Page 67 – Second Chance AIHA Dogs

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Keymaster

Sheena wrote:

Hi Erica – great news on Tilly’s PCV – what a lovely Christmas present! But as usual, there’s always something with this disease for us to worry about!

The high level of reticulocytes could be because her RBC is still a bit on the low side, but there can be other reasons for this. Was she given or is she still taking iron supplements at all? Do you have any MCV or MCHC figures? Do you have haemoglobin figures? What other drug(s) is Tilly taking now?

The high WBC may be just due to corticosteroids, but do you think she is showing signs of any infection? That could certainly be a cause of raised WBC & monocytes. I think you vet would probably have thought of this though, and neutrophils would probably be raised too.

You are welcome to e-mail the full test results to me at sheenapalmer@orange.fr – Sorry I am nowhere near as much of an expert as Patrice, I’m afraid, but I will gladly take a look. You could look at a human blood result site http://www.iwmf.com/docs/documents/bloodcharts_cbc(1).pdf yourself if you’d rather – it explains high & low values, but sometimes all the individual elements of the test have to be seen as a whole picture to really see what is happening – that is NOT easy to interpret. Did your vet think that Tilly’s spleen is still destroying her red blood cells? Is that why he wants to talk about a splenectomy? Would your vet consider contacting Dr Jean Dodds for some specialist advice?

Worzel had lots of reticulocytes & small RBCs when he was being weaned off the meds & from what I have read, this is normal during recovery from anaemia. The kidney monitors the oxygen content in the blood & produces more or less erythropoietin which stimulates the bone marrow to produce more or less red blood cells as the body needs them.

During the pred withdrawal, Worzel had several abnormal MVC & MCHC readings, which is usual during recovery. When we started to reduce the azathioprine, his red cell production went massively high as his bone marrow had stopped being suppressed & I started to be concerned that he was developing polycythaemia (too many red cells) – this disease scares us all – all the time – sometimes we just have to think that “overall good news” is GOOD NEWS!

Sorry I can’t be more help, but I’m always here for moral support of course.

Take care & send me those tests if you would like to

Sheena, Worzel & Ollie

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