As those of you who follow my blog know, Kili had a urinary tract infection that we started treating at about 12 weeks of age. What I did not update you all on is what happened with that.
I placed Kili on a 2 week course of antibiotics that saw her clinical signs resolve. We were sleeping through the night and everyone was happy. Well, a few days after coming off the antibiotics she started having to go out every 2 hours at night again. Blasted! Re-tested and found that the infection had relapsed. I put her on a higher dose at a more frequent schedule. Again, she did very well. To be safe though I ran bloodwork to check her kidneys and called in my ultrasonographer to ultrasound her urinary tract. Bloodwork was normal (yay!) and the ultrasound found no sign of ectopic ureters. Ectopic ureters are when one or both of the ureters coming from the kidney end in the urethra instead of in the bladder. Usually this means a puppy will "leak" or be incontinent (which Kili is not) but not always. He did find that she had a little touch of a kidney infection. He recommended that we keep going with the antibiotics for another 2 weeks. Which we did. A couple of days after coming off the antibiotics she once again started needing to go out more frequently. At this point I was about ready to cry. Another urine sample showed that the same infection was back... again.
Right now she has been back on antibiotics for a week and a half. She is doing well. Last night she slept through the night, which I really needed. As you can imagine, I'm exhausted from being woken up once or multiple times at night for the last 12 weeks. She will be staying on these antibiotics for 8 long weeks. If antibiotics can eliminate the infection 8 weeks should do it. I have also started her on Paxon, a cranberry supplement for dogs and cats. There is really no hard evidence that it really helps but it also doesn't hurt. And at this point I'll try anything. I have decided to take her to Toronto on Monday to have a cystoscope. They will anesthetize her and put a little camera up her urethra to check out her urethra and bladder for any structural abnormalities that could explain why she keeps relapsing. They will also take a piece of her bladder wall for a culture and histopathology to determine if it is healthy and if there are any abnormalities. Hopefully all goes well!
1 comment:
I've got a rather distant relative of Kili who developed recurring urinary tract infections in his senior years. In his case, putting him on a combination of cranberry + d-Mannose has worked really well. Initially I had him on it continuously for 2 months after coming off antibiotics, and now I pulse him with 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off. After several years of recurring infections, this has made a significant change for the better.
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