Hi, low platelet count. Don't know what that means...

[Maria Aportela]

Hi all sorry for not replaying in the last few weeks...

Here is the looong story:

Grommit will be 3 yrs old in july he is the most wonderful dog, if a bit unfriendly towards its fellow canines.

He had always been healthy but sometimes a little gassy :) on november 2010 he contarcted a cough so his vet put him on antibiotics. He seem to get better and we left for a one week vacation with him on december (he seemed fine) to my inlaws.

He ended up staying with the inlaws for another 2 weeks. When we picked him up he seem very eager tp leave an happy to see us. But as we arrived home I started to notice the cough come back and he was very thin, and after a day or two he started to look real bad and to wheeze so I call the vet again.

This time he order some blood work, which showed up an infection an a platelet count of 50,000 (normal is around 180,000 I hear), he took a chest xray and found the lungs with what appeared tp be spots on them. So an EKG was order to rule out a tumor or something, It came back normal.

Grommit was started on a one week antibiotic round and prednisone. After the week he was almost normal the wheezing had stopped within one or two days and he started to eat and gain some weight and more energetic. The prednisone was lowered to one day, one day off. And he seems real fine we have re-started our walks and joggs, but he had a blood test last week and his platelet count is still low 80,000 otherwise normal. So the vet order the treatment tp continue for another six months.

He says he has some sort of autoimmune thing going. Thrombocytopenia was also spoken about but he has had no bleeding to our knowledge..

Have you heard of this? What could it be? Prognosis? I am scared for Grommit.

I tried contacting the breeder a couple of times but they just won't answer, even my husband has tryied to contact them to no response at all. I know I have the right numbers as stated on ther webpage and a friend even contacted them around the same time regarding availability (they did answer that mail!!)

Sorry for the loooong post and all my rambling about, but he is the best dog.. and don't want to see him suffer...

 

Maria

[F, Calla & Luca]

A low platelet count is thrombocyopenia, thrombocyte being another term for platelets, penia meaning deficiency. Although I don't know what Grommit has, there are autoimmune thrombocytopenias and steroids like Prednisone are used to treat such things. These disorders occur in people, too. The prognosis is uncertain at this point I would think. It is a good thing that Grommit seems to respond to treatment, though. Bleeding occurs spontaneously only when the platelets get below a certain threshold so obviously Grommit is not there. I doubt an EKG was taken to rule out a tumor. I wish you the best with Grommit.

[Jessica]

I don't know about the canine world but I have ITP..As long as my platelets stay above 50,000 I am good to go with no symptoms...I sure do hope Grommit is able to keep his platelets in a healthy range...kisses to him from me!

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I have a young niece with ITP (low platelets) as well.  If it is the same in dogs as people, which I would assume it works the same, an important thing to watch for would be accidents .... like his running into something really hard or getting hit by something large or rough playing and getting run over by another large dog.  Reason being is he could bleed internally and the blood wouldn't clot and you wouldn't even know it.

[Maria Aportela]

Thanks a lot to all. 

F PArker that was really informative. Jessica, hope  you keep doing well.Lucy and Sophies mom sure hope your nice is doing well.

 

[Carol Brand]

50,000 is indeed a low platelet count.  Even 180,000 is on the low side of normal.  Many dogs are up in the 250,000 range.

 

My guess is that Grommit does have Thrombocytopenea but you didn't see bleeding because his platelet count had not dipped low enough.  When the platelet counts gets down around the 5000 range, many dogs spontaneously bleed to death.   Lucky you!  You caught it before it became life threatening.  I know that there is a chemo drug that can be given once that will pull platelets from the bone marrow.  Perhaps this is only done with dogs who are in a critical state.  

 

There are a number of reasons a dog gets Trombocytopenea: poisoning, tick related illness etc.  Commonly, however, in dogs it is immune mediated which means that the immune system is actively attacking the platelets.  Typical treatment is to give high doses of Pred until the immune system backs off and then slowly reduce the dosage.  If the platelet count remains high once the Pred is reduced, then the prognosis is good.  Some dogs never have another episode.  If, however, the count drops again or if the dog has additional attacks then things don't look as good for long term health and stability.   

Thrombocytopenea has a strong genetic component.  We don't know how it is passed, but we know that it is familial.   All dogs can get Thrombocytopenea but it is increasingly seen in Poodles, and Cockers have a real problem with it.   I don't know what kind of Doodle you have, but I would imagine that an Australian Labradoodle would be at higher risk for this disorder since many of them are a mix of Poodle and Cocker.  Your breeder does need to know about this.  Shame, shame, shame on her for not taking your call.  I would think that this information would influence her breeding decisions.

 

 

[Maria Aportela]

Thanks a lot, for your comments.

Lisa, The first time around it was just regular blood work, because we were checking for infections or the like. The second time I am not sure as I am still waiting for the actual "paper" just got the results by phone. I will ask the vet. The vet has  stated the Prednisone dose is very low. Just hoping it works and not the other way around.

Carol, to answer your question, yes he is Australian Labradoodle, miniature going into medium size territory :)

Yes it is such I shame about the breeder, I thought they were really ethical and cared about their dogs, but unfortunatedly it seems it is not the case. Before all this happened with Grommit we were actually thinking of getting another dog from them, as he does have a wonderful personality and looks :). Now we'll wait a bit to see how things develop with Grommit and also start searching for a new breeder.