Distemper?

Re: Distemper?

Anthony Dennison — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 16:15:16 GMT

Not on PCR, though it will affect serology. Might be worth chatting to the lab you use?

Re: Distemper?

Kirsten Simpson — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 10:23:37 GMT

Saw Pug puppy the other day, mucopurulent conjunctivitis, serous nasal discharge, inc SMLN size and +e tracheal pinch. Temperature was normal and lungs auscultated clear. Disp synuylox + fucithalmic.

Today the owner has rang as the nasal discharge has got more purulent (snotty she said on the phone) and she feels she is more chesty sounding with her cough now. Otherwise the pup seems ok but I advised to come back in today for a check so she is booked in at 11:30. Now concerned it is distemper (instead of "just "KC as I suspected the other day). She has had her initial vaccination last Monday, would that interfere with blood tests if I wanted to check for Distemper? Aaah!

Re: Distemper?

Anthony Dennison — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 09:29:44 GMT

The Distemper serology results came back this morning. They were negative! So this is an odd one... I'll get the owners to ring PetPlan and see if they will reconsider.

Re: Distemper?

Anthony Dennison — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 09:54:09 GMT

[quote user="Kirsten Simpson"]Weekend before last she went down to Preston to get a Pug from a breeder. When she got there she was told they were imported from Hungary and was 4 months old.[/quote]

Do you know where in Preston? If it's an enterprise big enough to import puppies, either my practice or my girlfriend's might know them. Or have seen some of the other pups from the litter.

Re: Distemper?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 09:34:51 GMT

[quote user="Kirsten Simpson"]hopefully its "just" KC and not anything more severe...[/quote]I would be grateful if it is distemper not rabies if I was you!!

Re: Distemper?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 09:33:07 GMT

[quote user="mariette asselbergs"]Were these cases of chronic diarrhoea confirmed as panleucocytopenia? [/quote]No sorry that may have been misleading. The confirmed (by histology) FPV cases were acute. I was then referring to the standard of CP volunteer's hygiene which allows chronic microbial/parasitic conditions to thrive.

Re: Distemper?

Kirsten Simpson — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 09:27:02 GMT

I've got a pug puppy coming in today with a cough and I'm dreading it's Distemper (from reading this!). tTe owner lost both her dogs in a tragic accident (wind blew back fence down, both escaped, both hit and killed by the same van, horrific). Weekend before last she went down to Preston to get a Pug from a breeder. When she got there she was told they were imported from Hungary and was 4 months old. The owner was a bit taken aback but didn't want to make that journey for nothing so took a Puglet home. Saw her end of last week for first vaccination. She looks too small for 4 months for me (but Pugs are one of these breeds its hard to guess their age to me! And her PETS passport was correctly filled in etc. She has a tiny heart murmur as well. She was a bit sniffy when I saw her but just normal tiny nosed pug snuffles, nothing untoward. I'm just panicking its seriously ill due to this thread! Never seen distemper before. She's coming in at 10, hopefully its "just" KC and not anything more severe...

Re: Distemper?

ruths — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 23:54:59 GMT

I saw a panleukopaenia a few years ago. It was a young female cat who had always been kept in a flat. The owners hadn't vaccinated her. They bought a male cat they mated and had kittens. When the kittens had been weaned, they took the female cat to be neutered. She died of panleuk soon afterward I think a couple of the kittens did too. The male cst was fine. It was assumed the queen caught it from the vets -((

Re: Distemper?

mariette asselbergs — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 22:20:16 GMT

Were these cases of chronic diarrhoea confirmed as panleucocytopenia? The cases I saw in Mozambique were dead in 2 days and looked like cholera, total dehydration and dramatic weightloss in 2 days, diarrhoea like rice water. I thought that was the classical presentation?

(But I never meant to hijack the thread which is about DISTEMPER!)

Keep us updated about the dog and the serology/neurology please?

Mariette

Re: Distemper?

Thomas Johnson — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:30:15 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

[quote user="Thomas Johnson"]

We do the work for the local CP, and a couple of years ago we were seeing a lot of their kittens with persistent diarrhoea, they had a big push to get all of their kitten fosterers to improve the way the kittens were looked after and we hardly see any now.

[/quote]

The problem seems to be for us is that a pre-requisite to be a CP carer/fosterer is to be a nutty cat lady and given the personal hygiene of some of these isn't exactly ideal there is little hope. I've discussed this at length with our local co-ordinator but her line is that they are so short of foster homes that have to take what they can get.

[/quote]

I guess we're lucky that most of our local CP volunteers seem to be sensible people with good personal hygeine!

Re: Distemper?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 14:22:33 GMT

[quote user="Thomas Johnson"]We do the work for the local CP, and a couple of years ago we were seeing a lot of their kittens with persistent diarrhoea, they had a big push to get all of their kitten fosterers to improve the way the kittens were looked after and we hardly see any now.[/quote]The problem seems to be for us is that a pre-requisite to be a CP carer/fosterer is to be a nutty cat lady and given the personal hygiene of some of these isn't exactly ideal there is little hope. I've discussed this at length with our local co-ordinator but her line is that they are so short of foster homes that have to take what they can get.

Re: Distemper?

Thomas Johnson — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:36:42 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

[quote user="mariette asselbergs"]

Almost the exact same thing is true for feline panleukocytopenia, which i have only ever seen in Mozambique in 2 cats, and never in practice.

Does it actually still exist?

[/quote]I deal with a lot of CP rescue cats/kittens and it flares up occasionally in un-vaccinated kittens, almost always related to crowded, unhygienic conditions in the fosterer's homes. In fact we see a lot of persistent diarrhoea cases for the same reasons. It seems they create as many problems as they solve sometimes.

[/quote]

Re: Distemper?

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:16:02 GMT

[quote user="mariette asselbergs"]

Almost the exact same thing is true for feline panleukocytopenia, which i have only ever seen in Mozambique in 2 cats, and never in practice.

Does it actually still exist?

Re: Distemper?

Anthony Dennison — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 09:59:35 GMT

[quote user="mariette asselbergs"]

Almost the exact same thing is true for feline panleukocytopenia, which i have only ever seen in Mozambique in 2 cats, and never in practice.

Does it actually still exist?

[/quote]

Saw a year old cat last week with clinical signs indicative of cerebellar hypoplasia: had been like it all it's life, and movement has only ever improved as the cat got used to it. So guess the mother had panleukopaenia?

Re: Distemper?

Anthony Dennison — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 09:57:28 GMT

[quote user="Julian Earl"] I can remember seeing two cases every morning surgery when I worked in Burnley![/quote]

We have a couple of branches around Burnley, and I can safely say that isn't the case nowadays!

Re: Distemper?

Julian Earl — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 09:08:42 GMT

Thanks Bob, excellent answer. I've never seen distemper in a duck, but hey-ho, I get your meaning! If you've seen two cases in thirty years, I am impressed with your vaccination policy! I can remember seeing two cases every morning surgery when I worked in Burnley! Having mentioned vaccination; There was one outbreak, probably in 1985-1986 I think where I reported twelve cases in vaccinated dogs to VMD. Nothing came of it as far as I can recall. I still think I would be happy to make a first-line clinical/working diagnosis on signs and history. before going down the laboratory route. Maybe I am becoming a dinosaur after all?

Re: Distemper?

mariette asselbergs — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 22:20:00 GMT

Yes it is weird, the only case of distemper i have ever seen was in the 5ties as a child, when my older sister bought a lovely puppy in a petshop and within weeks it developed first diarrhoea and purulent conjunctivitis, then purulent pneumonia and eventually neurological symptoms (the tics) and was "put to sleep" (= electrocuted as they did at the time. I suspect it was the start of my wanting to become a vet. I have never forgotten what it looked like, but, I have never seen a clinical case in all my life, even though it was thoroughly taught in vet school and we are vaccinating against it religiously for all these years. The strange thing is that it must still exist because we have ferret owners here who regularly lose dozens of ferrets from distemper.

Has the virus become a bit attenuated? Is it possible that the horrible pneumonia cases in the shelter where i sometimes assist are not "bad kennekl cough" but maybe forms of distemper?

I only posted Simon Tappin's lecture notes on diagnosis because I thought they must be the most up to date info.

Almost the exact same thing is true for feline panleukocytopenia, which i have only ever seen in Mozambique in 2 cats, and never in practice.

Does it actually still exist?

Mariette

Re: Distemper?

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:26:09 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

[quote user="Bob Russell"]In the earlier stages of my career I felt I could 'diagnose' parvo from the smell![/quote] Do you still feel the same? I used to but now realise that its just the smell of acute haemorrhagic enteritis. It was just that back in the day we saw so many 99% were CPV not due to other causes so it became hard-wired into our smell memory bank.

[/quote]

The smell is HGE! The most I do now is cringe and say that smells like parvo! in the early days I would have been '99%' right. Now most are not parvo around here so would not diagnose on smell alone!

[/quote]

Some of us were saying right at the beginning of parvo that the smell was not diagnostic. We left that sort of daft comment to the nurses.

There's no comparison between that and diagnosing distemper on the full typical syndrome. Perhaps some with the classic syndrome were not caused by the distemper virus? Who can say? Would it make any difference?

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Generations of vets brought up with distemper cases arriving on a daily basis [/quote]

Exactly.

Saw lots in the seventies, saw it occasionally in pikey dogs in the eighties. None since then, I think. I expect it still exists, but the sick dogs do't get to see a vet. What bothers me slightly is that some dogs without the classic syndrome – some of those "kennel coughs" perhaps, or pyrexia of unknown origin – might be lowgrade or atypical distemper virosis. That's where laboratory investigation might be applicable.

Re: Distemper?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:07:12 GMT

Anecdotal evidence. Somepne told me, I tried it,and it seemed to work - at least I feel they're more likely to get better than if it isn't used.

Wynne

Re: Distemper?

Bob Russell — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 14:38:06 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]

[/quote]

The smell is HGE! The most I do now is cringe and say that smells like parvo! in the early days I would have been '99%' right. Now most are not parvo around here so would not diagnose on smell alone!

Generations of vets brought up with distemper cases arriving on a daily basis could probably be just as confident with their diagnostic skills! My uncle could diagnose from the chink chink sound the 'hardpad' dogs made on the path coming to the waiting room, these were the survivors!

Re: Distemper?

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 14:20:58 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]Give a quarter of a vial 4 x with a gap of a day between each injection.[/quote]Interesting Wynne, where did you get that dosage from? - it would a least keep costs under control as I'd have been inclined to give the recommended dose for CPV i.e. 2.5mu/kg for 3 days.

I know there is anecdotal evidence that Virbagen used in cats for URTI seems to work at much lower doses that those recommended, but there is a body of belief that a large part of the action of interferon is immunomodulatory not anti-viral so your low doses may be working because of that.

Re: Distemper?

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 14:07:01 GMT

Re: Distemper?

Bob Russell — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 13:44:37 GMT

[quote user="Julian Earl"]Mariette, can one accept a diagnosis without laboratory proof? Because based on histories/signs andepidemiology, I have diagnosed hundreds in my career, never with post-mortem but purely on presenting signs andprogress of the disease. I refuse to believe that only laboratory proof is adequate and these hundreds of pyrexic/coughing/ conjunctivitis-affected animals that may or may not have vomiting and diarrhoea and of which a percentagedevelop neurological signs either early or late, and when identical cases are counted by the dozens, I would be gob-smacked if these were not simply text-book cases of distemper. As I noted in a post earlier, I can strongly suspect a dog of having distemper from ten metres: the purulent eyes, the slight blepharospasm, and the palpable tic in the temporal and masseter muscles. Rihghtly or wrongly, I have never felt a need to look for inclusion bodies as proof.

[/quote]

in the days when distemper was common I would have been happy with 'if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a duck! Parvo was an easy diagnosis to get right when ill puppies were being regularly presented. In the earlier stages of my career I felt I could 'diagnose' parvo from the smell!

As diseases become rare I consider laboratory work becomes more important so advice can be accurately targeted. Another issue arises because we have generations of vets who only know distemper from the textbooks.

I have seen two cases of distemper in thirty years of practice so would be more comfortable with laboratory backup before making a firm diagnosis.

Re: Distemper?

Anthony Dennison — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 10:02:26 GMT

Update on this case:

The littermate of the pup was tested for Distemper PCR and tested negative; though false negatives can occur. However, no other puppies in the barn my patient was in have become ill.

I spoke to a clinical pathologist at Idexx yesterday, and after the discussion I took blood for serology this morning; a high titre in an unvaccinated dog should confirm things.

This pup only ever had diarrhoea and a purulent nasal discharge. No ocular signs, no neurological issues currently, and he has put on a kilo in the last week, dog looks really well! I'm starting to doubt my initial diagnosis.

Re: Distemper?

Julian Earl — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 18:50:38 GMT

Mariette, can one accept a diagnosis without laboratory proof? Because based on histories/signs andepidemiology, I have diagnosed hundreds in my career, never with post-mortem but purely on presenting signs andprogress of the disease. I refuse to believe that only laboratory proof is adequate and these hundreds of pyrexic/coughing/ conjunctivitis-affected animals that may or may not have vomiting and diarrhoea and of which a percentagedevelop neurological signs either early or late, and when identical cases are counted by the dozens, I would be gob-smacked if these were not simply text-book cases of distemper. As I noted in a post earlier, I can strongly suspect a dog of having distemper from ten metres: the purulent eyes, the slight blepharospasm, and the palpable tic in the temporal and masseter muscles. Rihghtly or wrongly, I have never felt a need to look for inclusion bodies as proof.