A veterinarian’s life-saving story

[helvella]

How many times have people suggested animals get better treatment?

A veterinarian’s life-saving story

GAINESVILLE, Fla -

Sarah Boston, DVM, DVSc, Associate professor of Surgical Oncology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida knows her second chance at life is not a coincidence. That’s because it took her persistence and determination to fight for it.

“I found a mass in my neck and because of my experience treating thyroid cancer in dogs, I knew that it was in my thyroid and I knew that it was a new mass and I was very suspicious that it was a thyroid carcinoma,” explained Boston.

But she says it took a lot of convincing to get her doctors to believe something was actually wrong and to finally get an ultrasound showing the mass. Several doctors didn’t even think it was cancer.

Read rest of story here:

news4jax.com/news/a-veterin...

Rod

[PR4NOW]

Rod, Gainesville is supposed to be one of the top vet schools in the country. A couple of my vets were from there and both were excellent. News4Jax if one of the TV stations in Jacksonville, FL. where I lived for too many years. PR

[Spareribs]

awhile ago I composed a post about getting a hypo diagnosis as a dog (by saying nothing...) luckily I didn't post it as obviously I would be sectioned, finally....

however I have recently been diagnosed by a high TSH blood test - when I wasn't feeling particularly poorly & didn't say anything much at the appointment... hmm... grr (shows teeth )

[Ruthi]

One of my dogs is hypo. I took him to my vet because he suddenly started to gain weight, and the vet spotted subtle coat changes in his coat too. The interesting thing is that a) they ignore TSH in dogs on Levo and b) with dogs on replacement hormones they keep them at a higher level of circulating hormones than dogs producing their own 'because its less effective than their own hormone'. As far as I can tell, the reference ranges for dogs on replacement were arrived at by looking at behaviour, or in other words, how the dogs feel.

I wish my vet could treat my hypo!

[Hillwoman in reply to Ruthi]

Yes, I have noticed time and again the reliance of vets on careful clinical observation, rather than The Blood Test.

My cat has food intolerances. I was amazed that the vets even suggested this possibility as the cause of her stomach upsets. A human medic will insist there is no proof that such a state can even exist - only outright allergy evidenced by anaphylactic shock, or the presence of autoimmune antibodies in the blood, e.g. Coeliac Disease.

[shaws]

We will have to make an appointment at Vets and we will get:-

First - get an accurate diagnosis

Second - a choice of different thyroid medication.

Third - we don't even have to explain or tell our clinical symptoms.

Fourth - they have the skills.

[Ruthi]

Actually there is no choice of medication. Not for dogs anyway. They metabolise much faster than we do(half life of T4 is 8-10 hours instead of 8 days for humans), and need much larger doses. NDT is no longer available (it used to be before T4, but hasn't been for many years). Luckily they seem to cope reasonably well on Levo!

If you have a hypothyroid dog its important to divide the dose, and give an hour before food. This small requirement controls our life!! We have to be home (or have brought dog and pill) at 5.30pm for pill before 6.30 meal. And no lie-ins. The dog needs his pill at 7.30!!!! This part is NOT well known among british vets!

[joyce59]

one other thing which has been missed on these posts is that we pay high fees for vets to treat our animals (not that i begrudge paying it) but its got me thinking if most of us in the uk had to pay for our treatment rather than rely on the NHS we would then expect the highest standards of care.