[mybuddy747]

Help! My 5 year old beagle has a mysterious disorder that the vets and specilaits cannot figure out. He is producing a bloody Pleural Effusion in his lung cavity. They have told me to give him rutin, but has had to be tapped twice. They have done tests , x-rays, catscan and more and have not found anything that could be causing it. Has anyone else ever had this happen to their baby. He is fine , otherwise, but when the fluid accumulates he cannot breathe well or smell. I keep telling them, I think he has an allergy, but they don't think that could be causing it. I moved, only a town away, but now he likes to be outside and have a lot of trees and grasses, where my other place didn't
Thank you
Buddy747

[labman]

I can't help much, and it would be quite a coincidence if one of the few people here had a similar problem. Be a good time for Korinai to stop in. She is a vet tech. Too bad he can't enjoy his new home. If you are correct about the allergy, the one thing that might help would be to limit his time outside. On the other hand, it could be something in the new house.

Our house still stunk of the industrial grade urethane we put on our hardwood floor just before bringing Prince home. Prince never liked chemicals. If I spilled a little gasoline on me, he wouldn't come near me. He wanted nothing to do with smokers or ladies wearing too much perfume. Each dog is different, and some are very sensitive to things that do not bother most dogs.

We visited the dog guide school school recently. Thought I would share some of what I learned. One of their veterinarians gave a talk on current hazards. Xylitol, a newer artificial sweetener finding wide use in sugar free gums, is very bad for dogs, see http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=75125. The word on grapes and raisins being toxic to dogs has been around for a while, but new findings show some dogs are very sensitive to them, only taking a few to kill them. Her last point was bottle caps. Their sharp edges can cut dogs internally is swallowed. And like many other things, they can block the digestive tract. She had some nice X-rays of dogs that had swallowed all sorts of things. They fish the bottle caps out with a magnet. Other stuff, they have to operate.

[mybuddy747]

Thank you. I also sent an email and hope you got it. Furniture polish is also poisonous to them

[mybuddy747]

He is still filling up and have to bring him again to get fluid tapped out. They have no idea what is wrong. 3 vets and 2 specialists. I don't want to have to put him out, but they won't give me medication or anything as they don't have a clue what's causing it

[Melinda]

Have they done any blood tests? It sounds to me like it's possibly liver trouble, Lepro will attack the liver, heart , kidney's and lungs.

[mybuddy747]

Yes, Blood tests and urine tests both more than once and did not find lepro.

He has been sick over 2 moths now. It started with vomiting and tarry stool. That cleared up and was on antibiotics for over a month. They also found he went into renal failure, but that has cleared up completely over a month ago.

We though someone may have poisoned him at first, but the vets could not find anything to suggest it. He has had about 18 x-rays, ultrasound and a catscan and they still have found nothing! I switched from his regular vet, as he said it should just go back to where ever it came from. Well it didn't. He had 1 1/2 liters!! Of fluid taken out the first time. Both lungs were collapsed and so glad I took him to another vet.

He was great for weeks and then had to get it taken out again last Saturday. This time much less .5 liter on the left and .125 on the right.

I have to take him again to get it out. By seeing him you would never know. I try to keep him calm, but he is so active it's almost impossible.

I have read about a creatinine deficiancy causing it, but they said no.

The specialist has no idea either and he was recommended by more than 1 vet. He wants to fuse him with tetrycyckine, but I don't see how he can if he doesn't know where it's coming from. I don't want them to just cut him open if they have no idea what they are looking at. I also read, it seldom works.

Thanks for your help

[flotsam46]

I have no answer - except that we have EXACTLY the same problem with our Great Dane. He's had his pleaural cavity tapped three times now - the first time they removed 2.5 litres of (mostly) water. His breathing is very strenuous, hard work, and from being the picture of good health, he can no longer run, never mind his greatest pleasure, swimming.
He's been scanned, x-rayed etc - nothing. Even the Washington University Vetinary School could find nothing wrong - they too suggested Rutin at extremely high doses, which for a short while seemed to help.
Now this gentle giant is back to square one, and I suspect it is only his natural previous strength which is keeping him going. The vets have basically admitted defeat: never seen anything like it, but at least with mybuddy747 we know we're not the only ones.
Therefor, someone MUST KNOW the what and the why: Bubba is a real gentle giant, a great character... but we are slowly losing him.
Does anyone out there have any answers, any treatment? He's now five years old, and had this for about six months. It seems the number of times he can be tapped is potentially limited as scar tisuue will ultimately take its toll, and render healing impossible.
If you ever got any answers, Buddy747, please: let us know - we/he is getting desperate!
Heart is fine, blood tests OK

[mybuddy747]

Hi, We ended up having to put him down 3 years ago. It still breaks my heart that we never found the cause 11 vets and every test known to man was done. 1 thing is , did you happen to put any flea & tick products on him, or a collar? They thought for a moment he was allergic or poisoned by that. If so take it off and give them a good bath. Please let me know how all goes

[flotsam46]

Hi, We ended up having to put him down 3 years ago. It still breaks my heart that we never found the cause 11 vets and every test known to man was done. 1 thing is , did you happen to put any flea & tick products on him, or a collar? They thought for a moment he was allergic or poisoned by that. If so take it off and give them a good bath. Please let me know how all goes

Thanks for the prompt reply. We, too, thought we wee going to have to put him down in January, but the wife insisted on one last check while we were at the vets: his breathing had imrpoved... all 11th hour 59th minute stuff. One thing I did notice: it's my feeling that "this" started about eight or nine months ago, when he suddenly didn't want to swim as much as he used: three months later he was at death's door. Since then, a partial recovery, I suppose I could call it, but he also only eats and drinks spasmodically, and has dropped from 165 lbs to 155. No heart problems etc - exactly the same route as you followed. Like your Beagle, he too is still game, though we make things easy for him.

No flea collar, but we do use Avantix - always have done on both of them, with no ill effects, but a good thought.
Thanks for trying - if we ever do find out the what and the why, I'll let you know.

[mybuddy747]

Great. Thank you. I would love to know. They call it idiopathic as they just don't know. They told us they could do exploratory surgery. Cut him open and see if they saw anything, but I read that there was little chance of a good outcome. We believe he may have been poisoned by a woman . I know how 4 beagles and watch them like a hawk. I would say don't use the advantix on your babe, while they are sick. They have a notation not to. They also told me, it's normally a sign of cancer somewhere, but they didn't find any. Try to limit sugars, as I heard they can make cancer spread , if indeed it is the cause. We thought maybe a stroke, but his heart was fine. His kidneys were going and mysteriously got better. He was getting tapped way to often. At 1st it was a month and it was done to a few days apart.The vet said he was getting better as he went almost a month and then got worse agaiin. I asked them for prednisone as I read it could help some effusions. Ask your vet if they think it could help. Ours had trouble eating and drinking when he filled up too much as it does collapse the lungs and can't breath and eat at the same time. Try giving him something smaller to eat, so the entire esophagus is not filled with food and air can get through. We were giving him tuna , when he had a tough time. He would then get tapped, come home and run around the yard like his old self. He did develop scar tissue, from being tapped and that made some paint to him also. Don't give aspirin or anything like it, as that thins the blood and may bleed more. We also made a bed in our living room and stayed with him, so he didn't attept too many stairs. The other thing I read, was if he had eaten something sharp, it could have made a puncture, though the ultra sound din't find anything

[mybuddy747]

Hi, I also wanted to ask what your dog was doing when you very first noticed. Ours was running around in the yard. My neighbor saw a woman by our fence. 10 minutes later I went outside and he was just laying down. He was abe to get up came inside and just laid down

[carolbcac]

Did either of these dogs ever have any trauma that you know of? The main vessel that recycles the lymph flid through the body, called the thorac duct, runs through the chest. If it is torn it leaks a thin milky fluid into the chest cavity. Pretty unusual, though. Some of the large breeds are prone to certain types of heart disease, but it usually causes a cough rather than free fluid in the chest. These two dogs are real stumpers.

[flotsam46]

Thank you for both for your responses.
Initially, Bubba wasn't "doing" anything - it was more that on reflection he very slowly slowed down and stopped doing gradually, virtually until it did become more obvious. There appeared no reason for this until after a week or so he developed a huge sac one side of his chest.
He's had no trauma that we know of, unless siring a litter counts :) and the arrival here of one of his daughters! (Teenager from hell!). He's always had a lot of exercise, and was as fit as a fiddle. He used to eat well: now he hasn't eaten again for two days, nor drunk anything either.
He's big, and he's is very strong, but this is steadily taking its toll of him.

[flotsam46]

As an addendum, Bubba's just been drained again - 0.3 litre from one side. Again, he's now eating and bouncing about as usual. Problem is, he's so big that the fluid doesn't show until there's a significant quantity, when you can see a slight swelling when he's laying down.
From all that I gather, surgery is possibly a non-starter - a lot of trauma for very potentially nothing - any comments on that?
Next question: I know the physiology is somewhat different, but what if this were a human being? A dog's physiology is not THAT different that the same answer could not apply, surely?
(Incidentally, he is standing here with his head on my left arm watching as I type... now tell me he doesn't also have a vested interest! :)

[flotsam46]

p.s. It is called idiopathic chylous effusion, apparently.

[flotsam46]

One further thought, Buddy: a couple of questions, How many times and over what period did your woof have his/her chest tapped? Secondly, did your Beagle ever go swimming in ponds or rivers - could this be something that is water-born - like liver fluke or some other amoebic whatsit? Bubba swam in seep lakes a lot in a national wildlife reservation near us.
[B]CAROL: at the behest of my wife, as I wrote above, our Dane was diagnosed with ideopathic chylus effusion: is it possible that our Great Dane puppy, (his daughter) could have given him something or caused trauma? At the time he became ill she was six months or so old, and originally she was born on a (very clean) farm. For no reason, Asian flu etc comes to mind as there were a lot of peacocks there.
I know - we're grasping at straws!
Thank you!

[carolbcac]

Being Great Danes, I suppose one of them could have hit the other with considerable force, not sure whether it could be enough to rupture the thoracic duct. Although having just had a wrestling match with my friend's 10 mo old Dane who did not intend to have her anal glands expressed, it makes me wonder. I eventually won, using a Gentle Leader and my full body weight, but my arm is several shades of blue & purple from her nails and she literally threw me off her several times.

Anyway, I suppose your dog could have been born with a birth defect that caused the thoracic duct to be weak.

What really strikes me as odd is that you say you can actually see the swelling. Where exactly is the swelling, over the chest or just behind the ribs? Fluid in the chest cavity usually compresses the lungs; I don't know that I have ever heard of there being so much that it bulged out--the animal should be in serious respiratory distress long before that.

[flotsam46]

Carol,
We understood from the breeder that hereditary or birth defects usually show up in the first two years.. To try and give you an idea, this woof weighed in at 165 lbs of sheer muscle, no fat, and was capable of chasing deer a considerable distance just for the sheer fun of it, and again, just for enjoyment ( and the challenge?) would swim and fetch a branch weighing 50 lbs out of the lake (wasn't/isn't interested in small sticks - seems to think they are not worth the effort! Incidentally we never "pushed" either occupation - purely because of potential damage: he chose to set the "markers") though he's not done either for a couple of years or so. He's also indicated that he'd just adore fetching gallon plastic milk cartons from the lake - but we don't allow him any more.
As best I can remember, he originally appeared mildly under the weather for about a week or so, then went downhill fast over three days of Christmas, until we saw this sac hanging down from his right ribcage/front leg area going both down his front leg and backwards along his length for about seven inches. At that point we went straight to the vets - until then, we had NOT noticed any excess of fluid. The sac, externally, measured about seven inches long by four or five inches wide by about an inch high. That was the first time: apparently about 1.5 liters on the right. 0.75 on the left. :eek:

It has never been that bad since, for now we know, and as soon as he becomes listless and starts to breath in short, hard "punches" we take him in again. The vet drains him, and he's fine, sometimes for three or four weeks or more. Though there is fluid both sides, it is usually more on the right, with a negligible quantity this last time (earlier this week) on the left.

Hope that helps a bit! Thank you again for your interest

[carolbcac]

What color is the fluid they drain off?

[flotsam46]

A very, pale and thin watery pink