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- Everybody, thinking back…..
When your vet first told you you dog was sick:-
- What did your vet tell you was wrong with your dog? …….I remember having to take Bingo to an internal specialist because the local vets didn’t know what was happening. The internal specialist rang me, after they had done various scans and tests to say they suspected “auto immune” “anaemic” and they were starting treatment…that’s all I remember understanding. In fact I didn’t know the term autoimmune hemolytic anaemia until I read Bingo’s discharge report to his local vet – some 8 days later.
- Did you start to research AIHA? What words were you actually looking up? ……Before I had read the report, I was googling things like:
- “dog auto immune disease”,
- “dog anaemia”,
- “dog blood anaemia”,
- “dog blood disorders”,
- “dog “auto immune survival”
- “canine anaemia”
- “canine auto immune disease”
If you can, please list the actual words you remember looking up.
3. How did you connect up with Vetnet? How did you find it? …I actually didn’t find the forum for about a month I’m pretty sure. I found the Meisha’s Hope website. I was then googling terms like “canine auto immune hemolytic anaemia”, “prednisone” “cyclosporine”, “PCV”, “PCV blood” which took me into the archives of the forum.
Whatever information you can come up with would be great.
My best, Vally & Bingo.
Hi Vally
You make a very good point – it is important we are found & we know what people search under. Because Worzel went downhill very slowly (6 weeks), it was not obvious he had anaemia, but I had a suspicion from his gums later on & asked the vets to do a blood test. They immediately started him on steroids, but we were unsure exactly what form of anaemia it was. I then looked up
canine anaemia or anaemia in dogs
causes of canine anaemia or causes of anaemia in dogs
treatment for canine anaemia or treatment for anaemia in dogs
Whilst searching I found a very useful vetlearn paper called “anaemia – determining the cause” at this time. I still pass it on to everyone I can.
The vets & I suspected it was auto-immune when he had no reticulocytes. so moved on to
canine AIHA or AIHA in dogs
causes of canine AIHA or causes of AIHA in dogs
treatment for canine AIHA or treatment for AIHA in dogs
It was at this point I found VetNet, probably from a thread, but I can’t honestly remember what it was. I too had already found Meisha’s Hope, but didn’t find the forum until later on.
It is really important that anyone with no medical knowledge whatsoever can find us.
Hope this helps.
How’s Bingo doing? Keep pestering Mum for those treats!
Love to all
Sheena & Worzel
Dunes’ HCT was actually only 7. Vet said take her right away to Columbus. Dunes jumped in and out of our Jeep which was pretty high. Emergency Room Vet said she could not believe Dunes was standing.
Ruby became subdued 4 days after her annual vaccination.Nothing dramatic but quiet.I took her to my vet who checked her over and gave her some antibiotics.I asked whether there was such a thing as a reaction to the vaccine and she said no…..
2 days later Ruby was so weak she could no longer stand. I took her back to the vet and she took a blood sample-saying immediately that her blood was “not right” and that her platelets may be low.She gave her a steroid injection,and I sat on the floor in the vets holding Ruby and waiting for a miracle recovery.One hour (and still white gums later) the vet rang through to the specialist clinic 50 miles away telling them that Ruby needed an urgent transfusion.One hellish drive later,Ruby was greeted by an amazing team who did the very very best they could.Her pcv was 8 – 14 after the transfusion and finally rose to 17 by day 5 when she came home.I was told it was IMHA/AIHA and I googled madly for several days before finding Vetnet. So
glad I did find it -the outcome for us was obviously not good in the end but no one understood me like you lot!I guess there is a massive gap in knowledge out there-I think my vet is great but I don’t know why alarm bells weren’t ringing for her before we got to that stage.It might not have changed the outcome and may have panicked me unneccessarily but I would have liked to have been armed with more info at an early stage rather than feeling overwhelmed once we were at full-blown emergency.Thanks once again to you all -and to Patrice for organising this!
Vally,
Thank you so much for writing this. I think this is well stated. I do need this kind of information as it will help me figure out how to get a new website seen easily by those people searching for help. So the more details everyone can write, the better prepared I will be.
Obviously my experiences were different with Chance. I was looking for information about canine bone marrow failure and splenectomies and there was very little I could find. I never found anything on the internet and it was only after I bought a veterinary hematology textbook did I find the kind of information I needed at all! Once I had that information I was able to research on the internet using very specific medical terms and find more things. Once I connected with Jean Dodds she gave me an excellent education which allowed me to do more targeted research on the internet. But without her pointing me in those directions, it would have taken forever.
Today when I search for information about his condition, it is still hard to find anything. Certainly nothing that matches Jean Dodds’ extensive knowledge. Yet this condition seems to be increasing in dogs. We have seen plenty of owners describe these mysterious findings from their vet of “no bone marrow” and “not making red blood cells.” I would obviously need to make sure that this topic is covered in detail in a way that others can understand.
If it weren’t for Chance, I would have never gone down this path and I would not have contributed to 7 years of posts on vetnet. Chance recovered from what the specialist thought was a fatal condition. But it took every ounce of my strength to make that happen, plus my knowledge of medicine.
I have been seriously considering using the domain name Second Chance AIHA Dogs. When I search google for second chance, I am amazed at all the non-profit organizations that come to the top of the list. This is where I would like to see our website come up rather than among a lot of commercial websites that sell questionable treatments.
My only reservation is that I know many dogs with these blood disorders do not get a second chance, they may not survive the first week. But then I thought to myself, I wonder how many of these dogs didn’t survive because of lack of knowledge, either by the vet or by the owner or a combination of the two? So wouldn’t it be nice to give those folks a strong helping hand to try for a second chance?
You know that I never want to tell owners that they can definitely save their dog’s life. I am not a vet and I don’t practice veterinary medicine in any way. But I am very knowledgeable about this condition and I would like to share that with others in a way that they understand. So perhaps we, as a group, can provide the possibility of a Second Chance to these frantic owners? Does that seem fair?
The forum will be on the same website, so once they find SecondChanceAIHADogs, they will also find the forum. What do you all think?
my best, patrice
![bingo-14-5_1200x775](https://www.secondchanceaihadogs.com/wp-content/gallery/aiha-dogs_2/bingo-14-5_1200x775.jpg "Vally\'s Bingo \\"Smile\\"")
![Brigitte_Cleo_Ripley_Enzo_4](https://www.secondchanceaihadogs.com/wp-content/gallery/aiha-dogs_2/Brigitte_Cleo_Ripley_Enzo_4.jpg "Brigitte\'s Cleo, Ripley, Enzo and Guest \\"Rockin\\"")
