heart valve, fluid retension, old age, what is it?

[My Angel Pie]

Hi we have an elderley (12yr) old Terrier. Ove the past 6 weeks or so she has developed a very 'horsey' cough, we have had several trips (4 now!) to the vets and some of the diagnosis has been...(don't think they really know"!)
dodgy heart valve (tablets given)
Fluid around lungs (diaretics given)
enlarged heart (will need scan?)
and tonights guess was agrivated Larynx (spelling?) and was told to administer cough mixture (benelin!!!!).
our poor dog wheezes, clears her throat and coughs constantly. Any one else out there got any bright ideas, we are thinking of switching vets, our current lot seem to be guessing each time. We will pay for xrays/scans etc which we've been told with blood tests will be �250-300, but i don't feel they know what they are on about, any similar stories would be useful to know. TIA

[My Angel Pie]

sorry other 'diagnosis' from the vets have been.....

kennel cough (so antibiotics) no idea if she had it, but she's still coughing, so don't reckon it was KC.

too much diaretic (maybe she's now too dry, so halve the daily dose)

so all in all, we take her back and they say it's something else, my partner got quite shirty with them tonight, we just want to know what's wrong with her, they have clutched at straws for weeks in my opinion (we keep payng for new treatments each time) if you could hear her coughing i'd say 18 hours out 24 a day the poor thing must be exhausted. if and when she lays still and doesn't move she doesn't cough, other than that she coughs all the time. \She is still eating, wagging her tail and funnily enough after a walk tends not to weeze/cough for about half anhour - any ideas????

[Noweia]

I'm sorry tht you've had such a hard time with your dog!

Coughing dogs can be hard to diagnose, and the main two causes in this country are infectious bugs (e.g kennel cough, which is fairly common although more usually seen in younger animals) and heart disease, of which there are many different types.

Your dog may have heart disease. It could all start with a dodgy heart valve, as you say. The heart has to work harder to get the blood through the bad valve, causing it to enlarge. Over time blood will start to back up along all the veins because it isn't being pumped quick enough around the body - this causes fluid buildup in the tissues, especially the lungs.

Dogs with heart disease may also seem breathless or tire very quickly and can cough a lot. If your poor dog is coughing as often as you say, I'm not surprised her larynx is inflamed or sore - I know my throat hurts when I get a bad cough.

Treatments for heart disease usually involve drugs to make the heart beat faster and diuretics to try and get rid of some of the fluid buildup around the tissues. it may take a while to work out a dose rate for an individual, because every dog is different. Diagnosis involves listening to the heart as it will sound different from normal, x-rays and ultrasound scans would should a bigger heart, and lung sounds may sound raspy due to the fluid buildup. Blood tests may rule out some of the other causes of coughing or maybe show up something else. I guess these are the tests your vet has done?

If it is heart disease, one thing to remember is that it will never be cured by drugs, so it will never go away completely and your pup will always have a cough to some degree, although the drugs should reduce the severity of the disease.

Hope this helps.

[My Angel Pie]

thank you for the reply, really interesting. Funnily enough the vets rang today insisting we take her in to be put out and x-rayed etc to see what's going on. My partner in the meantime sought recomendation and took her to another practice, the new vet was brilliant and very understanding, he couldn't believe all the drugs and avenues the old vets had gone down to no avail, he also mentioned that it is her lungs, yes she does have a slight enlarged heart and this is due to normal age etc, but her main problem is fluid/infection on her lungs. He would NO WAY put her under in her condition and age, it would not be good in her present state and unlikely she would recover. I don't know what my old vets were thinking of over the past 6 weeks or so, seems the new one is confused also. I'm so angry that she has been so uncomfortable, we have spent over �200 pounds to date and she's worse than ever. Fingers crossed the new guy will sort her. She is after all an old lady who we care for dearly, will keep you posted on her progress. If the old vet come back and charge us for all the drugs they pumped into her (they took her from the consulting room into another roon for about 20 mins) only today did the new vet notice all the new injections they gave her and again thought they were conflicting to the symptoms etc, so if they send a bill should we decline. they are on the back foot and actually had a meeting toiday to discuss our dog, from the outside i feel they are sorting their stories - what do you think??? TIA

[Snappy]

My advice would be to change your vets and visit this site http://www.dogclub.co.uk/forum/index.php you'll get VERY good advice on there. We'll need to know lots more info tho!

You dont have to go along with everything your vet says, its your dog and your money, if you're not happy with the diagnosis/treatment, you dont have to put up with it!

[PHorwood]

Our friends dog had very similar symptoms, non stop coughing, and the vet discovered that he had got lung worm. Really nasty but can be cured with really strong doses of worming powder. Apparently it has come over from the continent and can be spread by foxes.

[My Angel Pie]

thanks PHorwood - somebody else has told me the exact thing, now if we know thatr and we are not vets, why on earth don't the vets do that as a pre-requisit? Will speak to our new vets and ask advice.

thanks again.