I have a 5-yr-old yorkie with vaccine induced vasculitis. I have been treating him for the past six months now, and he is only getting worse. Today I had to leave him overnight at the hospital, on oxygen. Since this past Friday his breathing has been shallow. His X-rays showed a mild fluid buildup around the lining of his lungs. He has been on Prednisone, Pentoxifylline, Cyclosporine, Doxycycline, but none of these seemed to help. I had to give him these with food and he is very difficult to feed in general. He is not food motivated at all. I'm not sure if not being able to keep him on a consistent schedule might have affected the efficacy of his meds. I was giving them to him everyday though.
At the beginning of January, this year 2015, he was started on Sulfasalazine which after three weeks I started to see a visible improvement with his ears. After the three weeks though, the vet dermatologist took him off of it because it raised his liver enzymes to 503. She put him on Dexamethasone, but after being on that for two weeks I really didn't see any improvements. Although, I didn't see him getting worse either. This past Thursday she stopped the Dexamethasone because of the breathing issues he developed.
And now I am at a loss. His ears look absolutely horrible. They are black and scabby. He has lost almost half of the tissue from each. His paw pads were split and bleeding, but now haven't bled for about three weeks.
I need for his breathing to get better so I can bring him home and try to find a treatment that will work for him. My heart is broken because the vet and the vet dermatologist, both gave euthanasia as an option. I don't want him to continue to deteriorate, but I feel if his breathing gets better I can try giving him Mycophenolate, which is what the next option would be.
I've been reading that some of you have had succes with the Pred and Pentoxy. I don't know if I should give that another try? His ears are really bad so I feel something more aggressive might be best. In the past week he started to develop ulcers on his upper lip.
Can anyone help? I'm desperate!
