30/01/09 Update on Karmel, my galga Espagnol, who has been suffering from a terrible genetic disease for nearly a year now.
We have been backwards and forwards to the vet. Karmel had been doing very well on Megasolene, 3/4 pill morning and evening. We then introduced Imurel, which is the human treatment for this disease, which does not have any side effects. Unfortunately, after a week, the disease started to break out on Karmel’s face again. We therefore had to increase the dose of megasolene to control this.
On Wednesday Karmel’s breathing rose to 19 per minute, not exhorbitantly high, but also noisy. Straight off to the vet again. Blood test and X-ray.
The blood test showed the her liver is now being affected by the megasolene. But there was no evidence in either the blood test nor the x-ray of anything which could cause the breathing problem.
In herself Karmel is a happy galga, walking the meadows with the other dogs, devouring her food – she drinks more than normal but that is a side effect of the megasolene – and the PF on her face irritates her for which I now have a cream.
After 3 days on antibiotics, her breathing has not dropped to normal. So the next stage is to visit a specialist dermatologist vet in Nantes, 2 hours’ drive away.
I’ll report on the results of that meeting in due course.
If you are interested in reading more about this disease, here is an interesting link.