One of mine (5 lbs and a year at the time) was getting a bath, got blown dry, and I put him on the floor to give him a break before I wrapped him, he FELL OVER! It also seemed neurological, and his back legs were most affected. Of course I rushed him to the ER, where they did basicly nothing for him but give me a nice big bill.. the bloodwork showed he had depleted potassium. WHY? Well that is still a mystery. I brough him home from the ER (where they told me he was FINE) put him on the floor..what did he do? FALL OVER! So we spent the next 2 days syringing fluids, and force feeding until we went to the vet on monday AM. The vet said LIVER SHUNT. I almost hit the floor. We took a urine bile acid, and my vet treated him as if it were a shunt, said it was a medulary(sp?) wash out (where the kidneys had flushed out all of his potassium) he got a shot of ampicilin, was put on LD, and lactulose, and we came home. He got much better very quickly...which was what we DIDNT want to hear...that meant the vet was likely right. Results came back from the bile acid..no shunt...in fact totally normal liver bile function. It will remain a mystery to this day what happened. he had not gotten dehydrated, had diarreah, vomiting, or anything else that would have made this happen. We took him off the L/D and the lactulose, repeated the electrolyte blood panel, and it was normal. It will remain a mystery what happened to him, and why this happened. We repeated with a blood serum bile acid test about a month later, and it was also great..his BUN and other liver function bloodwork were fine also, it was the strangest thing.
It did take him a few days however to get steady on his feet.
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Becki & The Dazzlin' Yorkies |