We took out dogs to a park on Easter.
It was such a nice day and not too hot!
Many people enjoyed their Easter at this park!
We played with a ball.
Sophie seems to be tired. Maybe it was hot for her.
So we had to carry Sophie to get to the out side restaurant.:-)
They slept soundly when we drove back to home!
It was such a relaxing day!
It’s been strange weather here in GA; however, it’s really cooler at night.
My dog doesn’t like heat and Big Steve is losing his hair, we need to move somewhere more cooler.
He is losing his hair more.
However, we noticed some hair is growing from his neck area and legs!
I hope he can have his hair back again! Summer is coming and exposing his skin under the sun might be too much for him.
He is doing fine today!
His skin is still crusty, but it’s not wet or slimy anymore!
I just hope he will get his hair back!!
I soak him to a medical shampoo today. The vet said it’s good for his mange.
He doesn’t like to soaked in this medical shampoo, but I have to do this.
Hope this makes his skin feels better.
My husband and I took Big Steve to the vet today. His blood test’s result was not so good comparing to his normal blood level, but at least today’s blood test’s result showed that he was recovering from the illness. Well I can see he has more energy and appetite! So we are happy for him.
Since he is loosing his hair and his skin condition is really bad because of mange, the doctor told us that we can give him flaxseed. She said it’s good for their coat.
Right now, when I feed them, I add some sweet potato and yogurt in their food, but I’m gonna add flaxseed too. She told me that I can give them 1/4 tsp of flaxseed everyday. I hope this helps his coat.
I hope he gets better soon. I want him to be happy! Also, this cost too much for us… His bill costs more amount of money I make for a month. I really need a job…
Today’s Big Steve and Sophie.
They are doing great! I can see he is recovering from the side effect!
But still he is suffering from mange. Can you see how much he is loosing his hair?
It’s been hot here in GA. Sophie is making funny snort noise.
So I took her to the patio and combed her. We use “furminator” to comb their hair.
It’s a really good comb.
I couldn’t really corm Big Steve since he doesn’t have much hair, but it was nice to go to the patio and feel nice breeze out site.
He certainly has gotten better! When I touch his body, it’s still crusty. However, I can tell his sprites are higher every day and he does better poop which is more firm and he pees more. He can go up stairs by himself!
I’m very happy to see him getting better! 🙂
He can’t run around yet, but I hope mange doesn’t stay on him…
Today, Big Steve seems to be doing better!
He eats and poops and pees!
I can see he is in a better spirit!
I can see his rash has gotten a little better since yesterday.
It seems like reducing the amount of “Ivermectin” we give him worked.
We just hope it will keep working out fine.
April 8th, 2011
I had to take him out 1:00 midnight last night because his stomach is bothering him. He is having a diarrhea. It was really messy…
I talked to his doctor about his medication this morning. Yesterday, she said we should reduce “ivermectin” from 0.3 to 0.2, but she had been thinking about his condition and decided to reduce from 0.2 to 0.1.
He looks so tired and sick. Actually he didn’t even want to eat for lunch. His poop is too loose and his instinct is telling him not to eat I think. Anyway he barely peed too.
The picture above, He is not taking rest, he is like this all the time.
The picture above, this is how his skin looked like when his skin condition was so bad. This photo was taken on April 1st.
As you can see, his skin has gotten a lot better, but he is suffering from side effects.
However, he is loosing a lot of coat. Also his skin is really crusty.
We actually got a medical shampoo from vet and the vet told us that we can use this shampoo twice a week. So I’m going to soak him to that medical shampoo tomorrow.
April 7th, 2011
My dog was diagnosed as a demodectic mange on Wednesday, March 30th.
The picture above was taken last year. Sometime on January, 2010.
He did’t just get a demodectic mange, just like that. There are history about him.
On January 2010, I was taking my dogs out and I noticed he had really strong colored pee and kinda staggering. I played with him at home and he just fell down. My husband and I had a bad feeling and thought something is not right. We took him to the emergency hospital on that day and had him an exam. The doctor diagnosed him as Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia. I had never heard anything like that. Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia is some sort of disorders characterized by a malfunction of the immune system that produces autoantibodies, which attack red blood cells as if they were substances foreign to the body. His immune system is killing his red blood cells. It’s like an AIDS I think.
So he has a blood transfusion and treated with Prednisone and Azathioprine to shut down his immune system. The vet said there are only few cases of Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia he saw in his life. Usually dog won’t survive or it’s too expensive to do a blood transfusion, so the dogs’ owner had no choice but to put their dog down, he said. We were worried about him to death. We were so careful and took care of him well than ever. Now, He is recovering from Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia. It was almost like a miracle. He adjusted himself very well with these pills and he appeared very healthy and energetic again; however his immune system has gotten a lot worth. That means he could get any kind of illness just like that. He lost many hair too.
Considering his condition he had been doing so well, but one day we noticed that there are many red pimples around his stomach and legs. The vet said he probably have infected by flea or something. So they gave us some pills for it. However, it didn’t work so well. His pimples was getting worse. So the vet gave us another pills, which worked fine this time. I thought this is the pill which is going to help him. But suddenly his skin condition got worth than ever. His skin got crusty and I could see many white pimple this time. Luckily we had made an appointment for him already, so took him to the vet.
So that’s how he was diagnosed as a demodectic mange.
Now, I’m giving him ivermectin every day starting a small amount and now he is taking 0.3 mg. It seems like his skin rash has gotten better, but we think he is having bad side effects. So today we took him to the vet to follow up. They took some blood from him to check his condition. Actually his blood level went down a bit again. That’s probably why he seems so weak. What’s happening to him is his immune system is trying to fight with demodectic mange, but when his immune system try to fight, it produces autoantibodies, which attack red blood cells, which means his immune system is killing them all both good and bad. He is in such a complicated condition.
This is a website talking about demodectic mange.
http://www.cocothebloggingdog.com/2009/06/demodectic-mange-ivermectin-or-mitaban.html
The article says :
ADVERSE REACTIONS: The following adverse reactions have been reported following the use of HEARTGARD: Depression/lethargy, vomiting, anorexia, diarrhea, mydriasis, ataxia, staggering, convulsions and hypersalivation.
Yes, he does have diarrhea. His stool is really soft and kind of out of control. He is also staggering. His body temperature seems really high and doesn’t want to go outside anymore. I think he has lethargy.
I’ll keep posting his condition here for him.
May 10th 2021 – On May 6th 2021 –Steve’s cough had gotten much better, but he was still coughing. He’s been taking both cough medicine 7.5mg (3 times a day) and Doxycycline antibiotics 50mg (2 times a day) on schedule. However, we will be running out of antibiotics today. Since he started to take antibiotics, […]
– May 2nd 2021 – April 30th 2021The day after we gave him Hydrocodone(cough medicine) and Doxycycline Monohydrate(antibiotic), he really wouldn’t eat and he wouldn’t pee or poop at all. He usually poops everyday and it’s just not normal. Also he was coughing more than before. It’s not like he looks lethargic or breathes heavily. […]
– April 29th 2021 Big Steve has had a hacking cough for 2 days. He has been coughing every hour or so. However, this is not a normal cough ….. this cough sounds like a goose honk. We were not sure what to do and were worried about him. If we check his symptom online, […]
On April 22nd, 2021, Big Steve turned 17 years old!! He sure is a miracle dog!! 🙂 Since the last time I posted about him, he is doing so great. Just about 5 days ago, we went to Pet Food Express near our apartment. A person working at Pet Food Express thought Big Steve was […]
May 1, 2018 On April 22nd, 2018, Big Steve turned 14 years old! Considering that he had many health issue in a past, he actually has good gene! Amazing, miracle dog! We are so happy for him!! We wanted to treat him on his special day, so we went to pet food express and got […]
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