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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Health Update #2

Health Update #2
Noses & Toeses


We seem to be on an upswing finally and gaining traction on all of our puppy ailments!

Dante's Nose
The one thing we've learned from this debacle? Any future dogs of ours that are missing teeth, will be CT scanned to make sure the teeth aren't still in there! Let me remind you that the x-ray we did last February didn't find the tooth.

Dante is already improving now that the horrible tooth has been removed from his nasal passageways!

His daily sneezing ritual has majorly lessened, he used to have body rocking sneezes in the morning like clockwork. It was so regular in fact that I'd try to rush him out the door to, "Go Potty" just so that he'd sneeze outside instead of in our tiny little home. And, that horrible smell is gone!! Hooray!!



The new concern of our specialist is that part of the bone is infected - most likely due to how long it took us to get to the root of the issue. She's referring us to an Oral Surgeon specialist who is going to look at his CT Scan and decide what to do.  We now have two different options to deal with.

#1 - Let the azithromycin antibiotic do its magic, and hopefully purge the infection from the bone.


#2 - Oral surgery, physically go in and remove a tiny amount of infected bone to ensure that it doesn't spread. The concern is that if we can't get rid of the infection then it could spread and he could lose part of his jaw...

At this point we're waiting for the second opinion from the Oral Surgeon before we make any decisions, if we go the route of antibiotics then I'll probably insist on a second CT scan and nasal swabbing in the future to make sure that this darn infection is beat.

Ziva's Toe!

I'm always questioning veterinarian's and doctors, I have a great respect for them and what they do but I like to be fully informed about what is going on, what the thought process is, and how they came to their conclusions.
I've been pretty skeptical about our new vet's diagnosis of Ziva's toe. We have a confirmed bacterial infection that we are treating with antibiotics, but it appears to me that her nail's quick is growing in a very strange way.

The way her nail broke it kind of shattered and the quick was bursting out of the side of the nail. Yes, OUCH very painful. The sides of the nail split and the bottom fell off leaving only the top of the nail still firmly attached to the toe. Then it decided it wouldn't heal despite our epsom salt soaks, cleaning, and wrapping of it. Then that darn quick started to expand strangely.

The doctor believes that the infection has caused some swelling, and if it isn't swelling then it's a growth which doesn't seem likely based on the fact that it still has feeling and growths don't have nerves.

After some digging I found a case that looks exactly like what we are dealing with and now I believe that our vet has accurately diagnosed the issue.

Tilly's Infected Nail Bed.
This is not my photo - This is Tilly the Golden Retriever. Click the picture for the source.
Ziva's Infected Nail Bed.

This was a few weeks ago.
This is currently what it looks like.
And if you can believe it, the swelling appears to have gone down!

I'd call that a dead ringer!
Apparently this is what happens when due to injury, the nail becomes seared from the quick.

I've been putting off writing this post, but it actually does look like Ziva's nail is finally healing!! And the infected swelling is going down.  **Fingers crossed, and KNOCK on wood I don't want to jinx us!**

Thanks furfriends for all of the love and support!!

key words: dog nails, dog nail infections, broken dog nail, broken nails, nail bed infection

9 comments:

  1. Ouch! I hope everything gets cleared up soon!

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  2. Keeping our fingers crossed for both dogs!

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  3. We'll still keep Dante in our prayers, that his jaw bone isn't badly infected & can be dealt with as simply as possible. Yay Ziva! Your toe is finally on the mend!

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    1. Good news! We're upping his meds but the doctors think the medications will do the trick!

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  4. Good God, you guys can't seem to catch a break!! I'm glad that your new vet seems to have come up with the right diagnosis.

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  5. How long did it take for her quick to heal? Our chocolate lab did the same thing, and it has been 3 weeks :(

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    1. To be honest... once we had the right antibiotics I noticed the swelling was slowly going down. It was slow though. By the time we finished the antibiotic treatment it looked a lot better, but it still took some time for the nail to start looking normal. Because after the swelling in the quick went down then the nail had to grow back out, we could see the dent for a long time.
      I don't remember how long the antibiotic treatment was, but if you lab has the same thing definitely have the vet do some labs on it for an infection and go through the whole antibiotic treatment, you should notice it getting better probably in a month or so and then it's just time and being careful to not rip the nail more and make it worse. Glad we could offer some insight! This was my first time hearing about a damaged nail bed!

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