Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Hanna Bennett — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:13:32 GMT

what do bloods look like? do you get elevated clotting times or low platelets? any other associated signs or just bleeding tendencies? do they present acutely or chronically?

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:56:48 GMT

Angio Like any other coagulopathy We don't as yet know exactly how Angio stops clotting

Wynne

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Hanna Bennett — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:48:58 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

Adder bites? I saw a dog with an adder bite which progressed to necrotising pancreatitis, would also explain coagulopathy.

[/quote]

never seen an adder bite up here, and no wounds/history of such

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Hanna Bennett — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:47:39 GMT

[quote user="Utlendigur"]PS Wasn't there a scare about some sort of acute illness killing dogs after walks in places like Clumber and Sherwood forests last year? [/quote]

The 'summer' illness is a familiar thing up here, happens in late August/early Septmeber, acutely very ill vomiting diarrhoea dogs, nothing like this! Animal health Trust are running surveys trying to find a cause

If this is not Angiostrongylus will someone tell me how they present when they have a coagulopathy? thanks!

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:09:26 GMT

Adder bites? I saw a dog with an adder bite which progressed to necrotising pancreatitis, would also explain coagulopathy.

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Utlendigur — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:41:38 GMT

[quote user="Hanna Bennett"]Neither owner will consent to a post mortem but am worried this may be the start of something - does anyone think this sounds familiar or am I missing something obvious?[/quote]

Sheer coincidence and bad luck? Funny things happen in vet practice. Last year I saw/admitted a cat RTA with a suspected ruptured diaphragm. 30min later I noticed my colleague looking at an xray of a cat with an obvious ruptured diaphragm, and, somewhat surprised given that she was supposed to finish after consulting at the branch surgery, thanked her for xraying my cat. I was met with a confused look and told that the xray was an RTA cat she had just brought from the branch surgery. I've also twice had two dogs with insulinomas present on the same day.

The first one does sound like sepsis and peracute pancreatitis would be a likely contender. The other could be any number of causes from the history - eg angiostrongylus, parvo/other acute GE, toxin (rodenticide, blue green algae), etc etc - could be anything. Was it just epistaxis (and how severe) or was there other evidence of bleeding? It sounds like the first one had some major clotting problems, but was the second as bad?

PS Wasn't there a scare about some sort of acute illness killing dogs after walks in places like Clumber and Sherwood forests last year?

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Andrew Kent — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 22:21:02 GMT

They really are not that expensive, about 30 quid for PT and PTT. I disagree that they have no value, in this case they could tell you that if abnormal likely DIC whereas if normal a thrombocytopenia is likely the primary cause of bleeding.

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

David Mills — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:47:28 GMT

[quote user="Andrew Kent"] Did you have facility to run coags in house?

[/quote]

What use would these have been? Both bleeding presentations are indicative of primary process coagulopathy so coagulation profile would have added nothing to the diagnosis. Quite apart from the fact that most factors need to be <10% for the times to be elongated. Then are phenomenally expensive for a very, very low diagnostic yield and it is one of my real bugbears when ECC centres use them like toffee just because they're there and they've splashed out on a machine.

Peracute necrotising pancreatitis can present like the first case you describe - it is pretty much untreatable and prognosis is awful; it is shocking how quickly dogs can deteriorate. The second case may or may not be though epistaxis does make me think of toxin ingestion first. Unfortunately without a PM it is pretty much guesswork as the presenting signs initially were in no way pathognomonic.

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Hanna Bennett — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:19:15 GMT

no platelets on smear. didn't do coag as didn't want another needle stick and didn't think i'd get an accurate sample from the catheter. DIC was certainly on the list but i've never seen that acute a pancreatitis - and don't ever want to again tbh!

Re: Collapsed Bleeding Dogs

Andrew Kent — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:47:49 GMT

Was platelet count normal and apparent platelets on smear? Did you have facility to run coags in house? In which case were these abnormal? I would potentially be thinking DIC due to underlying disease process - acute pancreatitis?