Auto Immune Poly Arthritis

[Zali Lane]

Hi All

I have a friend with a Bull Mastiff brought from a registered breeder who is 17 months old, she has been diagnosed with Auto Immune Poly Arthritis. She is now having to consider her babies quality of life, I was just wondering if anyone knows any sort of miracle.... is this a possible breed fault or is it just a one off bad luck. I feel so bad for her with Xmas being only around the corner and having to tell her 2 legged kids.

Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thanks

[dogbesotted]

nasty!!!!

however i would consult with holistic vet. I know that the vets i use in sydney are happy to do phone consults... i feel it is well worth the effort.

Helen

[stormie]

Sorry to hear about your friends girl, AIPA is a nasty disease. I have seen it successfully managed under specialists guidance. I have seen some come through it very well, however I have unfortunately seen a lovely boy lose his battle with it.

I don't think there's a lot of knowledge out there as to why dogs get this condition, but there is some suggestion it can be linked to vaccination - whether or not it was there all along and the vaccine triggers the disease to flare up, or whether the vaccine is the cause, is unknown. I have also seen it in dogs who had not been recently vaccinated so again, not a lot of knowledge. I don't believe it's a breed specific illness either. May possibly be genetic, but again, I'm not sure whether it's known.

With regards to treatment, I have never known much of a miracle cure. Those I have seen come through were all treated via immune suppression, and then slowly eventually weaned off, or down to the lowest manageable dose. Unfortunately the larger/giant breeds have a lower tolerance for these drugs and side effects tend to be seen earlier and on lower doses than smaller dogs.

It really does come down whether it looks like the disease is manageable and if/how it will effect quality of life. I would encourage your friend to give the conventional treatment a go, but failing to see any results then obviously trying alternative medicine would not hurt either. Possibly even combining the two may be an option. Many people are very against cortisone, but if the dose can be brought down to a reasonable level eventually, the dog can live a relatively normal life on regular dosing. My dane has quite bad allergic skin disease, and has been on cortisone since he was 4months old. Obviously his dose is not at an immuno suppressive dose, but he is on it regularly, but managed well enough to see very few side effects. His life may be shortened, but at the moment, its about quality of life for him. Without it, he'd have been put to sleep long ago, so if I can give him a shorter but more comfortable life now, I will.

Send your friend my well wishes for her girl and her family

[Starkehre]

Zali Lane, I apologise for hijacking your thread. I am very sorry to hear about your friend's Bull Mastiff. I hope she finds some answers and works put what she is going to do.

I also have just had a friend who's male Rottweiler of 6.5 years has just recently been diagnosed with AIPA. Although I am reasonable familiar with other Immune Mediated diseases, this is one I have had to deal with, so know very little about it.

Thank you for the info stormie, I respect your advice and opinion. stormie, what are your experiences/knowledge regarding survival rate percentages. and also would my friend be better served taking her boy to a specialist as opposed to her local vet? You mentioned specialist, and I have also tried to send her down this path, but at this stage she feels happy with whom she is seeing.

Can anyone else here add any more information they have regarding this disease or any anecdotal stories that I may be able to pass on to my friend please?

I have already done some research on the computer, but more personal stories would really help here I think. My friend is really worried, which is understandable.

In advance I much appreciate your time.

[Danois]

From my own previous threads, I believe I am the only person on DOL who has dealt with a dog with IMPA recently.

I encourage your friend to join a Yahoo Group called CIMDA - it is an overseas group but there is a lot of knowledge there.

I am afraid that my story does not end well and is the boy stormie alluded to.

My story basically goes:

Angs was born in Nov 06 and received the 3 vax protocol. I do not know the exact dates but I had ongoing issues with him being lame or having a limp from a young age. My usual vets were sure it was HD/ED etc and wanted to xray. I knew it was not that and declined. He continued to experience a swollen hock which he had several courses of rimadyl for. Around July 07 I woke one morning to him having a fever - shaking etc. Rushed to vet and he had a temp and massively elevated WBC. Treated for the day with anti-inflamms and ABs and temp came down. They never retested the WBC.

Continued to experience issues with the hock but otherwise fine except he was a skinny dog.

In Dec 2007 I changed vets after refusing to believe he only had a swollen hock.

Within a couple of days he was diagnosed with AIHA (which primarily manifested in the hock) and we started on cortisone. We then trialled this in conjunction with Imuran. He seemed to respond and the hock would go down (swelling) but it would then flare up again. We were unable to force it into remission. He was on high doses of cortisone as he was 75kg (a dane).

We managed like this for 9 months.

Sorry - its still hurts to go into the details but basically he had a rapid decline and developed pancreatitis. We had to back off the drugs to treat that and doing that unmasked another issue - IMHA.

I had to give him his wings as there was too much there for him to fight and he was already tired from it all.

He was 22 months old.

[Starkehre]

Thank you Danois. I actually remember you mentioning Angs in the recent thread of bokezu's about IMT.

Such a sad story Danois, I am sorry you had to go through all this.

You may also remember from back in that thread how I was telling of how my Dyzney survived IMT. well this rotti boy I was mentioning here is dyzney's full litter brother, so not good.

I will pass on your very helpful info to my friend, and I am sure she will chase it up.

Many Thanks and hugs to you.

Edited December 16, 2009 by dyzney

[Zali Lane]

Thanks guys all very interesting and so sad, I have sent my friend this link now so that she can follow along with any post that may offer a therapy that she has not tried yet.

It is so sad to see and hear these stories, where loved animals have to face such unbelievable battles, my heart goes out to anyone with an issue similar to something like this 17 months is not long enough.....

[stormie]

Thank you for the info stormie, I respect your advice and opinion. stormie, what are your experiences/knowledge regarding survival rate percentages. and also would my friend be better served taking her boy to a specialist as opposed to her local vet? You mentioned specialist, and I have also tried to send her down this path, but at this stage she feels happy with whom she is seeing.

Sorry, I'm not sure of survival rates. I've not had a lot of experience with it - only a handful of cases. The latest case we saw seems to be going well. Unfortunately some dogs just don't cope well with the medications (they are pretty hardcore doses), and some go into renal failure as a result of the deposition of immune related complexes in the filter parts of the kidneys, causing damage.

With regards to specialists, we don't believe they immediately should need a specialist but would vary case by case. The main thing is to be sure the diagnosis is 100% correct and then the treatment is generally the same. We have reffered cases that were a little unusual that still turned out to be IMPA, but were still treated the same way we would have here. I think if your friend is happy with her vet and things are going ok, there would be no need to go to a specialist necessarily. With most cases like this, we regularly consult with out local specialists who have been more than happy to give us all the info they can over the phone and share their knowledge, but yeah, if the animal wasn't responding to treatment we would refer.

[Starkehre]

Thank you for the info stormie, I respect your advice and opinion. stormie, what are your experiences/knowledge regarding survival rate percentages. and also would my friend be better served taking her boy to a specialist as opposed to her local vet? You mentioned specialist, and I have also tried to send her down this path, but at this stage she feels happy with whom she is seeing.

Sorry, I'm not sure of survival rates. I've not had a lot of experience with it - only a handful of cases. The latest case we saw seems to be going well. Unfortunately some dogs just don't cope well with the medications (they are pretty hardcore doses), and some go into renal failure as a result of the deposition of immune related complexes in the filter parts of the kidneys, causing damage.

With regards to specialists, we don't believe they immediately should need a specialist but would vary case by case. The main thing is to be sure the diagnosis is 100% correct and then the treatment is generally the same. We have reffered cases that were a little unusual that still turned out to be IMPA, but were still treated the same way we would have here. I think if your friend is happy with her vet and things are going ok, there would be no need to go to a specialist necessarily. With most cases like this, we regularly consult with out local specialists who have been more than happy to give us all the info they can over the phone and share their knowledge, but yeah, if the animal wasn't responding to treatment we would refer.

Thanks stormie. Once again, I will pass all this on to her. Much appreciate your time.