Unexplained Fever

[Sonny17]

Hi everyone....

I have a problem with my dog (German short haired pointer). A little while ago she developed a high fever initially the vet thought that it was a cold and gave us antibiotics and pain killers. A week later the fever came back again, after the pain killers ran out. We took her back to the vet, who decided to do blood tests, these came back not showing anything abnormal but we were given some more antibiotics and pain killers.

We then decided to have an xray and an ultrsound - both of these came back negative. But the vet that did the ultrsound suggested that we test for Lupis. She was taken off the antibiotics and put on steriods - which seemed to work ok meaning the fever didn't come back.

A week later the tests came back negative, so we decided to start weening her off the steriods. Three days after we started the weening the fever came back, so we went back to the inital dose of steriods.

The steriods are making her super hungry and super thirsty - the vet wants us to stay on these until at least September. The only proble is now she has started to pack on the weight - which we did expect but its just crazy.

Was wondering if anyone has ever seen this before and has any advise. I know that long term steroids is going to give her other complications, but I just don't know what else to do anymore...

Thanks and sorry for the long post

[stormie]

Hi Sonny,

Sorry to hear about your girl.

Personally I'd probably be asking for a referral to a Specialist to not only try to get to the bottom of the fever, but also make sure you're on the correct treatment.

Have they looked at her joint fluid?

Edited June 16, 2011 by stormie

[Staranais]

The cause of fever of unknown origin can be a pretty tricky thing to track down. They teach us in class that even when all possible diagnostic tests are done, 10 - 25% of cases just won't ever get a definitive diagnosis.

The main differential groupings they teach us to think about for dogs are immune mediated diseases (such as immune mediated polyarthritis or meningitis, or SLE), primary bone marrow abnormalities, infectious diseases (such as discospondylitis, bacterial endocarditis, pneumonias), and cancers. Your vet sounds like she's made a good start at ruling some of these conditions out.

Stormie's suggestions are good ones, I think (both her suggestion to see a small animal medicine specialist, and her suggestion to investigate joint fluid).

[Sonny17]

Hi Guys,

@Stormie - Joint fluid? No that's something that they haven't looked at - but I will be suggesting that on our next visit.

@Staranais - The 10 - 25% is what I am worried about I'm worried that we will do heaps and heaps more tests and then it will all come back negative - although I guess we would know then...

Thanks so much

[Staranais]

@Staranais - The 10 - 25% is what I am worried about I'm worried that we will do heaps and heaps more tests and then it will all come back negative - although I guess we would know then...

Yeah, it is a possibility. There are a whole bunch of tests you can do to try to find the cause of this sort of thing, and unfortunately all do come with a cost. Things like joint fluid analysis (for immune mediated arthritis), CSF tap (for meningitis), bone marrow aspirate, echocardiogram (endocarditis), blood cultures, etc etc, can all be diagnostic options. That's why a specialist could be a good plan - you're possibly going to spend a lot of money anyway, I figure you might as well pay for the opinion of an expert to make sure you're spending your money efficiently.

Good luck.

[Danois]

Unexplained fever was one of the signs my boy was unwell - he had immune mediated polyarthritis.

Keep pursuing it to rule out possibilities - definitely go see a specialist.

I regret not pushing my vet further - he was not diagnosed for another 6 months and this was by a different vet. He had a fever, high WBC and fluid in joints but they did not seem to consider IM issues.