[Scoobstersmom]

Thanks, Maximo. Is there any way you could post that whole thread instead of just the one post? I am apparently Yorkie Talk challenged, but it looks like it would be an interesting thread to read.


Wylie's mom, nope I don't think it's GERD. At first we did, when his symptoms were milder but the medications didn't change anything at all. Prior to the past few weeks, he has had some intermittent symptoms (primarily occasional vomiting and inappetance, but some yucky stools with that slimy covering on them) but nothing this severe. They sort of came and went but nothing that red flagged my radar screen in a major way. We have been working with our regular vet the whole time, and finally got him on Primal frozen patties which he has done the best on for about six months until very recently.


I see you're from Phoenix, so just as an aside, he came from the parking lot of the dog pound in Sunnyside. Gross place. I was there dropping off some leftover supplies after I lost my last yorkie, and a couple pulled up and parked right next to me - there to surrender him. They said he grew too big. Argh. We got to talking and he got surrendered all right that day, but right into the backseat of my car. After I got him home, I realized that he had been poorly cared for. He was malnourished, covered with ticks, had not been neutered, wasn't toilet trained, had no inside manners at all, and had been left as an outside dog. He also has severe anxiety, probably from being left outside alone all the time. Severe storm anxiety, afraid of the car and afraid of almost everything.


In the nine months we've had him, he has made a lot of progress but one thing we're still struggling with is the storm anxiety. His tummy symptoms really kicked in around July, when the summer monsoons hit, and have continued to get more severe. He has been a hot mess for the last three weeks or so and we are all miserable here because of it. He's seen three vets in the past three weeks, and they all think that it is, if not completely, at least partially caused by the stress from the storm anxiety. And we've certainly had plenty of thunder lately, which really sets him off. He shakes, pants, paces and even vomits and it sometimes takes him hours to calm down once the storm stops.


In the past three weeks or so since things got so much worse, he has seen our regular vet three times, a relief vet in her office once, was seen in the emergency clinic at ARECA, was worked up by the internal medicine department at ARECA, and had a high resolution ultrasound at ARECA as well. He's had a Super Chem, a SPEC cPL for pancreatitis, tested for B vitamin deficiency, had some other GI panel blood test, tested for addisons, checked for Giardia and other parasites, had a full tick panel and the ultrasound. Oh, and he was also tested for Valley Fever. He has had a course of metronidazole, sucralfate, cerenia, ondanestron. Nothing has been found to explain the occasional vomiting and complete inappetance and none of the medications have made a difference. He was also prescribed Xanax for the storm anxiety, which does help but makes me nervous giving it to him so he's only had it a couple of times. Finally he was given an injection of a small dose of Dexamethasone, and it turned everything around. Within hours he was eating again, and ate like a little piggy with no vomiting for five days, then it started all over again over the holiday weekend. We were up at our cabin on the rim and he was fine Friday and woke up Saturday morning, vomited once, and refused any food from that point on. From Saturday morning through Tuesday morning, he ate about the equivalent of what he normally eats for one meal. We were in phone and email contact with our vet during that time, but since he seemed bright and active and was drinking well, we decided to let it go until Tuesday. Tuesday morning he had another small injection of DEX, and by noon he was eating again.


Our options at this point are to open him up and do the biopsies or have him scoped for them, or to try the trial of the Budesomide. After consulting with the IM dept at ARECA our vet is recommending we try the Budesomide and try to get him through this last little bit of the monsoon season and see where he stands then and whether we can wean him off the steroids before trying anything more invasive. We agreed to try it because we knew the shot was about to wear off today and he'd be back to square one, but I am not really comfortable with having him on daily steroids with no real diagnosis.


I should change my name to Frustrated about now! Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to explain everything we've done so far. If you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them. This poor little guy has already been through so much and we just want to see him enjoying his dinners again!


Diana