Last weekend (first weekend of June) we adopted a puppy named Spirit from the animal shelter in Killeen. We had to take her to the vet yesterday because she kept hacking like there was something stuck in her throat. With just the tests done on her, the bill was about 100$, and all but the Parvo test came back as positive (the other two were parasites)… then the vet tech tells us that they found the Distemper Virus in her and it appeared to be at stage 2 of 3. For those of you that don’t know much about Distemper, here’s a couple of brief facts: 1) it’s an airborne virus, 2) it affects the nervous system, 3) most animals that contract this disease end up dying a horribly painful death if not put down, 4) the vaccine will stop the virus cold if the animal is treated BEFORE they come in contact with the virus, 5) it has an incubation time of 2-3 weeks before stage 1 begins.
According to her paperwork, she was vaccinated in November 2010, April 2011, and May 2011. This means one of four things: 1) she has something else, 2) the records were fudged, 3) the vaccines were either bad or 4) she was exposed between vaccinations or birth.
Last nite was the first I had cried in a very long time–she started to show signs of entering into stage 3 of the disease. The bad part is that every time I think about the situation that this puppy is in, I start to tear up again.
Since I started typing this, I decided to do more research on the virus and found that it is treatable with, of all things, Vitamin A and Ribavirin…experimentally of course.
This is a quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_distemper):
“Initially, induction of high levels of vitamin A, used to treat measles [18] (including being recommended by the World Health Organization[22]), produced a 100% cure in animals experimentally infected. The infected group given no vitamin A supplementation all died.[23] Currently, it is known that the direct inhibitive effect of retinoids (vitamin A and subproducts) on the replication of the measles virus is what confirms their choice as a treatment for canine distemper.[24]
The confirmation of the effectiveness of vitamin A in the treatment of canines, especially dogs, is its ability to convert the vitamin A into nontoxic esters.[25] This characteristic of carnivores is well known; the risk of hypervitaminosis due to the maintenance of high doses is quite low. For dogs, there is a benchmark to measure the risk: a national research study found it takes a dose of 300,000 IU/kg daily for thirty days before the first signs of hypervitaminosis appear, and sixty days of ingestion at this dosage to kill the animal.[26] This dosage, 300,000 IU / kg, is sixty times greater than the toxic limit established for humans.”
I think we’ll try putting her on some as well as the other meds she has right now… the vet said it shouldn’t hurt.
Well, since I’m home with her until about 1/1:30, then it’s off to work, I’m going to try and do some coding…it’s the only thing that keeps me from thinking about stuff like what’s going on…