Paging doggy specialists - Valley fever + Prednisone

[powdork]

I have a friend who left Tahoe to go to school in Hayward. Her dog, who had spent quite a while in Sonora, was (sort of) diagnosed with Valley fever. I say sort of because i don't know if they ever drew blood to determine this and her vet was in Colorado, so may have not been experienced in dealing with the fungus. Anyway, the dog wasn't doing well in Hayward as it's a young Border Collie and didn't get out as much as needed so I volunteered to take care of it for an extended period. When she gave it to me she also gave me the dog's prescription (prednisone) which I have been giving her as prescribed. We are now in the weening off part where she is getting 5mg every other day. It seems as though as we have dropped the dosage, the lesions are returning so I looked up the disease online to find out if the prescription could be extended. Instead I found that prednisone is not recommended for Valley fever as it weakens the immune system and the correct treatment would be fluconazole or Ketoconazole, etc.
So
1. Is Prednisone ok for dogs with Valley fever?
2. Is it likesly she is suffering from something else, since she seems to do better with higher dosages of prednisone, or is the timing of her skin problems not directly related to the drops in prednisone dosages?
3. Can my dog contract Valley fever from her open sores. Can I?

Anything else I should know? The owner will be in town next week and she'll take her to the vet then but I'm trying to get some info first.

[irul&ublo]

Anything else I should know?

Yeah...take her to the vet now

[powdork]

Other than the skin issues, she is doing well. eating well. lots of energy, none of the problems that resulted in her leaving Hayward. this is her yesterday picking a fight with nacho


and then getting bitchslapped. nacho says, "that's right, i'll punch a puppy in the face. i don't even care!"

[MagnificentUnicorn]

The prednisone is probably responsible for the increased energy and aggression, that's the way it works in humans.

[The Reverend Floater]

I had a dog with Valley Fever...it is nasty and may have eventually taken his life, though the cause of death was technically not the fever itself. I will say that once a dog has had it, it likely won't return to normal.

The pred is likely masking the symptoms but be careful--it's not really addressing the problem and is not good for your dog. You absolutely need to get that dog to a vet that has treated Valley Fever before ASAP. That should be the first question you ask when you call. It is a very tricky, harmful illness and it will kill the dog if not treated correctly.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

I can't offer anything but +VIBES+ for the pup, and the comment that she looks like Jack's sister.

[hutash]

Pred is probably the exact wrong thing to use. Take her to a vet now, don't wait for your friend to get back. Coccidomycosis (Valley Fever) sucks, so get it diagnosed properly (if it even is VF). Get records from any previous vets, it will make your vets job a little easier.

This is a very serious disease if real, don't wait around with it. Diagnose it, and treat it aggressively if real.

[powdork]

^^^Can i stop giving her the prednisone? I know it's bad to cut her off of it. the original script was for 10mg/day, then two weeks of 5mg/day, and now we've been doing one week of 5mg every other day which is supposed to continue for a while (don't know how long but there's like 100mg left)

[powdork]

And she isn't aggressive. They were playing and it was just a pic I had posted to facebook out of a burst sequence that made her look aggressive. i think the idea of the prednisone was to address her being lethargic and it also boosts her appetite, although I think the appetite is more of a side effect rather than something they were trying to address.

[astralboy15]

1. Is Prednisone ok for dogs with Valley fever?
Probably not. Corticosteroids are immunosuppressants, therefore the dogs ability to fight the infection is limited. I SUPPOSE they could be given to mask symptoms if the vet thought the dogs immune response was doing more bad than good (that is actually why they are given in many instances), but the dog doesn't sound like it's on deaths door or anything. I agree with you that treating with an antifungal -azole makes sense.

2. Is it likesly she is suffering from something else, since she seems to do better with higher dosages of prednisone, or is the timing of her skin problems not directly related to the drops in prednisone dosages?
Hard to say. Cocci can definitely disseminate to the skin and cause lesions. Or the body can create sinuses (pathways to the outside) to drain damage cocci is doing inside. Did the dog ever get a chest xray or anything? A think a culture would be in order for a firm diagnosis.

3. Can my dog contract Valley fever from her open sores. Can I?
PROBABLY not. It is POSSIBLE, but pretty much never happens. Very rare, see the link below. I'd be more concered about keeping the sores clean to try and prevent any further infection from something else.

I AM NOT A VET!! Not by any means. Though I am a med STUDENT - so yeah, I'd be pretty skeptical of me at this point too - and I ASSUME the basic tenets of cocci are about the same. Good luck to you and the dog and here is a nice little thing about cocci (a section of it covers dogs): http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factshe...idomycosis.pdf
Really am hoping for the best!

[hutash]

^^^Can i stop giving her the prednisone? I know it's bad to cut her off of it. the original script was for 10mg/day, then two weeks of 5mg/day, and now we've been doing one week of 5mg every other day which is supposed to continue for a while (don't know how long but there's like 100mg left)

Another reason to get her to a vet (and get records from previous vet). I don't know what she is really being treated for, so the pred "may be" appropriate. It wouldn't be the first time a client got the right information wrong from the vet. An additional dose or two at a low level is probably not an issue, but she "really" needs to be seen and not get treated by all us dentists.

[userA]

dentisthilarious
do they even have a dentite school for animals or do you guys just scrape & pull like the old days?
good advice doc.
b

[hutash]

Most vet schools have a decent amount of dental training these days, much more then when I went to school (but I have done plenty of CE.) Still cleaning and pulling are often the simplest, most cost effective treatment. Sure we can do advanced periodontics, endodontics and orthodontics, but a dog missing a few teeth is no big deal, vs the $1,000+ to do all the other stuff.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

When my old elkhound broke one of his lower canines my regular vet referred me to a place that specializes in doggy dentistry. Apparently the canines make up a large part of the structure of the lower jaw, you only see about 1/3 of the whole thing so pulling them isn't easy or advised unless absolutely necessary.

Anyway, this place wanted $1300 to give him a root canal and put a stainless steel cap on it. While it would've been cool to have a dog with a silver tooth I wasn'tt willing to drop that kind of coin (this would've been close to 15 years ago) so I hunted around and found a vet office that had a retired dentist working there that fixed him up for about half that price. No cool stainless cap, just did the root canal then filled the hole, so he had a brown nub for a tooth for the rest of his life but it never seemed to bother him.

[Harry]

it would've been cool to have a dog with a silver tooth.

A dog with a grill would be badass.

[hutash]

The leopard at the Sacramento zoo had a silver upper canine tooth. It was pimp.

They put stainless steel caps on the canine teeth of some of the military dogs. Don't mess with those fuckers.