:cry*ing::cry*ing::cry*ing:
This has been such a horrible week. I'm really sorry to say I was probably in denial about Sammy having Syringomyelia. He definitely was shown to have spondylosis, but it can't be the main problem. His condition has worsened a lot over the past week and he's now showing severe SM pain signs.
Rimadyl didn't agree with Sammy's stomach, so he was given Metacam (for the spondylosis). That seemed to help a lot with the back pain he was showing - he stopped yelping and was able to jump onto furniture again. But over the past week, he's been scratching his head more and more, and started rubbing his head and rolling around on the ground. Yesterday was the worst. He scratched so much he ended up with a bloodly wound all down his neck. Every time I bandaged it up, he would just get more crazy. He was frantic all last night and the only way I could calm him down was to massage his head. So I stayed up all night sitting beside his bed on the floor and rubbing his head. Every time I stopped, he ran around frantically. He finally calmed down and went to sleep at about 7am. He's a lot calmer so far today.
Needless to say I spent a lot of the night crying and wondering if I'm going to lose him.
I called my vet's office yesterday to ask for stronger pain med, such as gabapentin. Unfortunately I wasn't able to talk to my previous vet, but talked to another vet. She had never heard of gabapentin, and she precribed a drug called 'Stronghold'. I later discovered this is a medicine for fleas (?!
). It could be that we just had a miscommunication because of my Finnish, but I specifically explained that he needed stronger pain meds.
I also wrote to the only animal neurologist I could find in Finland - who is a long way away from where I live. He explained that in order to confirm sm as a diagnosis, it would cost me over a 1000e. That would be just to say he has sm, and then it would be another several thousand for surgery. I'm devastated to say that my insurance won't cover it (it's a long story, so I won't go into that) and I recently became a student again. I simply can't afford it, not even if I save for a year.
I've made an appointment to see my previous vet on Monday, as they're closed over the weekend. I'm going to try again to get stronger meds. The vets we've seen have already ruled out allergies, mites, ear problems and teeth/jaw problems. So I'm pretty sure it must be SM. The only symptoms that don't match up are:
- he doesn't like to have his head held high. In fact he tries to bury his head under blankets, in snow, on my lap etc.
- he doesn't air scratch. In a way, I wish he would, it would save his poor skin.
- he doesn't show pain on the top of his neck/shoulders. He doesn't react at all to being touched there or wearing a collar.
- although he's been scratching somewhat for a year, which I thought/wanted to believe was due to allergies, these clear pain signs have developed and gotten much worse over just two weeks. I thought SM is more of a gradual decline?
The documentary "Pedigree dogs exposed" was just shown on Finnish TV this morning (talk about coincidences). It made me SO angry and upset. I naively believed that if you get a puppy from a kennel that has been registered with the kennel club, the puppy has been bred for health as well as looks (and with health as the priority!). I thought that's the whole point of registered breeding. What an eye-opener.
My childhood dog who was a mongrel from the pound (and also much loved) was a lot healthier than my poor Sammy.