Drowning dog

Re: Drowning dog

Stephen Courtney — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:33:04 GMT

There are marked osmotic differences between freshwater and saltwater inhalation - fresh water crosses the alveolar boundary under osmosis and enters tissue fluids and thence to the plasma, if i remember correctly. Not that much hangs around in the lungs. I think this massively overloads the circulatory system, yet you have an animal in shock. Rocks and hard places...

Re: Drowning dog

mariette asselbergs — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 17:59:36 GMT

Rebecca Kirby in Small Animal Emergency & Critical Care Medicine describes a case and she mentions that only 10% of drowning cases do not inhale water due to laryngospasm. She gives as reasons for breathing problems:

Airway obstruction secondary to aspirated material and bronchospasm, pulmonary edema and pulmonary damage due to aspiration of fluids and debris. Alveolar collaps due to dilution of surfactant. Acute respiratory distress syndrome can follow, as can cerebral edema.

Mariette

Re: Drowning dog

Bob Russell — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 11:04:52 GMT

Interesting about the laryngeal spasm bit but our semi-drowned fitting dog did take in some fluid! it was horrendously rattly and developed inhalation pneumonia. It did live to see another day however.

Would a laryngeal spasm be prevented by seizure activity?

Re: Drowning dog

Martin Atkinson — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 10:56:26 GMT

[quote user="Rajat"]Wow - tough case- never seen one meself..I[/quote] I've racked my memory and can't remember another one in 35 years of being a vet although I've seen 2 dogs with smoke inhalation from fires, one survived the other didn't but what that brought home to me was that its not just the smoke but the heat of the smoke - its mouth and respiratory tract were actually showing evidence of 3rd degree burns with blistering and desquarmation of the whole mucous membranes - horrible.

Re: Drowning dog

Rajat — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 18:52:28 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

[quote user="tess"]

Is there any indication for physiotherapy type manouvres such as percussion? Similar to that done with children who have cystic fibrosis???

[/quote] I don't know but my new graduate thought of that but after a few minutes of battering gave up. I felt it was more to do with breaking down sticky excretions to make them more mobile for coughing up. Anyway very little water is inhaled in drowning due to laryngeal spasm until the victim is unconscious and the tell-tale sign of that is the production of large amounts of foam from the surfactant in the lungs which wasn't a feature here. If percussion works in drowning why don't we use it in pulmonary oedema or perhaps we should. Interesting thought.

[/quote]

Wow - tough case- never seen one meself..I think in a large perecentage of cases no water is ingested but it can be (I think it is 80-20 from memory). There may be both cardiogenic and non cardiogenic oedema as well as bronchoconstriction and as you said laryngospasm..

ARDS could be an outcome in severe cases as is cerebral ischaemia - again from memory cerebral ischaemia is what kills these dogs not the actual drowning. Maybe measuring ETCO2, Arterial BG, Chest xrays would have been useful and ventilation if indicated- sounds like none of those are realistic in a case with no funds though!

Re: Drowning dog

tess — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:22:32 GMT

found this

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/772753-treatment#a1125

Re: Drowning dog

Martin Atkinson — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:29:42 GMT

[quote user="tess"]

Is there any indication for physiotherapy type manouvres such as percussion? Similar to that done with children who have cystic fibrosis???

Re: Drowning dog

tess — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:15:42 GMT

Is there any indication for physiotherapy type manouvres such as percussion? Similar to that done with children who have cystic fibrosis???

Re: Drowning dog

Bob Russell — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:47:06 GMT

Old dog or not probably not much more you could have done. We had a younger JRT that had a fit whilst swimming in the local stream. Went right under but owner managed to get him out. His problem was related to the inhalation of contaminated water and we had a heck of a job getting him over that aspect so even if you get them over the initial part they are not necessarily out of the woods!

I suppose oxygen, oxygen and more oxygen plus fingers crossed.

Re: Drowning dog

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:43:52 GMT

So sad My sympathies Between this dog and David's poor Staffie, today's posts are really depressing

Wynne

Re: Drowning dog

Martin Atkinson — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:43:34 GMT

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]

Saturday already.

Eeek................. missed my flight to Slovenia!!!

[/quote]Thank you Emily, drip was heated. Is this your version of the hanging man Neil?

Re: Drowning dog

Neil Wheadon — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:36:46 GMT

OK - Red stared myself as missed the subtlety of the last part of the post

Neil

Re: Drowning dog

Neil Wheadon — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:33:52 GMT

Saturday already.

Eeek................. missed my flight to Slovenia!!!

Re: Drowning dog

Emily Nightingale — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:23:24 GMT

Goodness. Poor you and poor dog. So sorry to hear it died. I can't say I would have done anything different except maybe warmed IP/SC fluids (saline) whilst trying to get an IV line in but that's about it. I'm sure there are some places that may have set up an ECG, but it wouldnt have been a possibility for me, had the same patient presented here. Sounds like you did everything you could. Cases like this leave you reeling a bit, questioning everything and leave me feeling rather desperate, but fortunately they are few and very far between. Deep breath and think tomorrow is another day- it also happens to be a Saturday which means it's the weekend.