The thing I love about veterinary medicine is that you go into the day not knowing what will happen. Last week, I got two surprises in one day. The first was with a puppy exam. I go into most puppy exams assuming that the pet is nice and healthy, especially when nothing is mentioned over the phone about the puppy being sick.
Well, I walk into the exam room and immediately know something is going on. The pup was nice and energetic, but had a lot of hair loss with some crusting around the eyes and legs. I am a big fan of dermatology issues, so immediately suspected Demodex mites as the problem. These are organisms that normally live in the skin, but typically it is a symbiotic relationship where the dog isn't bothered by them. Occasionally (maybe because of genetics or other sickness), the mites can overgrow and cause hair loss, secondary skin infections, and just general misery in puppies. We did a quick skin scraping and found the most mites I have ever seen on a scraping. Fortunately, we have a few options for treatment and started the puppy on treatment right away. Usually we treat for a couple of months.
Well, I walk into the exam room and immediately know something is going on. The pup was nice and energetic, but had a lot of hair loss with some crusting around the eyes and legs. I am a big fan of dermatology issues, so immediately suspected Demodex mites as the problem. These are organisms that normally live in the skin, but typically it is a symbiotic relationship where the dog isn't bothered by them. Occasionally (maybe because of genetics or other sickness), the mites can overgrow and cause hair loss, secondary skin infections, and just general misery in puppies. We did a quick skin scraping and found the most mites I have ever seen on a scraping. Fortunately, we have a few options for treatment and started the puppy on treatment right away. Usually we treat for a couple of months.
The second surprise was a younger dog who was not feeling well. This dog had surgery around a month prior for a corn cob that became lodged in its intestine. He recovered well and had been doing fine until that morning where he was lethargic and not himself. We took some radiographs and noticed some distended loops of intestines, so determined we needed to go to surgery to determine the cause. Well, we get in there and find that a 2 foot portion of small intestine had made its way through a small hole in the omentum (the structure associated with the intestine responsible for blood supply). It was essentially strangling its blood supply causing that section to die. Fortunately, there was plenty of healthy intestine left, so we performed a resection and anastomosis (removed the dead tissue and sutured the healthy tissue back together) and crossed our fingers.
I saw both of the patients back this morning and am happy to say that both are doing very well. We will see what this afternoon has in store for us.
I saw both of the patients back this morning and am happy to say that both are doing very well. We will see what this afternoon has in store for us.
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