Poor Éowyn II

As I wrote yesterday, Éowyn has had another attack of infected anal glands. We brought her to the vet, who provided her with painkillers and antibiotics after sedating her and removing the infection. This evening we found a huge abcess, and we had to call the emergency vet again. He recommended warm towels (how on earth we are going to keep them on her, I don't know!), and that we just got trough the night until we can see our normal vet tomorrow morning.
This means that I and the dogs are confined to the spare room, and I will keep vigil for the night. Luckily Christian has a week off from work, so he can take her to the vet tomorrow.

Right now she kind of lies/sits next to me, she is obviously in pain, and I feel so sad for her. She is so subdued right now.
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?35176-Poor-Éowyn - read the last entry from me

PS - if anybody have experience with recurrent infections in the anal glands, I would like to know. How often is "enough"? She is 3, it's her second time within 16 months. Is that normal?

Poor thing-- I have heard that is painful. Can you try adding more fiber to her diet to help express the glands naturally? I know that people have added canned pumpkin (a tablespoon, not the pumpkin pie filling, just plain canned pumpkin) for fiber to their meal. Not sure if you have canned pumpkin in your grocery stores?

Poor little thing, I hope she is feeling better today. A lot of people use oat bran to help with anal glands. Have a look at this thread here:
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?38303-Anal-Glands-Success&highlight=anal+glands

Poor little thing, I hope she is feeling better today. A lot of people use oat bran to help with anal glands. Have a look at this thread here:<br>
<a href="http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?38303-Anal-Glands-Success&highlight=anal+glands" target="_blank">http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?38303-Anal-Glands-Success&highlight=anal+glands</a>

Thank you so much for your advice. Canned pumpkin is not available in Denmark, at least not where I live, but I eat oatbran with milk every day for breakfast, so it is easy to a spoon of oatbrans to the dog's breakfast, too!
Today Éowyn went to the vet again. The abcess burst this morning, and the vet checked it out. Éowyn is still very swollen and sore, and she has now been equipped with small diaper trousers to fit with the cone. So cute, she looks like a little misunderstood superhero. :luv:
She also got more painkillers to supplement the others, and now she has stopped yelping with pain.
I came late at work and left early, I am lucky to have flexible workhours and could take "Dog's first sick leave day" without any problems

Two of my dogs have real problems with their anal glands. However, it seems that with mine, it kind of goes in spurts....(no pun intended). The one dog needed to have his glands expressed once every 4-6 weeks for a while and now he has gone a long time without a problem. My agility girl, Gem, is now in the cycle....I have had to get hers expressed at least that often since the summer. I take her to the vets when she seems to licking more than usual or if she starts scooting. Hopefully, her glands will settle down soon.

When my dogs' glands are in the acute stage, I warm wet hand towels in the microwave and just hold the towel to their sore bum. It does soothe them. Just be careful that the towel isn't too hot....just warm.

Our little guy needed to one of his drained at only 12 weeks, and we are having them checked again next week.
Being so young and having lots of fibre and still having healthy potty movements, I don't know what else I can do to hep him.

It's only one gland with Jessie though. Has anyone been through having them removed with any of your beloved buddies?

Our good friends with a 1 year old cavalier had to have hers removed because of some bad issues. They tried everything and finally the vet said they had to be removed. They were really worried about the side effects of surgery (mainly incontinence), but Ruby their cavvie is doing great! All healed up and playing as normal.
It is a serious surgery though, not to be taken lightly as the risk of having an incontinent dog can be really hard, for both of you.

That is not much info, but I hope it helps!

Thanks, all of you for your stories and advice.
We discussed the possibility of steady appointments at the vets for every 4-6 weeks, but the vet told us that anal gland problems could occur within days, which Éowyn is a proof of. We went to the vet for control today, and the vet could empty her anal glands again, after she five days ago got them emptied at the "emergency vet visit". Besides, she got her antibiotics prolonged for 8 more days (i.e. 16 days in total).
She is healing, but needs another control visit next Friday.
Since Éowyn is so young (just 3), the vet asked us to consider removal of the anal glands. We are thinking! icon_nwunsure icon_nwunsure icon_nwunsure