Snow

18/11/2023

Just in case you are interested in learning more about Lyme disease. Here is a starting point. I don’t agree with his treatment approach but as an add on to antibiotics it’s a great combination and great solution for attacking the microbes from all angles.

Dr Bill Rawls has dealt with Lyme Disease for a very long time. Not only has he helped treat it, but he's suffered from it himself. He tells us what he recom...

12/02/2021

And this is how blood work looks like when you stop listening to bobo-heads giving you idiotic advice! This is not the only thing improving. Videos to follow. Gosh how I wish I was already finished with my veterinary studies. I see it all so clearly now. Ana, Borri, Barti, Babi, Ricki, you all can kiss my dog’s sweet behind.

10/01/2021

Only a quick update since things have been pretty hectic with med school, work, and life.

Snow is doing much better since he is being treated for hypoadrenocortisism and hypothyroidism. Of course, the seizures are still there, but he is back on his feet.

He wasn’t able to walk, was weak, mentally absent, ataxic, dehydrated, hypovolemic, and the list goes on.

His energy level and mental acuity is up 80%. The rest will take a little longer.

‼️ Just a warning to those out there who also have a dog with vector borne diseases. Do not believe that months and years of antibiotics are going to cure or rid the symptoms your dog is having, as the majority of the symptoms are secondary to the chronic infections and require early supplemention. You need to pay attention to the adrenal glands, thyroid, pancreas, gallbladder, liver, kidneys, heart, and the vascular system. Your main focus should be on the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid axes as everything is impacted by the hormones produced there. You should start hormone replacement early, don’t wait for bloodwork to confirm it, especially if you have symptoms, start L-Thyroxine empirically if necessary. The second most effected gland are the adrenals, and generally hypoadrenocortisism. Don’t wait for and Addisonian crisis, it’s a killer, quite literally. Again, I wish I would have tried earlier to supplement glucocorticoids for the low cortisol (never showed up too low on the tests) since he had clear symptoms- missed by all who tried to help until Snow crashed. ‼️

Another warning‼️ You have a dog on phenobarbital, pay extra attention to my warning above. We are unfortunately bound to give Snow phenobarbital because it is the best fir his seizure control, but it also accelerates certain endocrine malfunctions, especially in combination with chronic infection. Physiological replacement of cortisol, aldosterone, and levothyroxine could be the gamechanger, even if the labs don’t support it, an improvement in symptoms proves the necessity‼️

I will be publishing a case study on this subject sometime 21/22, but if you have questions regarding this matter or need help, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I would be glad to help you and your pooch to get on the right track together with your vet.

Anyway, Snow’s clinical picture has been improving on a day to day basis. Thank you Dr. Zoran, Benjamin Andreas Berk, Tamara Drča, Dr. Vladica. You have all contributed to follow my childhood passion again and although it might take me another 5 years, I am ready to make a difference in the veterinary field of infectious diseases. ❤️

My veterinary specialty textbook library is growing, I have completed over 30 veterinary continuing education courses in the past 3 years and I am just devouring any and all information I can get my fingers on, relevant to Snows situation, which is expansive. My favorite right now, the endocrine system of the 🐕.

22/12/2020

Since secondary diseases keep piling up, why not add loss of eyesight to the list of late disseminated Lyme disease and coinfections.

I have noticed sporadic problems with Snow sight, especially when the lights are dim. Bit it has gotten worse over the passed year. 😢💔

How does Lyme Disease Affect Vision?
In the early stages, visual symptoms can include: blur, visual fatigue, double vision, headaches associated with visual activities, losing place when reading, seeing words appear to double or become double when reading (of course Snow doesn’t read) , and more obscure problems often not associated with vision such as difficulty with balance, spatial orientation, memory, comprehension, feeling of being over-whelmed by being in a busy-crowded environment with movement of people and objects, sensitivity to sound, to name several.

In later stages of the disease, inflammation of the eye may develop. Parts of the eye that may be affected include the uvea, the middle layer inside the eye, the cornea, part of the outer coat of the eye; the iris, the colored circle around the pupil, and the choroid, a layer of blood vessels in the eye. Ocular symptoms can include sensitivity to light and floaters (spots in front of the eyes).

Research also shows that when the visual process is compromised by tick-borne disease the person will develop compensatory habits in order to attempt to function with their compromised vision. This can put strain on the body that will lead to fatigue, discomfort and compromise of higher visual-perceptual processing associated with memory and cognitive function.

Read more:

Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. In its early stages, Lyme disease commonly results in a rash, which can appear anywhere from one day to one month after a tick bite, joint pain and headaches. Lat...

18/12/2020

My Dear Veterinarians and so Called Healers in Germany,

This is hypothyroidism and ignoring it, or supplementing with iodine is not going to fix this nor is it going to make his fur grow back that has been shaved over 3 months ago. Wake up, do your due diligence, listen to the owners who know their dogs 2000% better than you! I shouldn’t have to do it for you! You are failing us and our pets in your profession as veterinary service providers!

17/11/2020

Study Finds Ticks Choose Humans over Dogs When Temperature Rises:
Experiment Put a Human in One Box, a Dog in Another and Saw Which the Ticks Preferred

By Patrick Barkham

Confining a young researcher in one box and a dog in another and unleashing blood-sucking ticks to scamper between the boxes sounds like a stunt from I’m A Celebrity.

But the stomach-churning scientific experiment has revealed that ticks carrying the deadly Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) disease are more than twice as likely to shift their feeding preference from dogs to humans when temperatures rise.

The study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), observed whether the ticks, which use smell to seek out a host upon whose blood to feed, scuttled along a plastic tube towards the dog or the human.

When the temperature in the laboratory was raised from 23.3C to 37.8C, one type of “brown dog” tick, known as the tropical lineage tick, was particularly prone to shifting its preference from the box containing the dog to the box containing the person.

“Our work indicates that when the weather gets hot, we should be much more vigilant for infections of RMSF in humans,” said Laura Backus, who led the study at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “We found that when temperatures rose from about 74F (23.3C) to 100F (37.8C), brown dog ticks that carry the disease were 2.5 times more likely to prefer humans over dogs.”

There is growing concern over the increase in tick-borne diseases. Cases of Lyme disease, a potentially debilitating condition primarily transmitted by black-legged ticks, have doubled over the past two decades to about 30,000 cases a year in the US.

Cases of RMSF and other related diseases, known as spotted fever rickettsiosis, have risen dramatically over the last two decades. The disease is treatable with antibiotics if detected in the first week of infection but, if left untreated, the fatality rate can exceed one in five.

Tropical lineage brown dog ticks are currently found across southern US states such as Arizona, Florida and southern California. Their range is expected to move northward as climate change causes average temperatures to rise.

With hot days also arriving more frequently due to the climate crisis, Backus said it was important to identify conditions that could increase the risk of infection, particularly because the early phase of RMSF is easily mistaken for more common ailments, with symptoms including headache, fever and muscle aches.

“The findings from the use of this simple but effective laboratory experiment to gauge how rising temperatures might lead to more human infections with a very dangerous tick-borne pathogen adds to the growing evidence of the increasing connection between climate change and its impact on health,” said Joel Breman, the president of ASTMH.

“Climate change is moving so quickly that it is critical to keep pace with the many ways it may alter and intensify the risk of a wide range of infectious diseases so we are better prepared to diagnose, treat and prevent them.”

Experiment put a human in one box, a dog in another and saw which the ticks preferred

15/11/2020

Hypoadrenocortisism, Infections, and Low Dose Corticosteroids

Early diagnosis of hypoadrenocortisism is of utter importance in patient, human or dog. When you have a patient already struggling with infections, as in Snow’s case, early diagnosis and treatment could prolong the patients life and ease the suffering. Low dose corticosteroids, even if not certain of the diagnosis is recommended, as stated in the article. Please read the whole study to better understand and help prolong a patients life. No dog or human should suffer misdiagnoses due to lack of knowledge, because the information is out there, you just have to care enough and have enough compassion to find it, read it, understand it, and implement it in your every day care of patients.

Here are the symptoms of Addison’s, missed by all veterinarians and so called healers. Snow has been to for diagnostics since onset of symptoms. The red exclamation mark indicate all the symptoms Snow displayed for over a year until he experienced his addisonian crisis on August 24, together with systemic infection.

Symptoms of Addison’s disease: (not all have to manifest, nor does the cosrtisol level have to be below the reference interval for a patient to be addisonian, do your research. If you want to know how I could tell whether he was deprssed or not, etc. fee free to ask, I will explain on how I did it, which is basically and simply knowing your dog well and knowing what his usual and normal self is.)

❗️Depression
❗️Lethargy
❗️Anorexia (lack of appetite)
❗️Weight loss
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Bloody stools
❗️Alopecia (hair loss)
Increased urination
Increased thirst
❗️Dehydration
❗️Shaking
❗️Weak pulse
Irregular heart rate
❗️Low temperature
❗️Painful abdomen
❗️Hypoglycemia
❗️Hyperpigmentation of the skin
❗️Attaxia
❗️Disorientation

❗️He barely survived with the help of amazingly caring veterinarians in Serbia and thanks to my gained knowledge and suggestions on courses of antibiotics. He was in intensive care at home for 4 weeks, before he got back on his feet. Daily veterinary visits and IV’s were necessary. He still not out of the woods as I am writing this post and has been on double, sometimes tripple antibiotics for almost 12 weeks. He is also being supplemented with glucocorticoids and fludrocorticoids.

Excerpt from the published medical article:

“The adrenal gland can be infected by a multitude of pathogenic microorganisms that not only exert detrimental effects on the organ by local tissue destruction but also through disturbances in the homeostasis of the host's HPA-axis.

Recent advances in clinical studies have demonstrated a role for low dose corticosteroid replacement in individuals with vasopressor-dependant septic shock regardless of overall adrenal function. Several recent comprehensive meta-analyses and reviews have concluded that low dose steroids should be used in this setting. Clinical trials published prior to 1989 demonstrated a distinct survival disadvantage in enrolled patients given corticosteroid replacement. However, most of these trials used an ineffective high dose replacement regimen (defined as 30 mg/kg methylprednisolone or equivalent steroid preparations administered up to four times during a short course of 1 or 2 days) as opposed to a low dose regimen (defined as a daily dose of 200–300 mg of hydrocortisone or equivalent administered for 5–7 days or longer).

Recent studies using the revised ‘low-dose’ replacement dosing of corticosteroids, with the greatest benefit demonstrated with hydrocortisone, have shown a significant survival advantage in individuals suffering from vasopressor-dependant septic shock but not pure sepsis in the absence of shock (relative benefit range 1.13–3.24, 95% CI 0.86–7.01).

Low dose treatment should be begun as early as possible, but positive effects may be seen in patients with late septic shock. Similar to assessment in individuals with HIV infection, adrenal function testing in critically ill patients has not been shown to be a reliable predictive tool to determine the potential efficacy of replacement steroids regardless of overt adrenal insufficiency or a defined relative adrenal insufficiency.”

31/10/2020

I have just gotten around to updating Snow’s meds in his Drugs.com app and an ❗️alert ❗️popped up immediately. Not only is the systemic of and via induction of hepatic microsomal enzymes, thereby accelerating the metabolism of corticosteroids, it also seem to with .

Snow was already weakened by his and from time to time (started in March 2019) before we started him on Phenobarbital 29 November 2019 (Pheno), but about a 4 weeks into it, it got worse up until he had his 26 August 2020

I now understand why he was wobbly, uncoordinated, and weak, sometimes worse sometimes less so, the VBDs and the phenobarbital burned through his cortisol like it was going out of style.

I haven’t dug any deeper into the subject matter, but it may be interesting to other owners with Epi dogs on Phenobarbital who have serious or comorbidities. However, as I understand it, it doesn’t even matter whether there are comorbidaties or not, Phenobarbital alone can be responsible for the cortisol depletion.

Please share with all interested, because I have noticed the symptoms described above in many of the dogs in various groups and vets and ‘specialist’ had no answer for it.

30/10/2020

Lyme Borreliosis and coninfections are not just killing our dogs!

Lyme related myocarditis killed this man fast. If your dog if having a low heart rate, breathing hard, have his heart checked out. Also have a a full IFAT test done for Borrelia, Anaplasma, Babesia, Bartonella, and Rickettsia and get him proper treatment as soon as possible.

In July of 2018, Samuel, age 37, died from complications of Lyme disease. He developed Lyme carditis associated with B. burgdorferi infection, transmitted by...

27/10/2020

“This is very close to home. Snow is infected with Bartonella and since I have close contact with him, including 3 needle pricks in the past months from his IV needles, it is very likely that I am infected as well. Some testing is still not completed and Bartonella is on the list to be tested soon.

Please dear readers and followers, share this short description and video to your groups, either directly from here or you can find it on YouTube and share it from there.”

NorVect Norway 2014
Published on Dec. 23, 2015, YouTube

Ed Breitschwerdt, DVM, DACVIM
Profile: https://globalhealth.cvm.ncsu.edu/faculty/ed-breitschwerdt-profile/

Bartonellosis: A One Health Approach to an Emerging Infectious Disease

Bartonella species are recently rediscovered, fastidious Gram-negative bacteria that are highly adapted to a mammalian reservoir host and within which the bacteria usually cause a long-lasting intraerythorcytic bacteremia. These facts are of particular importance to physicians, veterinarians and other health professionals, as an increasing number of Bartonella species, known to induce persistent bacteremia in animal reservoir hosts, are being document as a cause of disease in animals and people. Among numerous other examples, Bartonella haensele has co-evolved with cats. Bartonella vonsonii subspecies berkhofii has co-evolved with dogs and wild canines, and Bartonella bovis has co-evolved with cattle. Importantly, the list of reservoir-adapted Bartonella species, including a large number or rodent species that might serve as “pocket pets”, continues to grow exponentially, as new Bartonella spp. are discovered in wildlife species.

Prior to 1990, there was only one named Bartonella species, where there are currently 30 named and numerous yet to be named or Candidatus species. Seventeen Bartonella spp. have been associated with an expanding spectrum of animal and human diseases.

Epidemiological evidence and experimental transmission studies support an important role for fleas in transmitting these bacteria among cats, which can be chronically bacteremic for months to years. Cats or their fleas can harbor four Bartonella sp. Recent reports have identified an intra-endothelial, as well as intra-erythrocytes localization for these bacteria, which represents a unique strategy for bacterial persistence within the infected host. In addition to fleas, an increasing number of arthropod vectors, including biting flies, keds, lice, mites, sandflys, spiders, and ticks have been implicated in the transmission of Bartonella sp. among animals and people.

Considering the diversity of newly discovered Bartonella sp., the large number the ecologically diverse reservoir hosts, and the spectrum of arthropod vectors; the clinical and diagnostic challenges posed by Bartonella transmission in nature may be much more complex than is currently appreciated in human and veterinary medicine. Clearly, a One Health Approach is needed to better define the medical relevance of this genus of bacteria as a cause of disease in animals and human patients and to develop preventative strategies so as to avoid Bartonella sp. infections in pets and their owners.

Because conventional microbiological techniques lack sensitivity, bartonollosis is usually diagnosed by PCR amplification of organism specific DNA sequences and/or through serologic testing, which also lacks diagnostic sensitivity in dogs, horses, and humans. Recently, the development of more sensitive isolation/PCR approach, using Bartonella alpha Proteobacteria growth medium (BAPGM) followed by a PCR amplification and DNA sequencing of organism-specific gene targets has greatly facilitated the isolation or molecular detection of Bartonella spp. DNA from the blood (tissue or other biological fluids) of sick or healthy animals, including cats, cows, horses, pigs, and human beings. Most importantly, the use of this insect cell culture-based enrichment growth medium prior to PCR testing has allowed our research group to confirm that immunocompetent human patients, in particular veterinarians, animal workers, and other exposed to arthropod vectors, can have chronic intravascular infections with Bartonella spp..

Due to extensive contact with a spectrum of animal species, veterinary professionals and others with arthropod and animal exposure appear to have an occupational risk of infection with Bartonella spp.. As Bartonella spp. have been isolated from cat, dog, or human blood , cerebrospinal fluid, joint fluid, aqueous fluid, sermon fluid, and from pleural, pericardial and abdominal effusions, a substantial number of diagnostic biological samples collected on a daily basis in veterinary practices around the world could contain viable bacteria. In the context of disease causation, Bartonella sp. have been implicated in association with endocarditis, granulomatous inflammatory lesions, persistent bacteremia and vasoproliferative tumors in animals and people.

https://youtu.be/mLK48ecsn-s

BARTONELLOSIS: A ONE HEALTH APPROACH TO AN EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASE Bartonella species are recently rediscovered, fastidious Gram-negative bacteria that a...

27/10/2020

Before you administer Probiotics, Prebiotics, or Synbiotics to your dog, there is quite a lot to consider. Watch this continued education video from VetGirl with DVM Whittemore to learn what should be considered before reaching to just any product to improve your dog’s or cat’s gut health.

Probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics. What are they and what’s the evidence? In this VETgirl YouTube LIVE event, Dr. Jacqueline Whittemore, DVM, DACVIM will...