A dog with liver failure

HISTORY

Photo from www.excelcpd.co.uk

A 5 year old neutered female crossbreed presented as an emergency on a weekend. As she was coming referred from her current practice as their out of hours provider, the access to her history was limited to as much as her owner could provide. 

She had had a first seizure early in the morning of which she did not fully recover. On her way to our hospital, she had two more seizures lasting approximately three minutes each. During the two previous days she had been vomiting part of her food, no blood was noticed, and her drinking was increased.

Polycythemia vera, a rare disease/policitemia vera, una enfermedad rara

A 4 y.o crossed labrador presented after being vomiting and passing soft faeces since the day before. He is not himself, and nothing remarkable is found on his clinical examination. Initially, the case is treated as a gastric problem. However, 2h later he collapsed, and is hospitalized, giving fluids, and starts with mild seizures shortly afterwards. Now his mucose membranes are congestive, and on a blood test his hematocrit is extremely high. Even after 6h on fluids, his hematocrit stays very high. Why is this dog producing more much more blood than he needed? (read more)

Heart failure/fallo cardíaco

Tess is a neutered female, 9ish y.o. rescue dog who, suddenly, was weaker, loosing weight and fainting. Her owner, one of the vet nurses from our team, took herself some blood samples. We could not find any heart murmur on auscultation. Results from the lab were inconclusive. T4 slightly low, didn´t match with Tess symptoms.

Tess es una perra esterilizada de unos 9 años, adoptada que, de repente, estaba más débil, perdiendo peso y desmayándose. su dueña, una de las auxiliares veterinarias de nuestro equipo, le tomó unas muestras de sangre. Los sonidos cardíacos eran normales, los resultados del laboratorio, inconclusos. T4 ligeramente bajo, no cuadraba con los síntomas de Tess (read more)

Inmune-mediated disease in a cat

Bob was a rescued, neutered, 5 to7 years old cat who had been loosing weight progressively, to the point that worried his owner very much.  Lately he had also lost appetite, and was very weak.

His mucose was very pale but, apart from it, nothing else could be found wrong in his phisical exam.
He was tested for leukemia or feline inmunodeficiency disease and his biochemical results where within the average range. However, his hemogram showed such anaemia that the diagram in the analyzer gave us its slowest result.

Running out of the limited budget to spend on tests, it was decided he would be kept under enrofloxacine for a week, hoping all his problems me be due to some

Immune mediated polyarthritis in a dog/poliartritis inmunomediada en perro.

Here is Zabú, a beautiful alsatian born in October 2000 and, incomprenssibly, dumped at 11 y.o. He's all bones and hair, sadly waiting for his owners to pick him up. Why would he have been abandoned? Some people leave their pets when they start having health problems. Although Zabú eats well, his movements look painfull and his joints are stiff. Few days after his arrival, he vomited his food. In a quick check he had fever and rejected the delicious puppy's Hill's tins. Few days under antibiotic, nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drugs, antiemetics and stomach protectors, and he was himself once again. His blood film comfirmed his inmune-mediated polyarthritis.

Bleeding with no reason/sangrando sin motivo

A thin bullterrier presented one morning bleeding profusely. His owner was on the brink of a nervous breakdown, so worried the dog would die. Any attempt to control the bleeding from the nose (epistaxis) failed. After questioning the owner in order to find out a possible cause (a fight, running over, some rodenticide, poisoning...) I though of the dreadful illness we have in South Spain: leishmania. Indeed the reason for that bleeding, as well as the dog's poor condition, was the leishmania parasite.

Este delgado bullterrier llegó una mañana sangrando bastante. Su dueña estaba al borde de un ataque de nervios, muy preocupada de que el perro se muriera. En toda la mañana no pudimos controlar la hemorrágia nasal. Tras las típicas preguntas para averiguar la causa (pelea, atropello, raticida, veneno...) Pensé en la terrible endemia del sur de España: leishmania. De