upper airway or lower airway disease?

Re: upper airway or lower airway disease?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 13:07:03 GMT

[quote user="Robin Grimmer"]With a history of foreign travel, the first thing I would do is test/treat for lungworm.[/quote]That had crossed my mind but then the dog would surely have a persistent cough not intermittent bouts of acute dyspnoea? Good thing to eliminate if from enquiries but I would be thinking asthma or laryngeal paralysis as my primary differentials and go on from there.

Re: upper airway or lower airway disease?

Robin Grimmer — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:24:32 GMT

With a history of foreign travel, the first thing I would do is test/treat for lungworm. If negative then I would do a GA to intubate and take inspiratory views and do a BAL. Also being intubated bypasses the URT so if it URT in origin, the breathing should return to normal once intubated.

Re: upper airway or lower airway disease?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 10:41:43 GMT

Is it just me or does that trachea look disproportionally large? I would want to be be having a look down its upper airway, soft palate problem given breed or laryngeal paralysis and if you've got that far maybe a BAL. The lung changes don't look enough to cause dyspnoea although there could be some chronic bronchitis.

Re: upper airway or lower airway disease?

Julian Earl — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 20:19:43 GMT

From your description of holding his head and neck out, that sounds more like inspirarory dyspnoea and "Air hunger" which indicates upper airway disease. I do not think lower airway disease or pneumonia causes that type of behaviour. Lower airway disease tends to cayse more expiratory effort which does not seem to fit your description.

HTH.