Pua's illness

Pua had a outing on her own(Stewie let her out) and once home went to sleep and didn't get up again. 24hrs later offered her water she drank and vomited. She pooped and thought I saw worms so took that in and got worm meds. That night she turned critical. She was turning red and purple all over. Vet was closed for the weekend and no one would see her. E-vet turned her away. My dog vet gave us supplies to see us through the weekend. We were worried she wouldn't make it. We got her ants and termites and she finally ate Sunday night. Her head swelled up after the vet visit and her being on antibiotics and vit K.It was sterptococcal toxic shock syndrome. This kills dogs too. Most vets are not familiar with it yet and most animals wont survive without proper treatment but Pua was lucky.Over the long weekend of no vets to see the only thing I found to fit her symptoms was scarlet fever, anteaters are known to get strep infections. When we could finally see the vet he was convinced it was rat poison so I dropped the idea of demanding a culture. It was a mistake.Scarlet fever is caused by a hemolytic form of the strep bacteria(or maybe they all are). Anyway that means it destroys red blood cells and her white cells were up, showing she had an infection. And the "rash" of scarlet fever's not really a rash in most people it doesn't even itch.Then I found a paper on dogs getting strep and it causing bleeding(like from rat poison). I went back to believing it was 'scarlet fever' strep. Really it's the only thing that can fit everything she went through."The dog may soon experience spontaneous hemorrhaging including coughing up blood, bleeding from the nose, severe bruising of the skin, and in some cases bloody diarrhea.""It looks very similar to a poisoning -- similar to what can happen when a dog gets into rat poison. It's more of a toxicosis than many other bacterial infections,"I'm not entirely sure she was fine when she left on her trip either. I was having to bribe her with something special to get her to eat. But she could have been messing with me. Hard to say where she picked it up or when exactly but it does fit, everything, and rat poison just doesn't.She started with extreme lethargy and vomiting then got worse. Rat poison does not cause vomiting and strep does or can. Rat poison does not cause peeling skin but scarlet fever (strep) does as it's healing.I really wish I had followed my first instincts and had them do a swab and culture, it certainly wouldn't have hurt and we'd know for sure and could have helped with the proper antibiotic.I wasn't sure before but reading that dogs hemorrhage badly from strep cases that makes me pretty convinced. It's not going to act exactly the same in each species but mix the human and dog symptoms for the bacteria together and it all fits.Even the vet from the article said it was very likely the case here. And we have updated our security measures to prevent her taking any further walks on her own.

Channel: Pets & Animals
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: TamanduaGirl

Length: 07:04
Rating: 4.86
Views: 6422

Tags: animal  anteater  exotic  pet  Tamandua  アリクイ  

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