On Sunday the 22 of November Maggie, our little long haired long legged Jack Russtle Terrier’s Jaw started to drop, by the end of the day she could hardly close it half way. That is how quickly she was affected. We took her to the vet the following day. We were told that it might be a muscular problem and we given some anti-inflammatory syrup to give her.
By the following Saturday we were getting very scared indeed, She could not stand properly or walk in a straight line. Back to the vets we went to be asked if we had insurance. The following day we went to the hospital at Bristol, a round trip of over 4 hours.
She had been booked in for a MRI Scan and a Spinal tap. We were told that the tap would not be available as the labs did not work on Sunday and there was no point in doing the MRI scan until the following day……..
On the Monday we could not face the journey again and thought that little Maggie would not survive the stress of it all.
We returned to our own local vets and insisted on seeing the practice’s top man.
He examined her and gave us the choice of Bristol or taking a gamble. As it could be only a stroke, a brain tumour or Idiopathic, the only real choice was Steroids.
The point of this web page is point out that as her symptoms were affecting all of her face and body it was unlikely to be a stroke which normally affects only one side, if it is a brain tumour it would be most likely inoperable, if was idiopathic then it was guess time anyway, as idiopathic means unknown cause, and so treatment is a gamble.
We took the option of steroids as we had nothing to loose, the vet seemed to think that there was very little hope.
Nursing her night and day feeding her by syringe, giving her eye drops every 2 hours for three days waiting for the anti-inflammatory drugs to leave her system before we could start on the steroids. At 3am on the Thursday Morning it was felt we could wait no more this was kill or cure time. By Saturday afternoon, she could just eat little by herself. Within a week she could walk in a straight line. A week previously she would ask to go out but could not even walk back across the road. She was having to be carried nearly everywhere. Now she could walk and eat and drink. Slowly her mouth returned to the closed position.
It would be weeks until we first saw her blink, she can still not fully close her eyes, but we think her full return to health is now hopefully only a few more months away.
So there is always hope, just make sure you see the top man, listen to all of his advice, think very carefully, but most of all you know your dog, observe your dog, and use your own brain to do the very best for your dog. It may not always be about money, it is about care and hope, they won’t mend a broken leg, but they can be the best medicine if administered with expert advice.
If your dogs jaw starts to stay open, seek advice and consider it might not be a stroke or brain tumour, it might be idiopathic, steroids used carefully may help, it will take a long time, but all I can say is that they helped our little Maggie and gave her back to us, from a dark place that we thought she would not return from………….