On This page:
What To Expect When You Go To The Vet With A Pet Having Neuralolgical Symptoms
Directory to other pages about specific Neural Diseases
in the Cat and Dog
Dysautonomia: a little about this rare disease also known as Grass Sickness
And Misc comments, jokes, pictures, and fund raising advertisments for our shelter
Directory to pages about specific neural diseases and problems:
and in the near future; information about
Nervous System Injuries
Wobbler's Syndrome
Degenerative Myelopathy
Hereditary Myelopathy of Afghan Hounds
Central Nervous System Bacterial and Fungal Infections
Parasitic Neural Diseases
Other Nervous Disorders
What to Expect if you were to bring a Pet to our Hospital with Signs of Neural Disease
(Of course, other vets may do things differently)
History: We want to know what unusual behavior your pet is showing, whether or not there is any circling, stumbling, seizures, quivering, drooling etc. We need to know, as best you can remember, the duration and frequency of any symptoms. Has there been any exposure you know of to poisons, mushrooms, insect bites, fumes, or extreme activity. Has there been any recent illness, Injury, pregnancy, heat, diet change, or medication?
Exam: A head to toe exam is critical for a couple of reasons; 1. so many different injuries and diseases can conceivably cause neural signs, and 2. often there are multiple things going on that we would miss if we stopped as soon as we found something wrong. The brain and the rest of the nervous system is quite sensitive to changes in pressure, temperature, sugar, urea, electolytes, oxygen, and hormone levels as well as to various poisons, endotoxins, and medications. With this many factors as possible causes, we need to take the time for a very careful exam and history. This will include looking closely at the responses of the eye and at the ear drum. One of the more interesting things you will see your vet do that you might not notice on a more routine exam is the checking of reflexes...to include the famous knee jerk...trying to pinpoint where the problem is.
Diagnostics: It's pretty important NOT to dink around with trail treatments when dealing with problems that are obviously affecting the brain or central nervous system.
The exception would be if we think the neural signs are due to obvious major trauma such as being hit by a car (known in the business as HBC or more recently; vehicular trauma) or kicked by a horse (KBH), well, then we go right to treatment and hope that the neural signs are temporary and will improve as soon as the shock, swelling, and inflammation are brought under control.
Otherwise, we will likely need to take advantage of some tests to figure out what's going on. And, of course, sometimes even with extensive testing, we may come up blank.
Initial tests at our clinic would include:
CBC (complete blood count) looking for signs of anemia, bleeding disorders, and various types of infection.
Blood Chemistry; clues about possible kidney, liver, panceas, diabetic, and electrolyte problems...all of which might be causes of neural signs.
Thyroid Testing; especially in older cats but not a bad idea in all neural cases. Thyroid hormone affects practically everything.
Antifreeze Poisoning Test; I don't actually have this expensive test available, but your vet might recommend it in some situations...and possibly save your pet's life because of an early diagnosis...critical with antifreeze.
Microscopic Fecal Tests for parasites; especially in puppies and poorly cared for pets where whip or hook worms might be the cause of anemia and/or endotoxin absorption.
Urinalysis; more clues about possible diabetes, protein loosing diseases, and kidney disease.
Titers; for distemper, lymes disease and other infectious diseases if suspected
Radiographs; I don't do skull or spinal radiographs for most neural cases, but they would be appropriate if the exam revealed pain or abnormalities on spinal palpation or neck manipulation. Or if we suspect a possible mass or other problem in the head.
Other Tests that might be done by a specialist or possibly your veterinarian:
Spinal Fluid Tap; testing for pressure, infection, cancer, and inflammation
Special Radiographs of the spinal cord using dyes to highlight subtle lesions
And believe it or not, cat scans, mri's, ultra sound imaging, and other newer imaging techniques.
A comment about testing: the availablity of all these tests in human and veterinary medicine would be considered amazing not long ago and as a result, we are saving a lot more lives, but be prepared for the possiblity of not getting an easy answer. The nervous system is extremely complex. And the interpetation of lab results is not always straight forward either.
By the way, I've compiled an explaination about what all those lab tests mean on the page about metabolic diseases.
Treatment:
Treatment of the various neural problems ranges a great deal depending on the cause
but will always/usually include;
1. Control of the symptoms if possible, whatever they might be, such as vomiting, seizures, anxiety, and pain.
2. Supportive care to maintain hydration, temperature, nutrition, voiding, and electolyte balance.
3. Control of infection and inflammation.
4. Repair, if needed and possible, of damaged bones, vertebrae, and tissue. In other words; surgery
5. And the very likely possiblity of referral to the heavy metal drummers of our profession (specialists) in serious cases or those cases not yet diagnoised or responding to intial treatment.
Dysautonomia
by Roger Ross, DVM
I'd be surprised if you need to know about this rare disease, but if you happen to on this page for another reason, I thought you might find this disease kind of interesting.
As I mentioned, it's a rare disease. Rare, that is, unless you happen to live in Missouri. Or Kansas.
Symptoms:
Dilated pupils, poor pupil constriction, and raised 3rd lids
Possible vomiting or upchucking
Irregular heart rate
Dry mucous membranes
Weakness
Difficulty Urinating
These are all symptoms of a poorly functioning autonomic system. Dysautonomia is a degenerative disease of the autonomic nervous system. Unfortunately, this disease is often fatal, and so far, incurable. Most patients are euthanized to give them relief from their misery.
Grass Sickness. This degenerative disease of the autonomic nervous system was first written about in Britain about horses in the early 1900's. You may recall that horses were of supreme importance in that era. The disease was called Grass Sickness and in equine circles it's still called that.
Horses afflicted with dysautonomia typically die of colic or other GI problems. That's because the autonomic nervous system controls the motility and secretions of the intestinal system.
The disease was next detected in cats. But not until 1982! Again, this was in Great Britain. Soon after that, the problem was detected in hundreds of cats across Europe.
Apparently it was a sort of epidemic somewhat similar to mad cow disease, because after those first hundreds of cases, the number of cats affected went way down. In cats, the symptoms are similar to dogs (dilated pupils, raised 3rd eyelid, poor tear production, and GI signs caused by poor motility such as constipation, and dry mouth.)
In 1983, the same disease was discovered in dogs. Again it was the British who first documented the disease. The disease has since been detected in dogs throughout Europe and the U.S. but for some reason the disease seems to be now concentrated in Missouri and Kansas.
Roy Berghaus, DVM, wrote an article about the disease. He compared 174 dogs examined at the University of Missouri-42 dogs diagnosed with dysautonomia and 132 control dogs examined for other issues. His findings were published in the April 15, 2001, edition of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Basically he found that rural dogs were more likely to get the disease. Perhaps because
they were more likely to have access to pasture land, farm ponds, and cattle. And more likely to have eaten carrion and wildlife. Other findings were that most of the dogs were fairly young and that the diseased occurred almost always in the early Spring of the year.
Researchers are busy trying to figure out the cause of the disease. Maybe soon.
Oh, by the way, when I compared this disease to being somewhat like Mad Cow disease, I forgot to tell you that it doesn't seem to affect humans.
For more information:
Canine dysautonomia site at the University of Missouri <http://www.cvm.missouri.edu/neurology/Dysauton/dyshome.htm>
On Other Pages:
Caution: Must be 18 or over
A few comments about pets with neural signs
If you take the time to read about some of the different neural diseases on these pages, you will appreciate how many of them have similar symptoms.
Basically, anything that affects the brain can cause depression, hypersensitivity, seizures, paralysis of different degrees, increased salivation, pain, fever, and the drunken like staggering we call ataxia.
While an experienced veterinarian can often guess what disease is likely, or even successfully treat your pet without knowing exactly which neural disease it has, don't expect a definitive diagnosis without a fair amount of expensive testing.
And don't be surprised if your vet doesn't get the correct diagnois right off the bat...we often have to rule out a few things we suspect before the mystery is solved.
Also, many times the neural signs are the result of disease in other organs. Diabetes, liver disease, endocarditis, and bacterial invasion through unhealthy gut or gums are examples.
And lastly, be realistic about the prognosis; brain and spinal cord disease is very serious.
For high school and college graduates, here is a list of 11 things you might not learn in school.
In his book, Bill Gates
talks about how feel-good, politically-correct teachings
created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
RULE 1.................Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2.....................The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3..........................
You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars
a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4...........................
If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
RULE 5....................
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6.............................
If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn
from them.
RULE 7............................
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got
that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are.
So before you save the rain forest from the parasites
of your parents' generation, try "delousing" the closet
in your own room.
RULE 8....................Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not.
In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance
to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9.....................Life is not divided into semesters.
You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10.....................
Television is NOT real life.
In real life people actually have to leave the coffee
shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11.....................Be nice to nerds. Chances
are you'll end up working for one.
Here's a Brain Twister
Say the color; not the word:
YELLOW BLUE ORANGE BLACK RED GREEN PURPLE YELLOW RED ORANGE GREEN BLACK BLUE RED PURPLE GREEN BLUE ORANGE
Left-Right Conflict: your right brain tries to say the color but your left brain insist on reading the word.
Something of Interest:
Despite excluding prayer from public school, we still open sessions of Congress and the Senate with a Christian prayer. But it seems the prayer is expected to be polically correct.
When Minister Joe Wright
was asked to open the new session of the KANSAS SENATE, everyone
was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says,
"Woe to those who call evil good", but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that.
We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery,
we have rewarded laziness and called it welfare,
we have killed our unborn and called it choice,
we have shot abortionists and called it justifiable,
we have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem,
we have abused power and called it politics,
we have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition,
we have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of speech,
we have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every
sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will and to openly ask these things in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen!!"
The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest.
But in 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, they logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of
those calls responding negatively.
The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa, and Korea.
Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story ", and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.
With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called, "..one nation under God. "
JUST A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.......
The year is 1902 , one hundred years ago ... what a difference a century makes. Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902:
1. The average life expectancy in the U.S. was forty-seven (47).
2. Only 14 Percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
3. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
4. There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. and only 144 miles of paved roads.
5. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
6. Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
7. The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
8. The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
9. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
10. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
11. More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
12. Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
13. Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
14. Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
15. Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
16. The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
17. The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
18. The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.
19. Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
20. There were no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
21. One in ten U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
22. Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
23. Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
24. There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
As they say, "We've come a long way, Baby!"
