Lymes - What Do You Know About It?

[Wild Willie]

Guess what...we got it. Here is the scenario:

- Saturday, Sept. 24th, hunt at Princeton game farm

- Tuesday, Sept. 27th, notice tick buried on shoulders of dog

- Friday, Sept. 30th, notice dog feels warm but acting okay

- Saturday, Oct.1st/Oct. 15th, displays no obvious symptons/discomfort

- Saturday, Oct. 15th, dog hunts hard all day, no symptoms/discomfort

- Thursday, Oct. 20th, notice dog is not working the fields at usual pace

- Friday, Oct. 21st, dog seems tired and wants to be alone

- Saturday, Oct. 22nd, dog has hard time getting up and walking. He displays soreness and stiffness in the hind quarters. Has hard time going up or down stairs and is in pain.

I take him (Buddy - 2 year 5 month old Britt) into the Vet at 10:30am and they do the Lymes test. Comes up negative...but everything outlined above leaves no doubt in the Vets mind that it could be anything other than Lymes. Now treatment has begun. Four weeks antibiotics and a Lymes booster in two weeks and another booster two weeks after that.

Who else out there has had this experience? How long did it take for your dog to get back to normal? What are the chances of long term adverse effects, ie: joint damage/arithis? I know what my vet told me...I just want input and feedback from you...thanks! All it takes is just one TICK...make sure and protect yourself and your dogs!

[Walterwontfalter]

I have it, it's not fun. The key is to catch it early and treat it. Here's a link you might find informative if you haven't checked it out yet. Lots of good info.

Lyme Disease (Contact US Regarding This Word).

[kentuck_ike]

Willie,

I am very sorry to hear about Buddy. Our prayers are with you guys for a full recovery soon.

Take care, Ben

[Dbl]

My last dog contracted Lymes twice. Both times she had the same symptoms you described in your dog. First time test came back negative, second time did not test because we both (myself and vet) knew what the dog had. Same treatment as your dog and from what I can remember the dog improved to almost normal within 24-48 hours, closer to the 24 hours. There was about 2 years between the two cases.

As to long term effects I am somewhat bothered by that. My dog to me after the second time never seemed to have the same energy she had prior to Lymes. She seem to tire more easily. She died about 1 1/2 years after the second time of cancer. The two may have been related, maybe not. My vet could not say for sure, nor can I. I do not want to alarm you about what has happened to your dog, just giving you my experience. My guess is your pal will be just fine and have a full and complete recovery. I am sure others will tell you they have had no ill effects what so ever.

Good luck and let us know how your dog is doing. All dog owners understand that they are a part of your family and we feel for them as we would someone close to us when dealing with illness.

Dbl

[Wild Willie]

Thanks for the comments and input and just after 24 hrs of taking the first dose of antibiodics the dog is much better. No problems this morning with mobility, walking or running and he is back to his old playful energetic self. Guess we caught it early enough and I'm hopeful there will be no long term effects or damage. I will be monitoring his mood, gait and mobility the next few days. If all checks out normal we will back in search of roosters next weekend.

[LuciandTim]

WW: Those symptoms you speak of are identical to what happened to Luci this summer. Identical! I took her to the emergency vet at the University of Minnesota. They could find nothing wrong with her. He mentioned Lymes but as in your case it was negative. He did mention that sometimes dogs will eat either dead or alive animals, and some plants that have some effect on the dog and this is the most common symptoms. After going to the vet and having all the blood work done, xrays, and scans...etc. She was in 100% perfect health 24 hours later.

[Dbl]

Glad to hear that your dog is doing better Wild Willie. I would guess he wants to be back out there chasing roosters!

[hoggs222]

Did the dog have any rashes? I pulled 2 ticks off of my dog that had probably been there for 4 or 5 days that I missed. She's got 2 rashes, in different spots from where I pulled them off. One is on her bottom lip (could be from catching the frisbee?) & one on her belly. One tick came off of her back & one below her ear. She's not acting sore or doesn't seem to have any symptoms yet.

[MikeYager - Suzuki]

I wouldn't get too worried about ticks on the dog. Pretty normal stuff. I pulled lots of imbedded wood ticks off my dog this year. No Lymes. Pulled one off my wife too. No lymes. I've pulled several off me over the years and still have scars. I don't even know anyone that has gotten lymes so statistically it's still pretty rare in my opinion. I do vaccinate my dog for it though.

[hoggs222]

I also vaccinated my dog. I'm just wondering about these rashes that are appearing all of the sudden. I'll keep an eye on them & see. I have heard that the vaccinations don't work all that well though.

[MikeYager - Suzuki]

The bites are definitely nasty. You could try applying Neosporin for a few days if the dog can't reach them. Vet told me to do this once so that's what I have been doing for a few years.

[catman71]

I (meaning me) was vaccinated for lymes about 5 years ago. They came out with a shot for people, 3 doses, first a month, then 1 year after. Last i heard they quit giving them because there was no demand but it seems like there has been more cases every year. Has anyone else had the human vaccination?

[toughguy]

If you can still get a human shot for lymes I'd like to get one. Lymes can be very serious to if you don't catch it early. I've also heard the rumor that they don't make it anymore. Does anyone know if you can get it?

[MikeYager - Suzuki]

Tick story. Bad tick bites are like tatooes. I have two permanent marks from them. They occacionally itch and one even swells up once in a great while. These are several years old.

[toughguy]

Checked with my mom who is a nurse and they no longer make the lymes vaccine. If you notice the symptoms and get into the dr. quick enough they can treat it pretty easily. If you wait and don't get it taken care of, it can be a life-long problem for people and I'm sure dogs too.

[ddsbyday]

Do not rule out diabetes. Except for the tick the symptoms are the same. I would assume lymes. Blood work should rule out a pancrease problem. Check to be sure the vet did not make all of his diagnosis based on the tick.

[Springerguy1]

I went through this with my 9 yr. old springer in the past two months, at one point we weren't sure if the dog was going to survive. My springer has IMHA (immune deficiency) so we misdiagnosed the problem- after spending a few hundred at the clinic the vet thought it may be Lymes even though she tested negative. We treated her with antibiotics and it seemed to work although we had a "relapse" in late Sept. It was difficult to treat the dog since I need to give her steriods on occassion for the IMHA and the symptoms are very similar. Good news is that she has fully recovered and has been able to hunt- I have two dogs so I was able to use her sparingly early in the season but she seems to be in full stride at this point. However, at 9 yrs. old I'm trying to be cautious with how much I let her work.

[LundExplorer]

There is another tick disease around called Ehrlichiosis, and it presents similarly to Lymes and has its own blood test. Its spread by the Brown dog tick, more sililar to a wood tick than deer tick. It's just as serious as Lymes.

I thought my 10 yr old Golden "Casey" had that and was treating it with antibiotics. But as fate would have it, it was instead cancer which he had and we lost him last week. I'll sadly miss him, he was truly a great dog.

[Wild Willie]

Lundexplorer - sorry to hear of your loss. That's a tough one! On a happier note...when does the puppy search begin?

[LundExplorer]

I am happy to announce that the puppy search started and ended last Saturday, with an 8-week old yellow/fox red male lab coming home to Ramsey! His name is Jed and he is quite a character!!

[Studer]

Sorry to hear about your dog LundExplorer!! That is a really sad situation. When you lose your dog, you are losing a family member. I hope Jed is just as good of a dog!! As far as Lymes goes, my 1.5 yr old springer "Louie" had 2 ticks a few weeks ago and I pulled them off of him. The spot where they were seemed to be irratated so we kept neosporin on them and that helped with healing. But he had similar symptoms. He could not jump on the bed and seemed very sore and would even yelp. It was really weird because he seemed like he was favoring his foot but that wasn't it at all. We brought Louie to the vet and same thing...came up negative. He has been fine since. Who knows, it does get you worried though.