[Princes mom]

This is a post from another site about CT and dental cleaning...


To: CollapsingTrachea@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2010 4:06 PM
Subject: [CollapsingTrachea] New member introduction



Hello, I am a new member and just wanted to introduce myself and my
yorkie, Pumpkin, who is 11 yrs old, and who I've known always had a
collapsing trachea, but it never seemed to really be a problem until
last week, when she went in for what I thought would be a routine
dental cleaning and to have some loose and fractured teeth removed.
Turns out the anesthesia and endotracheal tube seems to have exacerbated
her collapsing trachea, and for 1.5 days, she could barely breathe and
I kept thinking I was going to lose her. During this time I rushed
her back to the vet, where they sedated her, put her on oxygen, started
her on steroids, antibiotics, and bronchial dilators, as well as took
x-rays. Apparently her collapsing trachea is pretty much along the entire length of her trachea, both neck and chest region.

The good news is that after 1.5 days of this very labored and difficult
breathing, she started to breath easier, and has been slowly improving
since then. We are tapering her off the steroids at this time.

I don't know if we'll ever get back to where she was before the dental
procedure, and I know it was the right thing to do (and the vets tell
me in treating collapsing trachea dental health is important), but I
still feel somewhat guilty about taking her in (although she had been
under anesthesia before with no problems).

In any case, she does seem to be improving, and I joined this list
to try to find out what works and doesn't work for people. I want to
be better prepared as she gets older and the collapsing trachea no
doubt gets worse.

Have any people on this list opted for surgical procedures, like stents?

Thanks,