Unknown disease in dog

[loxjox]

I have a mini schnauzer - SARGE!!- who is 19 months old. He suffers from a condition that so far no one has been able to diagnose. He’s been to the regular vet, an oncologist and to the animal hospital at the University of Florida. He’s been poked, prodded, scanned, and every other test under the sun with no success. It is nothing genetic.

It started when he was about 4-5 months old, maybe 6 months. His body literally shuts down. His neutrophil levels drop dangerously low. This lasts for 3-5 days and then all of a sudden he is back to being our loving playful Sarge.
Sometimes it starts with him regurgitating his food that he ate 8 hours earlier. Or he might just throw up bile. Or it will be nothing at all. He will feel hot to the touch. During his downtime his symptoms may include all or some of the following:

Lethargic
Doesn’t eat
Won’t drink water or tries to drink it and it just runs out his mouth- we will use a dropper to get him water
Walks with an old man’s gait
Will just stay curled up in a ball
Sleeps all day
Will stand there for long periods of time and just can’t lay down(we have to assist him to lay down)
Has diarrhea or hunches over like he has to go but nothing will come out
Shakes/tremors - not seizures
Fever- this is a consistent symptom
Excessive saliva around mouth
Will go into seclusion under bed or in crate- when he does this we know it’s going to be a bad one.

Once he goes though this he is fine and then like clockwork in 9-11 days it strikes again.

When this first started it was really really bad- so bad that the oncologist called us in to to say goodbye to him. Thank goodness it has gotten better(?) to the point we know it’s coming and how to manage it.

Is there anyone out there that has experienced anything like this at all or can shed some insight? Thank you in advance!

 

[davidasj7]

@loxjox My guess is either it’s an accidental poisoning or bone marrow cancer. A coworker’s relative was diagnosed with an extremely rare bone marrow cancer that was wiping out both his neutrophils and clotting factors. He was having 2 transfusions per week. No one could find out what was wrong with him until he went to a specialist that dealt exclusively with rare blood and bone marrow cancers. Before that he went 3 months undiagnosed.

Before they found out it was bone marrow cancer, they were looking at the liver and kidneys. They were thinking the liver was destroying the neutrophils and clotting factors or that the kidneys were filtering them out.

Having said all of that, my money is on accidental poisoning. Certain plants contain toxins that can affect the blood and cause gastric upset, fever, lethargy, etc…

But the entire 3rd paragraph where you talk about his lethargy, inability to drink, curled up in a ball, diarrhea or hunches and can’t go, shakes/tremors, will go into seclusion… that sounds like me when I get a kidney stone attack. If the vets are treating your dog with antibiotics when these attacks occur it may be kidney stones causing an infection.