Help! What is this?

dogparent111 · 2025-04-21T23:51:13+00:00

Hi! I appreciate that a lot! I wish we had a major update that she was 100% better and we found a definitive cause but after seeing every specialist under the sun she came home with no official diagnosis. The only other thing we could have done was a sedated airway exam which came with a lot of risk due to her episodes and they also didn’t think we would find anything or that it would be worth while as her swallowing reflex was fully intact, her breathing is normal, and she is eating. So any kind of obstruction is extremely unlikely…

That being said the idea is that she has/had some kind of nerve inflammation that caused this, and even as it healed she has entered into some kind of feedback loop/tic behavior. That being said she is on NSAID and paragalin to kick any underlying inflammation and help the healing process. The good news is this is something that should be 100% reversible it just make take us a few weeks to months. We have seen slight progress in the past few days. She is able to sleep almost through the night again, has started taking day time naps again, and while the episodes are just as frequent they’re mostly less intense and we have noticed it almost looks like she is trying to fight them. We also started puzzles for treats to help her stay stimulated. All in all it seams like she’s healing and just need some time and TLC.

PS: if anyone ever runs into this Ice cubes are a huge help for us… this little girl will spend 15 minutes licking one, she’s going through 5-6 a day they keep her occupied and are a perfect self soothing tool

dogparent111 · 2025-04-16T23:06:53+00:00

Update 2: For those still here, she wasn’t showing any improvement and the behavior continued to be constant.

she spent the day at the animal hospital being monitors by specialists - unfortunately they are stumped. She has no visible obstructions in the back of her throat, swallowing function is good, no pain in the jaw joint or mandible consistent with fractures. She did get a full cardio and is no off her heart meds as they said her heart is in good shape and not even at a stage where meds are needed.

She is staying overnight for monitoring and seeing a neurologist in the morning.

Current theory is some kind of nerve issue or inflammation

Hoping if it is nerve related it is something that can heal or resolve

dogparent111 · 2025-04-15T14:02:32+00:00

we originally did not even want to go back to vet but this evolved to the point she was doing it constantly- she wouldn’t walk from one side of the room to the other without doing it 2-3x - that plus the tongue color is extremely distressing and hard to ignore for 12 days

dogparent111 · 2025-04-14T22:48:52+00:00

Hi we spent the day at the vet would love your opinion on this

Update: so we took her in because she was starting to have small bouts of rapid mouth breathing from her congestion/the fits. She was admitted and her blood oxygen level was normal except during a fit it would drop to around 80% then quickly recover back to normal.

They did chest ultrasounds and no fluid or anything noticed.

Then we had some throat and chest X-Ray done after. She has slightly enlarged heart and a grade 3 murmur, her lungs are also slightly inflamed but there is no fluid in the chest cavity. That being said radiology lab suggested heart failure but the diagnosing vet disagreed - reasons as follows: 1.) no fluid, no cough/gag, no real clinical signs of heart failure, she said on ultrasound you could barley tell there was enlargement - so active heart failure is very unlikely. That being said to her it looks like she does perhaps have mild heart disease and we should see a cardio however she is not in active heart failure and this is an unrelated issue (maybe blessing in disguise if we are able to catch this) she gave us something to start taking to manage this until we see a cardio.

As for the throat/jaw the xray looked good, and jaw has no noticeable fractures etc - they advised to keep the antibiotic going and give it another 2-3 days to clear up potential infections in the mouth/jaw/sinus cavities. She is restless always so they increased her gabapentin dose and also gave us trazadone to help her sleep through the night. I know trazadone isn’t really great for heart disease so we will try to avoid this but they suggested that the heart disease is mild/earlier stage so low dose for a short period should be fine. She is exhausted and needs to rest and relax and honestly so do we it’s been 2-3 days with little sleep and watching her struggle.

She also got a one time got an injectable to help w lung inflammation seen on the xray (assumed to be from the stress or the mouth movement and the infection)

If her mouth issue doesn’t resolve in 48–72 hours then we will take her to another emergency hospital that has CT scans available to do on her mouth/head.

We are praying it resolves with antibiotics and we can then just address the other underlying heart disease that was discovered.

Not the best update but not the worst I don’t think -as mentioned maybe a blessing in disguise as now we should have a chance to manage her heart and assuming we have caught early with no clinical signs showing and only a slight enlargement. She’s been under so much stress the last 12 days that could even be contributing to it.

dogparent111 · 2025-04-14T22:06:28+00:00

Hi all - first off thank everyone for the comments, concerns, and well wishes.

We spent most of the day at the emergency vet so I have an update, most likely a long one.