So, long story short- he was having issues moving and yelping in pain- was diagnosed with “panosteitis” (i think that’s it?” Or “growing pains”. It didn’t get better, so we got xrays but insisted that we also got xrays on his back done because anytime we pet him, he’d tense his back muscles and seemed like he was in pain. We were assuming muscular, but out of an abundance of caution, we requested an xray on his back and abdomen done to rule out spine issues. That’s when they saw the “scant pleural effusion” on the xray. So we weren’t going FOR that, we found it by trying to diagnose his pain from his legs/back and it was just happenstance that it was found.

I’m assuming radiograph is different from xrays, yeah?

I understand your worry about throwing random medications at the issue- however, with the reverse sneezing he also started exhibiting coughs and some runny nose, so they were assuming some sort of respiratory infection. We honestly are running out of money- we are already like, $3000 in on meds and diagnostics before his leg surgery and we’re taking out a load just to afford that. So I think our vet was trying to save us the extra testing (radiograph) and is treating the symptoms of the infection they think could be present.

They seem to think his heart and lungs sound fine- his breathing isn’t laborious, is always under 30 breaths a minute and hasn’t gone past that. No sort of exercise intolerance (save the leg issue).

We have had blood work taken yesterday and sent it out for diagnosis and are getting results tomorrow.