OCTOBER 2011 - ITCHY KIDS
ITCHY KIDS
Recently, one of our clients came to us with 2 very itchy kids, showing hair loss about their head and ears (see photos). These two were part of a larger group that were all showing similar signs.
Because of the numbers involved, we immediately took some skin samples and submitted them to our referral lab to identify the cause of the problem.
The diagnosis came back as mange caused by the chorioptes mite. Importantly, we were able to rule out other diseases such as ringworm that may have spread further to other species, including us!
Thankfully, once diagnosed this condition is readily treated. Following on from a series of injections the kids are now itch free and doing well. Below is some more information on chorioptic mange for your interest:
Chorioptic Mange
What is it?
The disease is caused by a type of mite that is very species specific. This means that it will not cross over to cause human skin disease and is very unlikely to live off other livestock animals.
Healthy animals may carry low numbers of mites without skin disease being evident.
What to look for:
Itchiness (often very extreme) is the main sign. Behaviourally this will be seen most clearly with rubbing. Physically, you will see secondary signs on affected animals such as: hair loss, skin inflammation, ulceration and bleeding through to infections.
How to act:
Prompt veterinary attention allows for diagnosis and treatment. As with our case this treatment is usually very effective. Correct diagnosis also allows you to rule out other potential causes and ensure you are taking all the management steps that you need to.
SEPTEMBER 2011
Spider is a 13 year old domestic shorthair who presented with a swollen cheek. The owners had also noticed she’d not been eating as well and was sometimes drooling. On examination of the mouth it was obvious Spider,s top molars were rotten, causing an infection around the tooth roots.
Spider was admitted for a dental operation, the two problem molars were removed and the abscess was flushed with saline. She was given a course of antibiotics and pain relief and is now a much happier cat.
Take home points:
· Dental disease is very common, especially in older pets and in smaller breeds of dogs. It is important to have your pet's teeth checked. This can be done at their annual health check/vaccination or if you are worried we are currently offering FREE DENTAL CHECKS.
· To prevent dental disease we sell Hills Science oral care, and tooth brushes and paste for dogs, and to help remove plaque Hills t/d diet is very effective.
· Prevention is better than cure, plus will save you money, because cats and dogs need to have a full general anaesthetic for a scale and polish the cost of this alone starts from around $250.
· Signs of dental disease to look out for at home:
o Bad breath
o Change in chewing/eating habits
o Drooling
o Yellow/brown crust on teeth/tooth loss
o Bleeding/sore gums
o However some pets will show no signs even with severe disease.
August 2011-Regurgitating Button
Button is a 9 month old tabby kitten who came in to TBV for a check up after her owners noticed she was "bringing up food" following eating. The first thing I noticed about Button was her diminuitive size and slender frame. I put some kitten food in front of her to establish whether she was hungry and whether she was vomiting or regurgitating food. Vomiting is the forceful ejection of food from the stomach or occasionally small intestine, whereas regurgitation is the passive movement of food out of the mouth before it reaches the stomach.
Buttons was ravenously hungry but had a lot of trouble swallowing. It became apparent that she was infact regurgitating before the food had reached her stomach. This coupled with her ravenous hunger and thin frame indicated that she had a problem with either her pharnyx or oesophagus and that she was not nauseous or vomiting. I admited Button in order to xray her throat and oesophagus. We unfortunately do not have a small enough endoscope for a little kitten (in fact there is not one small enough in the whole South Island) and therefore could not visualise the throat with a camera as we would in a dog.
As I was about to pass a tube into her airway for general anaesthetic and xray I noticed that she had an inflammed soft palate. On further inspection I was able to evert a large mass that was attached by a stalk to her phargynx. This was the source of her regurgitation. The mass was acting as a mechanical barrier to food. Despite Button's best efforts to eat she had been unable to get enough food into her stomach to allow proper growth and weight gain. Fortunately removal of the mass simply required ligation and excision and the lump came away cleanly from the pharyngeal wall. Post surgery Button wolfed down her first meal without regurgitation and licked the bowl clean.
Oral and throat tumours can occur in both dogs and cats but are much more common in the geriatric patient. It is unknown what Button's mass actually was but given her young age and the shape of the lump I am hoping and would guess that the lump is a benign pharnygeal polyp rather than a cancer. No one knows why the polyp had formed, but both TBV and her lovely owners are relieved to have found a remedy for the regurgitation.
Dr Charlotte Foster BVMS MRCVS
July 2011 - emergency-blocked bladder!!
Sonic is a 6 year old, neutered male domestic shorthair cat. He was brought into our clinic at Mapua after behaving oddly for a couple of days. His owners had kept in overnight to see if there were any more clues – and noted that Sonic kept trying to use his litter tray but without result.
Sonic was immediately diagnosed with a blocked bladder and sent through to our main clinic at Motueka for treatment. A blocked bladder is a complication of urinary tract disease that in most cases affects male cats. A sample of red wine coloured urine confirmed the seriousness of Sonic’s condition.
On arrival at Motueka it was soon appreciated that Sonic’s case had progressed – his bladder having ruptured! Blood tests also confirmed that the function of his kidneys and stability of his electrolytes meant that an immediate anaesthetic would likely prove fatal! Prompt and intensive supportive care was started revolving around intravenous fluids and pain relief in an effort to get Sonic stable enough for surgery.
This was one of those cases that depended on not only good clinical skills but a very committed nursing team to provide Sonic the level of monitoring and care he needed. Thankfully, it all paid off as over the following 1 and ½ days he gradually improved enough to go to theatre.
Our next step was to repair the bladder – this can potentially be a very difficult operation as in this case the bladder can be extremely fragile. Our surgeon of the moment here was Dr Foster, who managed this challenging procedure successfully. Sonic wasn’t out of the woods yet however as he still had to get to the point where he could pass urine by himself - no assistance – no catheters before he could go home.
This he duly managed. At last report Sonic was continuing to enjoy life back at home and was also enjoying the prescription diet that may help prevent a repeat of this nearly tragic episode.
SOME TAKE HOME POINTS:
As said above the blocked bladder syndrome is a not uncommon condition. It tends to follow on from FLUTD (feline lower urinary tract disease-cystitis) in male cats.
Below is a list of some warning signs of this syndrome. If you are ever in any doubt please give us a call – early intervention is extremely important in the treatment of these cases.
- Behaviour changes: can be generally quieter and may resent being picked up. Often these cats can be very vocal with a characteristic persistent yowling
- Changes in toileting behaviour – indoor cats will be frequently going to the tray. Others may start going in and out more often, or even having ‘accidents’ inside.
- Other general signs such as going off food are often seen too.
It is also known that cats that are overweight are also more likely to develop FLUTD problems. Attention to the weight and condition of our pets plays an important role in preventing these situations. If you would like any advice on safe and effective weight loss for cats, please give us a call.
June 2011- Parvovirus
Muppet, a 6 year old Bulldog, presented with severe bloody diarrhoea, and collapse, classical signs of Parvo virus infection. This was confirmed via a snap test which is a quick test that we can do in the clinic to confirm the diagnosis. Because this is a highly infectious disease it is great to be able to know what we are dealing with almost immediately and then be able to implement isolation procedures.
The parvo virus multiplies in the intestines causing the severe diarrhoea and also in the bone marrow which causes immunosuppression. If a dam is infected whilst in pup it can also multiply in the pups' heart. Parvo is a very serious disease, many dogs do not survive. It is also highly infectious so infected dogs have to be isolated. Luckily Muppet was diagnosed early and supportive treatment with intravenous fluids, anti vomiting drugs and antibiotics saved her life.
Prevention is by a course of 3 vaccinations whilst they are a puppy. They are not fully immune until this course is complete and so we recommend keeping them indoors as much as possible until 10 days after the last vaccination and making sure that they only socialise with other vaccinated dogs. Why does it take so long to get good protection from vaccination? When the pups are born they will get some antibodies from their mum which give them some protection but also intefer with our vaccine. The mum's antibodies wear off at different times, ranging from 8-16 weeks, depending on how much the pup absorbed from the colostrum. This is why we recommend 3 vaccination shots to cover all possibilities and we can not be 100% sure a pup will have immunity until the last vaccination has been received.
Meggie Bichard BSc BVMS MRCVS
May 2011 - Rat Bait Poisoning
Mistral Fields, a beautiful black labrador bitch, presented to Tasman Bay Vets with a cough, inapetance and lethargy. Anyone who owns or knows a labrador will know that there has to be something terribly wrong for a lab to turn his/her nose up at a good feed. And as it happens it was Mistral's indiscriminate love of anything edible that landed her in this situation!
Mistral, unbeknown to her worried owners, had decided that the storage supply of rat bait would suffice as a tasty snack and ingested a sufficient quantity to leave her fighting for her life.
Rait bait or warfarin inhibits vitamin K which is essential for production of certain clotting factors and protein required for clotting of the blood. If the blood is unable to clot then the animal will bleed internally.The patient will become very lethargic and the gums will become very pale as the blood is redirected to critical organs such as the heart and brain. A bleed into the lungs presenting as a cough or a bleed into the gastrointestinal tract presenting as black stools or vomit that looks like coffee grounds are the most common presentations.
Mistral's cough,lethargy and pallor led us to the diagnosis of rat bait poisoning. Unfortunately Mistral had lost so much blood that a blood transfusion was required and her friendly companion Zepher was able to provide this service thus saving Mistral's life. Vitamin K was also given to Mistral to combat the inhibitory action of the rat bait. Pre and post transfusion Mistral's clotting time was measured to make sure she had made a full recovery.
Following the transfusion and a few days of TBV hospitalisation. Mistral was back to her usual self, no doubt getting up to mischeif with Zepher. The two dogs are photographed below.
Please store rat bait in dog proof containers and always make sure that only the rats can access the bait when laid.
Dr.Charlotte Foster BVMS MRCVS
June - A Sticky Problem
Every now and then a patient comes in the door with an injury which leaves you wondering what on earth they have been up to! Of course, in our job they don't tend to tell us! In early June a lovely wee tabby cat came into the clinic with a large piece of stick protruding from her chest wall. None of us had ever seen anything quite like it.
We anaesthetised her and upon clipping the hair from over the area it became apparent that the stick was much larger than we initially thought. Luckily the stick had not penetrated through the chest wall and into the thoracic cavity, although it was still a little tricky to remove and in the end came out in two pieces.You can see from the picture that one end was sharp and the other quite blunt. The mystery continues.... why is the sharp end sticking out?
After the surgery puss did well and is back to her normal antics.
May- Moki has Cushings Disease
Cushings disease is a disease which we see uncommonly in veterinary practice. When it does present dogs usually have fairly classical symptoms of being ravenously hungry, drinking a lot, having a distended, "pot bellied" abdomen and often they also have poor skin and hair coat.
However not all dogs read the text book and our nurse, Lynn Cameron's dog is one of them! Moki's only real syptom of Cushing's disease was being very hungry all the time. Now those of you who own Schnauzers will know that even a normal Schnauzer thinks its hungry all the time but Moki took this to a whole new level. A special test called an ACTH stimulation test was performed and this confirmed that, despite not showing all the other signs of Cushing's Disease, Moki had early stage Cushing's Disease.
Cushing's Disease of Hyperadrenocorticism as it is also known, occurs when either the pituitary or adrenal gland oversecretes the steroid hormone cortisol. In 75% of cases the pituitary is to blame and it can be controlled with a drug called Lysodren which acts like a chemother
apeutic agent to reduce the cortisol production by the gland. The adrenal glands are to blame in the other 25% of cases and they too can be suppressed by administration of Lysodren although in a small percentage of cases they can contain a nasty tumour which needs to be surgically removed.
Moki has been on Lysodren for a few months now and is doing well. Her obsessive hunger is slowly abating and she is handling the multitude of blood tests that she has had very well. As you can see from the photo below not a pot belly in sight!
April- Meet Gary The Gannet
We really enjoy working with wildlife and are often presented with injured native birds such as Kereru and Tui. But we were somewhat taken aback when DOC arrived one day with Gary!
Gary is a juvenile Australasian Gannet. He was found exhausted on the beach, his mates already having left for some R&R in Australia. Gary had no injuries and just needed a little tender loving care and a few sardines before heading off to find his mates. He stayed with us for about a week and it did not take him long to work his way into our hearts. Staying in our isolation area his routine quickly began to revolve around food, water and cage cleaning. He was hand fed canned sardines and syringed with 60 ml of water a day. Despite a few finger injuries from the feeding process the staff grew to love Gary and we were a little sad to see him wing his way off to Australia, although Michelle was pleased that she no longer had to clean up his poop!
