she was a basket case. Their rescue coordinator contacted me as a last ditch save. Of course I said yes lol.
So we went there and got her to try to give her a chance.
She got a little better. She was never really normal mentally, but she recovered a little bit here and we just worked around her issues.
It was ok though, we had her almost 12 years.
I’m just grateful this was fast and not drawn out.

8 Likes
#20

I’m so sorry for your loss. She was such a lucky girl to have found you.

1 Like

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