Any vets or techs here? Dog with injured back

[tripleshot]

DH and I went to FL last weekend and left the dogs at their normal daycare/boarding place. When I picked them up Tuesday, I noticed something was wrong with one of my dogs when we got home. She wasn’t hyper or happy like usual, didn’t want to jump out of the car, laid down in the living room as soon as we got inside, didn’t get up for a treat.

 I called the vet and took her right in.  She had a 105.4 fever and was in pain. Seemed to be having a hard time with her back legs. X-ray didn’t show anything. Dr thinks she pulled a muscle or something. Gave her prednisone and a muscle relaxer for 10 days. Today is day 6 on the meds. Her fever seems to be gone but she’s still mostly laying around and still having trouble getting around. She has 1-2 good moments a day that last a few minutes each. She’s just not herself and clearly not feeling well still.

The daycare has no idea what could’ve happened. She doesn’t rough house with the other dogs, but usually just walks around following the employees. They have webcams and we’ve never seen her play with other dogs the whole 2 years she’s been going there.  They did have to give her some antibiotics left over from a dental while she was there.  I wonder if they straddled her to get the pill down and inadvertently hurt her back.  I can’t think of anything else. 

Im going to call the vet in the morning but does anyone have any experience? Should I give it more time, take her to a specialist, take her to a holistic dr who does acupuncture? She’s my happy loving hyper dog and it’s killing me she’s having such a hard time. 

[devonpow]

I’m not a vet but didn’t want to not reply - I’m so sorry about your pup! I’m confused though - what did they think the fever was for? You do t get a fever from pulling a muscle...did the vet think they were two unrelated issues both happening at the same time? I’m wondering what the issue is that caused that fever and that might be the concern instead of a pulled muscle.

We just went through a week of hospitalization for our dog with a trip coming up for us. I know how stressful it is to try and figure out what is wrong - good luck!

[tripleshot]

Feb 23, 2020 21:57:59 GMT -5 devonpow said:

I’m not a vet but didn’t want to not reply - I’m so sorry about your pup! I’m confused though - what did they think the fever was for? You do t get a fever from pulling a muscle...did the vet think they were two unrelated issues both happening at the same time? I’m wondering what the issue is that caused that fever and that might be the concern instead of a pulled muscle.

We just went through a week of hospitalization for our dog with a trip coming up for us. I know how stressful it is to try and figure out what is wrong - good luck!

I was confused about that too but the doctor said that inflammation can cause a fever. I’m sorry about your pup.

[icedcoffee]

My dog herniated a disk a few months ago. We have no idea how he did it, but he randomly stopped getting on the couch and was acting dopey so we took him to the emergency vet. They knew right away when the pressed down his spine and he flinched. They loaded him up on drugs...a muscle relaxer and pain pill. He’s already in prednisone daily for other issues. 2 days later he was acting so drugged up. We took him to our normal vet and they suggested to actually up the meds because they suspected he was still in pain so they upped his regular dose of prednisone and within a day or 2 he was back to his normal self for the most part. The vet said you’d know you’re on the right track when it gets hard to keep him from jumping and he was right. She said if the upped meds didn’t work the next step would be seeing a neurologist, but we haven’t needed to. Once we ran out of meds he was back to his old grumpy self.

Sorry—it’s so hard when pets are hurt or sick.

[tripleshot]

Thanks, icedcoffee. I’m supposed to taper her prednisone down to once a day tomorrow but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do. I’m going to ask the vet. Thanks for your story. Maybe we need to up it instead.

[Jillaroo]

My boyfriend is a veterinarian. I sent him this and he texted back...

“ Holistic vets are woo. But some vets do acupuncture. It sounds like her dog has a serious disc herniation. If it ain’t better by now it might not get better. ”

[tripleshot]

Feb 24, 2020 16:05:17 GMT -5 Jillaroo said:

My boyfriend is a veterinarian. I sent him this and he texted back...

“ Holistic vets are woo. But some vets do acupuncture. It sounds like her dog has a serious disc herniation. If it ain’t better by now it might not get better. ”

Thank you! She does seem a bit better today, but obviously not 100%.  She was walking around wagging her tail and in better spirits.  She was still limping a bit.  Would a disc herniation show up on an X-ray?

[tripleshot]

Jillaroo , does he agree that the high fever could’ve been caused by this? That’s one thing I’ve been skeptical of.