experience with meningitis??

R

ranbu

Forums Novice
Just wanted to know if anyone here has any experience with their sheltie having meningitis (or more specifically meningoencephalitis of unknown ediology)? Do dogs usually make a full recovery from this disease (of course given they’re treated on time)? I’m just so worried about my boy since i don’t know what to expect for the coming months, and google isn’t being super helpful right now : (
 
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Funny you should mention this now. I was just chatting to a Sheltie owner this week whose dog has meningitis. The dog is currently on steroids and seeing an internal medicine specialist. The dog looked great, but it is still early days. Now if I could just remember which Sheltie it was (I've seen a few this week) I could ask them for more details.
 
Caro said:
Funny you should mention this now. I was just chatting to a Sheltie owner this week whose dog has meningitis. The dog is currently on steroids and seeing an internal medicine specialist. The dog looked great, but it is still early days. Now if I could just remember which Sheltie it was (I've seen a few this week) I could ask them for more details.
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Huh, what a coincidence. Our dog is also in the early stages of treatment with steroids, and is doing very well so far. Maybe it’s the same one ahaha
But yeah that’d be great since we don’t know anyone else who has dealt with this and we’re all pretty much in the dark here.
 
Just found this thread. Our girl, a little of 3 1/2 years old just got diagnosed with and auto immune disease, possibly meningitis. She had some very long seizures, and after an ER vet and regular vet, took her to Cornell. We had an MRI done, and it showed brain inflammation. Also a spinal tap with inflammation. They suspect and auto immune thing. She is now home, thank God, on 2 seizure medicines and 10 mg of prednisoLone every 12 hours. We brought her home on Thanksgiving. She is doing great, her balance is better, and Thank God, no more seizures. The steriod is making her drink and pee like crazy. We were told that would happen. But, anyone have experience with long term pred, and will the drinking and peeing ease up? She is whining to go out to pee, between every 1/2 hour to hour. And she sleeps about 3 hours at night, and has to go out every hour after that to pee. We were told she could make a complete recovery, but it will take a long time. The disease could go into remission. That is our hope!


Any info is much appreciated

Sandy and our girl Misty
 
sanemb said:
Just found this thread. Our girl, a little of 3 1/2 years old just got diagnosed with and auto immune disease, possibly meningitis. She had some very long seizures, and after an ER vet and regular vet, took her to Cornell. We had an MRI done, and it showed brain inflammation. Also a spinal tap with inflammation. They suspect and auto immune thing. She is now home, thank God, on 2 seizure medicines and 10 mg of prednisoLone every 12 hours. We brought her home on Thanksgiving. She is doing great, her balance is better, and Thank God, no more seizures. The steriod is making her drink and pee like crazy. We were told that would happen. But, anyone have experience with long term pred, and will the drinking and peeing ease up? She is whining to go out to pee, between every 1/2 hour to hour. And she sleeps about 3 hours at night, and has to go out every hour after that to pee. We were told she could make a complete recovery, but it will take a long time. The disease could go into remission. That is our hope!


Any info is much appreciated

Sandy and our girl Misty
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that sounds exactly like what Kai is going through, minus the seizures. He was diagnosed with immune mediated meningitis, so maybe yours has the same thing?
And about the frequent trips outside: i believe it’ll go away once your dog is off the pred, but until then you’re probably gonna have to get used to taking her out more often. I’m not 100% sure about that as it hasn’t been very long, but this is just my experience so far.
But that’s great that she’s getting better, hopefully both she and my boy will make a full recovery soon!
 
ranbu said:
that sounds exactly like what Kai is going through, minus the seizures. He was diagnosed with immune mediated meningitis, so maybe yours has the same thing?
And about the frequent trips outside: i believe it’ll go away once your dog is off the pred, but until then you’re probably gonna have to get used to taking her out more often. I’m not 100% sure about that as it hasn’t been very long, but this is just my experience so far.
But that’s great that she’s getting better, hopefully both she and my boy will make a full recovery soon!
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The vet feels, after the MRI and bloodwork, that it is also an Auto Immune Response, and the inflammation in the brain is causing her seizures.
My girl is having a horrible time with the steroid. Her excessive drinking and peeing is insane. Every hour or sooner, pretty much round the clock and also now she has started leaking. I have a call in to Cornell, to see if they can switch up the steroid, or something. We are looking for a holistic vet, that would treat her with natural medicine instead of the steroids. And as far as the excessive thirst and urinating, she may very well have to be on the medicine for an extremely long time. We have to figure out something. My girl isn't happy at all. Praying for both of our babies to get through this and make a full recovery.
 
Tully's been on a steroid for almost a year now for a gastrointestinal autoimmune disease.. She had problems initially, including excessive peeing and drinking and fatigue, but on the maintenance dose is managing better (1mg/kg every second day). She'll be on Pred for the rest of her life. The main issues with the Pred now are coat thinning and muscle wastage.

There are immunosuppressants that are used with the pred. Tully was on Azathioprine which had fewer side effects but took about 6 weeks to transition onto and then we could eliminate the Pred. Unfortunately Tully had a very rare reaction to the Aza (severe pancreatitis) so back onto the Pred for life. If your dogs require longer term meds I'd ask about another immunosuppressant. Tully sees an internal medicine specialist (IMS) and they have a much greater range of options available.
 
Caro said:
Tully's been on a steroid for almost a year now for a gastrointestinal autoimmune disease.. She had problems initially, including excessive peeing and drinking and fatigue, but on the maintenance dose is managing better (1mg/kg every second day). She'll be on Pred for the rest of her life. The main issues with the Pred now are coat thinning and muscle wastage.

There are immunosuppressants that are used with the pred. Tully was on Azathioprine which had fewer side effects but took about 6 weeks to transition onto and then we could eliminate the Pred. Unfortunately Tully had a very rare reaction to the Aza (severe pancreatitis) so back onto the Pred for life. If your dogs require longer term meds I'd ask about another immunosuppressant. Tully sees an internal medicine specialist (IMS) and they have a much greater range of options available.
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Misty was on 10mg, every 12 hours. We were having so many problems with the excessive peeing and than her having incontienance, talked to the doctor last night. She lowered the night time dose to 5 mg and still the 10mg in the morning. Hoping that it helps! They did mention about cyclosporaine, and if she has any problems being on a lower dose of pred, she will get that too. She did say that if she was on the cyclosporaine, she would be able to get off from the pred, sooner. But, we are still looking at months and months, until they feel that the inflammation is under control.
 
I met up with the person whose Sheltie has GME, the first signs were complete paralysis from the neck down. Her dog is on cyclosporaine and has been able to reduce the Pred to 5mg every second day. She said the meds have made a big difference, not just in his movement but his general demenour - now when he visits the vet he wants to play with the other dogs but even before the worst of the GME was lethargic. SHe did mention the first immunosuppressant didn't work so well but once on the cyclosporaine has been great and she is hoping over the next month they can remove the Pred altogether and just keep the other drug going.
 
Misty is on 5mg of prednisone every 12 hours. She is also taking cyclosporine every 12 hours. The doctor at Cornell told us, if we start the cyclosporine, than we would be able to get Misty weaned down faster on the prednisone. Misty is still having lots of problems with constant drinking and peeing. The doctor feels that the Phenabarbitol that she is taking for to prevent seizures, can have that side effect also with the drinking and peeing. So, they have started Misty on another seizure medicine, she is taking 3 now! She is on Phenabarbitol, Kepra, and now Zonisamide. If everything goes well, we can cut her phenabarbitol in half in a week and than 2 weeks from that we can stop the phenabarbitol! Also 2 weeks after stopping the phenabarbitol, if all is well, we can cut Misty's pred down to 5mg a day! We also are starting Misty on Milk Thistle to help protect her liver and also a chinese supplement to also protect her liver. Along with the Acupuncture! The doctor did say that she will be on seizure medicine for at least a year.
 
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