Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  Changing vets can be so, so stressful. You feel kinda lost at first. That happened to me between losing Jilly and getting Tibbe - some 5 years or so. Our two most trusted vets at the same clinic retired and we only had one left that I knew - one I didn't like as much left so we didn't stay at that clinic for long after I got Tibbe. I took Tibbe in with ear mites when I first got him & that vet gave me an estimate of $479.00 or so dollars to run tests, clean the ears and supply medications - apart from all his other testing and vaccinations and all that he was having as a new patient to that clinic, with his dental and neuter still looming ahead. I asked if they couldn't just clean his ears thoroughly and we just couldn't try him on ear mite medication for 10 days as we used to do in the old days and see if that cleared it first and if not, we'd follow protocol and do all the testing and rounds of medication - he agreed and, thankfully, it worked. Tibbe's mites cleared up with that cleaning and simple ear mite medication and he's never had them since. I'll spend any amount of money on my dog to diagnose or treat him if it's truly necessary but won't line up for what seemed like unnecessary charges when they seem excessive and out of protocol. The vet agreed he had no reason to suspect a secondary ear infection at that point - just wanted to test and see.
I then took him to another vet clinic later, one who has two vets, but one misdiagnosed Tibbe as having an enlarged heart from an x-ray, telling me that he could be in heart failure, when I took him in after coughing for two hours and looking rather hangdog that morning and he sent us straight to the ER hospital with possible heart failure. They ran re-took the x-ray, did blood work, did a cardiac Doppler, and found he had early focal pneumonia and his heart test and heart size on x-ray were entirely normal! Whew! But the vets there said they could see how that first x-ray could have led the first vet to think maybe it was an enlarged heart due to the way it appeared(?!?!?) on the film. Still, you'd have thought that first vet(the one I'd like not Tibbe to see now while the other vet's on leave) could have heard lung changes, rales or something and recognize a case of pneumonia when he sees it!
Anyway, Tibbe was treated at the Emergency Hospital, kept overnight, re-x-rayed two weeks later to be sure his lungs were clear and got well, though his medication for the pneumonia played heck with his IBS and besides diarrhea and vomiting after he started on the antibiotics and Medrol, he had a terrible bout of severe itching from something he was taking. It's never easy with Tibbe once you try to treat him for something.
Yea! I was able to get him a drop-off appt. at the vet today which means they are booked full so I'll have to drop him off and leave him and the doctor will call me for symptoms, see him in between other appts. or last of all and then I can go in and discuss it with the doctor and get medications; but at least maybe we can get a start on this yeast! Poor baby just had a bath Sunday and today his feet and skin are so stinky already! He's not scratched even once today but his smell is really loud.
The thing that has scared me about taking him into the vet most I think is they are probably going to want to start talking diet change among other treatments and he's been so unable to manage even the slightest change in diet or take some medications w/out getting so sick. He's from Jilly's family lineage - it turns out - and that poor little girl could only eat one particular food in life(and we tried most of them) for the whole of her life w/out getting bloody diarrhea and vomiting, so IBS runs in that particular pedigree, sad to say. And antibiotics always gave her running diarrhea, though Tibbe usually manages his meds a little - just a little - better than Jilly ever did.
Well, wish us luck and pray for us that Tibbe's treatment doesn't tick off his IBS some way but that he can just get over this whatever it is that has him so stinky and itchy and eye-drain-y at times.
Linda, here's hoping you find a great, trusted new vet with as little upset and worry as possible because it's never easy to find just the right one for some of us. |