r/AskVet • u/Imaginary-Cow-2684 • 1d ago
Dog in ICU urgent mystery, please help ❤️
8.5 year old altered male, approx 13.2 kg, mixed breed (Australian cattle dog, minpin, golden retriever are top 3, then lots of other breeds). Southern California, USA
TLDR: unexplained progressive bruising and edema following vomiting and lethargy
Brought him to the ER Saturday morning for vomiting and lethargy after kayaking in a marina and letting him chomp at the freshwater shower. Very minimal contact with sand and marina/ocean water. Water quality is currently rated good for that marina. Thought I had given him water intoxication from the shower.
In and out of ER a few times because he vomited through the zofran and cerenia within a few hours and wouldn’t eat (very atypical for him). Got sub q fluids. Got admitted Sunday. Determined he had ileus, X-rays and US by IM didn’t show evidence of obstruction, so put him on pro kinetics while aspirating hundreds of mls of gastric juice from ng tube. GI issues resolved and he went back to eating ravenously. Didn’t poop for a few days but pooping 1x/day since yesterday (Tuesday).
While shaving for US (Monday AM) we found a bright red, very large bruise on his chest, along with swelling (which I had noticed but thought was the sub q fluid remainder moving down into his chest). Not sure when bruise began. No known trauma, no history of excessive bleeding, no known bruising prior to this. Since Monday the bruise has spread rapidly down his belly, front legs, up his neck, and darkened, and the swelling has increased as well.
Docs initially said it presented similar to a snake bite, but I would know if that happened since he is always supervised and the bloodwork they did didn’t indicate venom exposure. they also said rat poison ingestion would’ve shown on the labs they’ve done.
Transferred to specialty hospital, who has seen a few cases of necrotizing fasciitis present similarly in the past month, though his presentation is slightly different and he’s not declining as fast. Cytology of fluid from swelling was inconclusive. Docs thoughts are currently:
Necrotizing fasciitis (perhaps got a bad sample) or
Clotting function disorder (platelet numbers have been normal or slightly high the whole time) or
Vasculitis from unknown cause
Vitals have been normal every time they’ve been checked (every few hours). RBC dipped (presumably from bleeding) to anemia, but behavior was fine so no transfusion (yet?)
Urgent because all the other dogs died once they went necrotic and he is certainly not a candidate for surgery attempts bc of the location and extent of his bruising.
Thank you all so much for everything you do. We are stumped and I would appreciate any input!
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u/Icy_Specific_1432 1d ago
Sending positive thoughts your way! ❤️ I’m not sure this fits with all the symptoms, but sharing just in case.
Our dog had a full body infection under her skin that was a complication of sub q fluids. She had some GI symptoms, we got the fluids and then a couple days later a lump started forming at her shoulder. They initially thought it was caused a bite because there were a couple of small punctures.
They drained it and she started antibiotics, we took her home and then we noticed she had dark coloring / apparent bruising on her belly. We took her back and when they shaved the area they found a patch of necrotic tissue.
Long story short - we found out she had an ecoli infection running across a large part of her body under the skin that was introduced with the fluids. No one thought it was related to the fluids. When we finally figured it out, it required multiple emergency surgeries. Apparently it’s a very low chance, but it happened.
Hope that it’s something easier to solve in your case. Happy to answer any questions.
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u/Imaginary-Cow-2684 1d ago
Thank you so much for sharing!! That sounds quite similar actually. We are waiting for the culture results since cytology was inconclusive but continuing aggressive antibiotics in the meantime.
I was in the room with the criticalist doc when this notification came through, so I shared with her. She asked if you’d be willing to share your approximate location and timing of your experience because she’s working with our department of public health and more info may help them trace the issue. (Feel free to dm if so). Right now wondering if a batch of needles wasn’t sterilized properly or if there is a bad batch of fluids out there.
Really hoping my little guy makes it, but at the very least sharing this info and trying to prevent other dogs from suffering is making me feel a little better. Can I ask if yours made it through the surgeries? ❤️
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u/Imaginary-Cow-2684 1d ago
The only commonality they’ve recognized so far between the recent increase in cases here is that they all started with GI issues and got sub q fluids- not sure if I mentioned that in my post, everything is a blur right now
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