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Poppy and Dylan have been in the wars. With photos!

*Pauline*

Well-known member
Hi everyone, sorry I've been so quiet for so long. I just thought I'd give you a quick update on my lovely girl and boy. Poppy has been allergic to something and has chewed two patches of fur off her back. I contacted Clare Rusbridge who said it would be unlikely to be her CM and more likely to be anal glands or allergies. So we went to the vet. The first cause the vet thought of was a flee allergy but she doesn't have flees. The next cause might have been anal glands which have been emptied twice. One side was a little tender so she had antibiotics with no improvement to the biting. I decided it might be the air fresheners in my house and, removing them, seems to have improved things by 99%. To replace the air fresheners, I used a few drops of lavender in the water I used to wash the floors and that's what triggered Dylan's conjunctivitis. I took him to the vets and discovered he has severe dry eye now. He scored about 2 on the dry eye test after a whole minute. :( He rubbed his eyes and gave himself an ulcer (not a bad one) so he's keeping me busy with drops and the cone of shame! He's bored silly because he can't play fetch with the cone on and he likes to play with me all day. And me...well I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia as well as M.E. so I'm pretty much in pain everyday now but getting lots of help from the rehab clinic.

Poor poor Dylan :(

The cone of shame! Poor boy :-( by *pauline*, on Flickr

Can anyone why Poppy drools quite so much on walks?!

Poppy drooling. by *pauline*, on Flickr

Or brings half the woods home with her? This took an hour!

Poppy brings the woods home! by *pauline*, on Flickr

All cleaned up and looking glam!

Poppy <3 by *pauline*, on Flickr

My sweet, gentle, HEALTHY, Chinese Crested Powder Puff, Kipling. ;)

Kipling 09.01.12 by *pauline*, on Flickr

Thanks for reading xx
 
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Hello Pauline

Nice to hear from you and all ,and smashing photos again lets have more more often .

Best Wishes

bri
 
Glad to see you back! I love the pictures and will keep you and the pups in my thoughts for a healthy 2012!!!
 
Hi Pauline, good to hear from you. Sorry that Dylan and Poppy have been in the wars. Bosco drools when we are out walking too, I don't know why - I thought it was a problem with his teeth, but he had a dental recently and he still does it, especially when we are somewhere exciting like the park. It's really hard to clean off afterwards too :x Kipling looks amazing, how long do you have to spend grooming him?
Sorry to read about your fibromyalgia, I've had something similar for the last 6 months, so you have my sympathies. Glad you are getting help with it. I don't know what resources are available to you in the Uk, but over here, Arthritis Ireland runs self help programmes which are fantastic. ( I didn't know until recently that fibromyalgia is a form of arthritis).
 
Hi Pauline,
Im so sorry to hear about all your bad news. But hey new year and hopefully a new start.
Take care of yourself and of course Dylan, Poppy and Kiplin.
Give Dylan a gentle hug and kiss from his baby brother.
 
Candy sometimes drools on walks too, I have no idea why? It's usually when I am walking her on lead.
Sorry they have been poorly :( they are all beautiful dogs x
 
Poppy has been allergic to something and has chewed two patches of fur off her back.

I'm so sorry to read about your own medical diagnoses. I hope you'll feel better soon. BTW, Kipling looks gorgeous, so you've done well with him.


Sophie literally rips the fur off the top of her rump, right in front of the base of her tail, from allergies to carbohydrates. That, and the scratching all over. The first time she ripped so much hair off her rump, I carried her to the vet, who told me I got there just in the nick of time, before it became infected and required antibiotics. :shock:
A dose of Temaril-P (prednisone/antihistamine) and change of food set her right.

I don't remember dogs having all these allergies, when I was young. Which was, like, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Nowadays, seems like more dogs, and it's not just Cavaliers, have got as many health issues as we humans.
 
Aww sad to hear Dylan's got dry eye..My baby has dry eye and he scored 0 on the test...really bad.
Pauline, my gran has fibromyalgia - she struggles so much and has so much pain, so kinda know how you feeling as I suffer arthiritis..
I wonder why Poppy drools so much? LOL bless her.
Take care.
 
Poor Dylan & Poppy. Hope they get better soon. A good friend of mine had M.E & Fibromyalgia for the last ten years. She was housebound for at least 6 years, she has only been getting better the last 2 years. What she goes through I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Until I meet her 2 years ago I didn’t know how bad M.E can be. She has been indoors again since October.
 
They all look great -- thanks for all the update photos! Though very sorry to hear about your diagnosis and the cavaliers' problems. :( Theres a huge range in level of symptoms with both those conditions and hopefully will be very manageable -- it's a big help to just figure out what is going on.
 
Poor Dylan with that big collar! Is he still wearing it? It looks as though Poppy had picked up enough twiglets to make her own tree ! :)
 
Sorry to hear about your Fibromyalgia diagnosis - TBH I always wondered when you said about pain with ME, as usually ME people suffer more with fatigue and Fibro people with more pain. Another Fibro survivor here!! I have learnt from hard experience to set a daily limit of activity [other than when I decide to overdo it and am prepared to suffer for it afterwards!] and that way I can manage my life rather than let the Fibro rule it. At the moment I'm having a bad period - like many at this time of year - so back to spending about 12 hours of the day and night in bed, hence not being on the forum so much.

DO you know about the spoons story? It was written by a lupus sufferer but applies equally to ME and FM too. http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/a...poon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/

I find acupuncture pretty effective in managing the pain, pain meds never helped for very long, but the NHS only seems to allow a course of about 8 sessions now, so I plan that for the worst months.

This book is quite helpful [if you go through http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk you can help Rupert's FUnd at the same time :)]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pain-Cure-P...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326281183&sr=1-1


You can learn distraction techniques which are really helpful for managing the pain during the day - although I find it much harder at night! The FM association is really helpful http://www.fibromyalgia-associationuk.org/index.php


SO sorry to hear about Dylan's eye problems - ulcers are very painful and he looks really miserable there. Be careful with the bucket collar as it can really aggravate the SM - if you are watching him, can he be left without it?

When Kyla had an ulcer, the vet was insisting she have a bucket collar and I said that she would not be able to wear it - he didn't believe me until he tried it and she was very agitated and would not settle - when I picked her up, she wasn't wearing it! We just managed her very carefully.
 
Good point on collars. I would try not to use those horrible and distressing stiff ecollars on SM dogs (and hate them for any dog or cat). There are lots of alternatives that are kinder -- inflatable ones and soft fabric ones -- also plain old supervision is all that is needed in 95% of cases where vets say animals must wear an ecollar :rolleyes:. I always remove them if at all possible and investing a modest sum in an inflatable collar is a smart thing for anyone with SM dogs or who hates ecollars. Inevitably people don't think about this until it is too late! They are pretty cheap and a great investment.

For example:

US: http://www.kvsupply.com/KVVet/produ...id=10605%&refcode=Froogle&CAWELAID=1087382339

UK: http://canineconcepts.co.uk/en/wound-protection/3782-kong-cloud-veterinary-collar.html

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buster-Inflatable-Collar-Nylon-Medium/dp/B005AIP59I

US: http://www.petco.com/product/100555/ProCollar-Premium-Inflatable-Protective-Collar.aspx
 
Nicki, you hit the nail on the head with everything there. :D Though I have naturally adapted to pace myself, I am now getting CBT to help me do it properly! I am impatient and always over do it, almost daily. I have acupuncture and swear by it but I pay privately for that so I wait until I'm really bad before I go, it's expensive. I take 600mg Pregabalin every day and this is marvellous for pain. I am however suffering a with my hips and lower spine at the moment so my physio is teaching me palates. I also wear a tens machine which I swear by.

Thank you for all the advice, I will check out all the links you gave :flwr:

You are also right about Dylan's collar, he hasn't stopped scratching his neck, it's really affected his SM so I have just taken it off and will keep it off.

I forgot to say before that I also changed Poppy's food to Burns incase she was allergic to Royal Canin, what do you think about that? I know you know a lot about dog food.
 
Thanks Karlin. Brian kindly sent me an inflatable collar a while ago which is great for neutering etc but won't stop a dog rubbing his eyes. I'll check out your links though incase there's some other alternative :flwr:
 
Hi Pauline. I am so sorry to hear this whole combination of health issues. It has been some rough weeks for all of you. I am thinking of you all. :hug: :hug: :flwr:
 
Thanks Charlotte. We are on way the up! Dylan is improving, I just hope the eyes are dry because of the conjunctivitis and it will improve once that's gone. Poppy's fur is slowly growing back so I think we may have cracked her allergy only I tried so many changes at once I'm not 100% sure what she was allergic to! I've had a good day and I'm now hooked up to my new tens machine and enjoying no back pain. :)
 
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