[highonart]

Hello All,

Sorry I haven't updated until today. I have been spending as much time with her as possible and since it is about 3 hours roundtrip, I am exhausted from the emotion and the trip.

But the news as of now, is good. She has a mild case with very little damage. We caught it early and she is responding to treatment.

For any of you who are facing this disease, this is a critical issue:

The doctors have told me that there are 2 basic types of canine encephalitis. It can be either INFECTIOUS, or STERILE. The infectious type can be viral, bacterial or fungal. The sterile type is like an auto-immune disorder where the body starts attacking itself. This type has no KNOWN cause, but there are several theories including genetics and triggers associated with vaccines. Within the sterile type include GME, and breed-specific types like Pug Dog Disease and Yorkie Necrotizing Encephalitis.

They say that about 70% of the dogs with encephalitis have the sterile kind. And about 30% have the infectious kind. Because Crissey is a Yorkie, the chances are greater that she has Yorkie Encephalitis.

But there is still about a 30% chance that even a Yorkie can have the infectious kind rather than the sterile kind.

And this is where it gets really tricky. If they start treating her with the drug protocol for the sterile kind which includes high doses of steroids, the desired effect is to suppress the immune system so that it stops attacking itself. And that is great, as long as the underlying cause of the disease is truly sterile in nature.

But if you start giving the dog high doses of steroids, and it is actually infectious in nature, then you will probably kill the dog because you will have suppressed their immune system to the point that it cannot fight off the infection.

However, if you start treating with antibiotics and it turns out to be the sterile kind, you have a better chance of being able to reverse the course, change the treatment protocol, and still save the dog.

So the decision is really a sort of "lesser of two evils" choice. Many times they can diagnosis the infectious kind from a spinal tap, but Crissey's was inconclusive. And they didn't feel that her case warranted another spinal tap.

So the bottom line for us is that she is much improved and is going home today on antibiotics. They are still not sure if her improvement is due to the antibiotics, or due to the residual effects of the low-dose steroids they gave her in the beginning to reduce the inflammation. So she could get worse over the next couple of weeks and then we would deduce that she actually has the sterile variety rather than the infectious.

At that point we would have to switch her to the high dose steroids combined with another drug, cytosine, that acts as a sort of chemotherapy.

So please keep us in your prayers over the next couple of weeks. We are at a very critical phase with this disease and can use all the support and prayers that we can get.

Thank you all for your concern and support and I will keep you posted on her progress. I am SO HAPPY to be bringing her HOME!

Deborah