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Hello everyone, Im sorry to resurrect this thread. But had a few questions maybe some of you could answer. My 13 y/o dachshund Mollie Mae was diagnosed with CHF 2 years and 5 months ago. She has been on VetMedin, Enlapril and Lasix ever since. A few months ago she started coughing more and having fainting(syncopal) episodes. She also is a little unstable on or tile floors. Not sure if that's related, or just that she is slipping on them. The doc said it was probably due to her enlarged heart pushing on her trachea, since her lungs still sounded clear.
Fast forward to 2 days ago, she rests a lot still, but that's pretty normal and is coughing about the same. But she still has spurts of energy and eats and drinks normally. She did start having really bad diahrea about 2 days ago. She has to go outside every hour or so. We put her on a diet of white rice, chicken, chicken stock and pumpkin and see if that will help. her diahrrea is pretty loose and has a lot of mucus in it though. Do you guys think its related to her heart not profusing to her Gi tract or maybe something else?
One of my pups passed from CHF - she was on all the meds you mentioned. She didn't have any runny stool. She was breathing very heavily and collapsing at the end (also with energy spurts in between).
I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. It's very, very hard. I'm hoping you get some good news.
I’ve lost a couple furry friends to heart disease. If she’s suffering from age related congestive heart failure, it will be a slow downward spiral. The medications just buy a bit of time. If she's suffering from CHF because of some kind of cardiomyopathy the end could come more suddenly if she throws a clot from stagnant blood in the atrium. You just have to keep an eye on her and decide when it’s best, for her, to bring things to an end. I know how terrible it is to just stand helplessly by, so you have my sympathies.
My westie is in the first stages of heart failure. Iv'e had him since he was a wiggly little puppy. Yesterday after washing him he just laid down instead of wiggling and drying on the carpet. My spouse called and said he is holding his head up but still weak. I know we do not have long before my little boy is gone. I can only say his life was full of love and He had heaven on earth. I am not going to get another dog, it's twelve years of waiting for a heart ache.
It is absolutely heart breaking. I'm so sorry. Dogs can fill voids you never even knew you had.
I hope that down the road, you change your mind and bring another pup into your life. It's not about waiting for the heartache but enjoying what they give you every day. I truly do know how you feel right now, though.
I want to tell some of you this. We are all devastated. Paris goes everywhere with me, in her purse. Except walmart. She goes to united and to work and Christmas dinner. She flies with me and sleeps with me. She has a car seat and She thinks she is a real girl. And part of me in every way . A 6llb chocolate chip Chihuahua, mostly white with black ears and a stripe down her face. She was diagnosed Thursday and I've been bawling since. It isnt fair, is it?
My mother has a pomeranian, 5 lbs. He is week, but has been on these meds 3 years now. And the vet has one 2 years now, doing good. I cant believe I have to watch her suffer this way. She just had surgery this year to be spayed. She has been many times for collapsed trachea , backwards sneezing. I thought this was part of that but her caugh got acute and labored breathing ...you know the rest.
God bless you all. I cant imagine my life without her.
I had to put my 16 year old beagle to sleep a week ago. She was diagnosed with CHF and IVDD (disc disease) over five years ago, and had vestibular disease 18 months ago. She took Enalapril and Lasix ever since her diagnosis, and her heart was hanging in there. In the end, a mass on her liver is what took her from me.
I lost my poodle, Machi, that I had for 13 ½ years just 4 days ago now
Here is what my experience has been.
Hope the story helps some of you.
I also have some questions at the end, please help me answer them if you can.
I took Machi to the park one night so he could pee on some things. The next few days after going to the park he had a little cough and his abdomen started to swell. Looking back his abdomen swelled every once in a while but never like it did this time. In the past I attributed the swelling to getting older and gaining a little bit of weight. The cough he has had before too, I thought it was asthma in the past. It always cleared up with a few days time in the past. This time I thought it was kennel cough from being at the park. So we weren’t too concerned but we kept an eye on him. He swelled up so large that we knew something new was going on but we didn’t know what. About 4 days after the park when my girl friend came home, he ran upstairs to greet her. He turned around to go back downstairs ran face first into the door, bounced of the door and passed out on the floor sprawled out. The next day, sometime near the end of October he was diagnosed with CHF. He was put on Furosemide, Enalaprill, and Vetmidin that we fed him inside hotdogs. It took a few days but he did drop a lot of water weight and his cough disappeared. As time went on he seemed to lose a lot of girth in his abdomen but I noticed once it hit a certain point the swelling started to come back slowly even while on the meds. He also stopped wanting to eat the hotdogs with the pills inside of them. It seemed like his appatite dropped at this point. Then I missed a dose of Furosomide on November 9th. That seemed to coincide with worsening conditions, his energy was low and he stayed in his kennel most of the day and just looked down and out. I would try to get him to go pee by taking him outside but he was unstable on his feet. I would set him down and he would just stand there and look at me. If he really needed to pee he would but he didn’t like to walk and when he did it was very slowly. He was drinking water when he got thirsty though. We took him back to the vet. They told me he had water around his heart and offered to put him out and draw the fluid from his heart with a syringe. I declined since I was told it was only a short term fix and putting him under for the surgery could kill him. Spirolactonate and enrofloxacin were added to his meds. Again it took a while but he got better, he had more energy and come out of his kennel to greet us as time went on but this time his appetite was next to nothing. When walking his stability was much better but his legs shaked a little. He no longer would take his pills with hotdogs though.
Then around Thanksgiving he was letting me know he hurt. He would hold up his front paw to show me he hurt. When he exercised and over did it his leg would hurt. I think at this time he was trying to get through to me that physically he was hurting from CHF by holding up his paw to show me he was hurting. About this same time I missed another Furosemide. There were no noticeable changes until the next night. He was laying under the bed, we heard him gagging, he came out from under the bed and vomited bial.
He did vomit bile again the next day, not excessively but enough to worry me. He was pretty consistently vomiting even when he did not have food in his stomach. During this time he was really good about drinking water still. He was very unstable on his feet though again. At this point I realized he was not eating much at all and we could feel his spine was very prominent. So I force fed him. He held the food down for a while but then would vomit it back up. This happened through the night. Even when I wouldn’t force feed him he would throw up or at least dry heave. Even though he wasn’t eating on his own he was drinking water and I was able to get him to urinate a few times.
The next day he slept all day basically and started to improve again. He did really well for about 2 weeks again. He still never gained back his appetite. The entire time I would force feed him 2x a day or more (puppy milk, pate, ect). He gained some weight back but never his appetite. He would eat very very small portions but the same thing never worked 2 days in a row. We would try pepperoni then that didn’t work, then hamburger, then chicken breasts, then chicken skins. He would eat like 2 bites and then turn his nose up to it. He would drink water, we saw him pee but very rarely saw him poop. He was feeling good for the most part it seemed here. When we would take him on walks he would get tired after walking about 100-150 yards.
Then I missed another dose of Furosemide. He was tired but that night, the next morning he was good. I force fed him like normal. Gave him all other pills on schedule. We went to work, when we came back we noticed he had vomited quite a few times. I gave him his pills, he gagged and tried to vomit about an hour later. I gave him some water realizing he probably wasn’t drinking at all. He got another Furosemide, at his scheduled time and couldn’t hold that down for very long. Then he was given another Furosemide at his normal time. At this time he was having labored breathing. Before this time his breathing never seemed difficult for him. These last 3 times he got his meds he was able to hold them down less and less time. It started at about an hour that he could keep his pills down then the last time was only about 30 minutes. I had been giving him a little bit of food with the pills just to help his stomach but the last 2 times it was just the pills. I also gave him some water in-between his 2 last Furosemide doses.
At this point he couldn’t keep his pills down, he refused to drink water I gave him from a syringe. He wasn’t eating on his own, if I tried to forced feed him that would come back up an hour later so we took him to the vet.
On the drive he was limp in my arms. I put him on the examination table and the vet tech took his temperature and then I took him off the table again. Then the doctor came in, and I put him back on the table. This time he did not put his feet out underneath him. The doctor checked his gums, told us his temperature was low. At that point Machi put his head down on the table in a way I had never seen before. The doctor said she was going to take him to the back and put him in the oxygen cage. Very shortly after another Vet Tech came in to let us know Machi was in arrest and they were performing CPR. I knew that was it, he was very tired ever since being put on the medication.
So I have done some research on the internet and I did see another story where about every 2 weeks there would be an “episode”. This seems to have happened with Machi as well. I did miss Furosemide doses about the same time but from what I understand is Furosemide will only help with the water retention.
If anyone has any other questions about circumstance or what I learned feel free to ask.
So my questions are:
Has anyone else missed a dose of Furosemide and had the same consequences ?
Has anyone never missed a dose of Furosemide and conditions got worse?
Can anyone tell me what was causing the vomiting? Or the instability in walking?
Hello I hope I am doing this correctly. My first time on this site. I have missed many doses and I didnt think bear bear would survive the night. But he has many times.
My westie is in the first stages of heart failure. Iv'e had him since he was a wiggly little puppy. Yesterday after washing him he just laid down instead of wiggling and drying on the carpet. My spouse called and said he is holding his head up but still weak. I know we do not have long before my little boy is gone. I can only say his life was full of love and He had heaven on earth. I am not going to get another dog, it's twelve years of waiting for a heart ache.
Rescuing another dog is a way of honoring the love your other dog gave you. The price of such a years long love, is the pain you feel at their loss.
Dogs live in the moment. They get the gift of a peaceful passing thanks to veterinary medicine.
Is 12 years of love and joy, not worth a day, week or month of emotional pain? The best way of honoring a dogs memory is to eventually get another dog, that needs you, and loving him.
A way to minimize the future pain is to foster for a rescue. They so need fosters. You help the dog avoid being in a steel cage, increase their chances of adoption, and help them find their new owners. Might be a good alternative once you are ready.
No more heart aches for me. I can still honor dogs by giving to the nearest shelter but i wont go through it again.Life is just to short to bear pain when I don not have to.
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