mystery illness

[bitterrootbullies]

Hi all,
I'm new to this forum, but I'm hoping that someone has had a similar problem and may have some ideas for me.

Samantha is a 9.5 year old spayed/female pitador (pit bull/labrador). She's been healthy all her life except for a couple accidents, such as falling down stairs once and dislocating her hip by stepping in a gopher hole at high speed.

In the last two months she has become PU/PD (excess urination/drinking). This is her only symptom. Initial blood tests revealed very slightly high Alk Phos (156), and a high blood calcium 13.3. My "previous" Veterinarian didn't even notice the calcium level and told me to just wait and see if it went away. On second opinion with a new Veterinarian, he was concerned enough about the calcium level to start looking for a cause. A second blood panel verified the high calcium (now 13.5 with an adjusted value of 12.8). He suspects a tumor somewhere. Chest and abdominal xrays showed no obvious masses. Blood was sent to Michigan for a malignancy profile. Suprisingly, the parathyroid hormone and the parathyroid hormone like protein were both low!

This is where we are now. My Veterinarian still believes that there is a tumor somewhere that just isn't showing up on the malignancy profile and our next step will be an abdominal ultrasound.

My question is if anyone else has had a similar situation and what did you find? Does anyone have any ideas about this? Of course I will follow my vets advice, but I would like to be armed with additional information, perhaps its something that he hasn't seen before and therefore just doesn't recognize it.

any help is appreciated.
amanda samantha sydney murphy and foster ( the bitterroot pit bulls)

[bitterrootbullies]

Samantha is cured!

Crazy, mystery dog! We were going to do an ultrasound to look for a tumor and decided to check her blood one more time. I also had Murphy's blood tested as a comparison. Got the results back yesterday and both of them are completely normal!
Samantha's calcium is still in the high range of normal but it is normal! I've taken her off the furosimide and we'll check it again in a week to make sure it hasn't gone back up, but she's no longer peeing forever like she was. We will also monitor it for a few months to make sure it stays there.

We have no idea what her problem was. However, the main culprit is a vitamin D toxicity probably caused by ingestion of a rodenticide.
I can't figure how she got into it, but a co-worker said something yesterday that kind of makes sense. Many of the rancher and hunters around here are pissed because the wolves have made such a comeback and its very likely someone is baiting meatballs with poison to kill them off even though its illegal. So perhaps she got ahold of something during one of our hikes. Another possibility is a raptor dropped a mouse/rat in our yard when it flew over and the critter had been poisoned.

Who knows!

Either way at least for now, she's all better and I don't have to worry about cancer for the moment. I just have to be more vigilant about what they pick up.
amanda samantha sydney murphy foster and kipling

[palehorse]

Originally Posted by bitterrootbullies

Samantha is cured!

Crazy, mystery dog! We were going to do an ultrasound to look for a tumor and decided to check her blood one more time. I also had Murphy's blood tested as a comparison. Got the results back yesterday and both of them are completely normal!
Samantha's calcium is still in the high range of normal but it is normal! I've taken her off the furosimide and we'll check it again in a week to make sure it hasn't gone back up, but she's no longer peeing forever like she was. We will also monitor it for a few months to make sure it stays there.

We have no idea what her problem was. However, the main culprit is a vitamin D toxicity probably caused by ingestion of a rodenticide.
I can't figure how she got into it, but a co-worker said something yesterday that kind of makes sense. Many of the rancher and hunters around here are pissed because the wolves have made such a comeback and its very likely someone is baiting meatballs with poison to kill them off even though its illegal. So perhaps she got ahold of something during one of our hikes. Another possibility is a raptor dropped a mouse/rat in our yard when it flew over and the critter had been poisoned.

Who knows!

Either way at least for now, she's all better and I don't have to worry about cancer for the moment. I just have to be more vigilant about what they pick up.
amanda samantha sydney murphy foster and kipling

That sounds reasonable. A good rat poison will do a dog in. Also the rat posion in the little brown boxes is "Tastey" to dogs. This is a common thing in outdoor sheds where all the storage makes finding the rat difficult. Make sure your Hubby did not put some out there, even year old posion is still deadly.

[bitterrootbullies]

Originally Posted by palehorse

That sounds reasonable. A good rat poison will do a dog in. Also the rat posion in the little brown boxes is "Tastey" to dogs. This is a common thing in outdoor sheds where all the storage makes finding the rat difficult. Make sure your Hubby did not put some out there, even year old posion is still deadly.

Nope, no hubby and no poisons in my home. Could be a neighbor though or another predator dropped something into my yard.
amanda

[leslie howell]

Samatha's symptons also sounded like Diabetes Indsipidus. I had a dog
that developed this when he was about 9years old. Unfortunately,
I had to put him down when he was 12 because the medicine no longer
helped. Glad she does not have this.

[bitterrootbullies]

Originally Posted by leslie howell

Samatha's symptons also sounded like Diabetes Indsipidus. I had a dog
that developed this when he was about 9years old. Unfortunately,
I had to put him down when he was 12 because the medicine no longer
helped. Glad she does not have this.

I'm sorry for your loss, we considered DI as well. Unfortunately, her illness was not as "cured" as we thought, she has since been diagnosed with lymphoma
She is currently in remission so we take it day by day.
amanda

[latergatorj]

I'm sorry to hear both of your news. :-(