Dog Lyme-disease Symptoms | Treatment

Lyme disease is not only able to transmit to humans, but also can attack your pets, like your dog! The disease is caused by bacteria what we call as ‘Borrelia burgdorferi’ (it is a kind of spirochete bacteria which can spread to human and pets through a bite of deer tick). If you love your dog and you live in areas with high population of deer tick, you need to clearly understand about Lymes disease symptoms in dogs!

You may also like to read about dog arthritis treatment and congestive heart failure in dogs, before continuing!

Old Lyme is a town in the U.S where the disease discovered for the first time in 1975. And today, there are more states in the U.S that are suggested as the high population of deer tick — for more in-depth information, ask to a local health department!

How is Lyme disease transmitted to dogs?

The period from ‘spring’ to ‘autumn’ is the most active period of ticks — grass and tall brush are some of common places where they live in this period. As written before, Lyme disease in dogs is spread by deer tick or also familiar called as ‘Ixodes scapularis’.

We all agree that summer is great time to enjoy outdoor with your dog, but it also can be major factor to put you and your dog at higher risk of getting a tick bite. And like Lyme disease in humans, the disease can be spread to dog through a tick bite (especially by an infected tick).

Once your dog get an attached tick & tick bite (in many cases it attaches around ear, neck, feet, and head area), your dog has a higher risk of having Lyme disease. Dogs with high exposure of ticks might be more prone to have Lyme disease. 

Additionally, there are also other types of tick that also can affect the health of your dog. Some of them are ‘Dermacentor variabilis’ (the American tick) and ‘Rhipicephalus sanguineus’ (brown dog tick).

How to notice any tick in your dog?

You need to extra precautions during the active season of ticks. Fortunately, we can see an attached tick with our naked eyes. Check your dog regularly during warmer months!

If you notice any attached tick in your dog, be careful in removing it. If you in doubt on how to do it properly, call a pet healthcare or veterinarian if necessary to remove the attached ticks completely and prevent/eliminate future infection! Any contact with the blood of tick can spread the infection to you and your dog. Make sure the attached tick is completely removed as soon as possible, because the transmission of Lyme disease ‘from an infected tick to your dog’ usually only takes a few hours.

Dog Lyme disease symptoms

Once your dog has had Lyme disease, there is chance for your dog to experience the same condition for the second time — particularly for the recurrent lameness of the limbs which usually caused by the joint inflammation.

Dogs with Lyme disease may experience acute lameness in the legs. It usually lasts for 2-4 days, but will come back /recur days or weeks later in the same of area (the infected leg of dog) or may also infect other legs if left untreated.

Untreated Lyme disease in dog may also generate problems associated with the kidney, which then may cause dysfunction & inflammation in the glomeruli of the kidney! This condition finally will lead to the kidney failure and then will generate some symptoms, such as; fluid buildup in some areas of the body (under the skin, legs, and abdomen), weight loss (poor appetite), vomiting, thirst /increased urination, and diarrhea.

Other signs of dogs with Lyme disease may include:

1. In rare cases, dog may also experience complications associated with nervous system.


2. Swollen in the site of getting a bite tick.


3. Shortness of breath /difficult to breath. And in rare cases, problems that indicate heart abnormalities may occur.


4. Your dog is getting more sensitive if you touch!


5. And fever.

Furthermore, a tick bite is not only associated with Lyme disease. There are also other complications that can be caused by a tick bite in your dog. Some of them are skin irritation, anemia or blood loss, tick paralysis, and ehrlichiosis!

How about with the prevention and treatment?

The best idea in preventing Lyme disease is by protecting your dog to keep far away from a tick bite. There are available some products that not only effective to kill ticks but also can treat fleas. These products are usually also purposed to protect your dog from the future infection. Dogs with the environment of high tick population are usually recommended to use these topical treatments.

Talk more with a vet to find the right advices about a specific product that you should choose for your pets! Ask also to her/him for more tips to eliminate the distribution of ticks in your local environment! Don’t forget also to ask about the use of vaccine for your dog, it may help your pet in preventing Lyme disease.

How about with the treatment? Below are helpful checklists:

1. Like the treatment of Lyme disease in humans, the treatment of the disease in dogs also involves antibiotics. And antibiotics are the primer component of the treatment in any stage of Lyme disease. There are some types of antibiotics to choose from. The right one that will be given by your vet is closely dependent to the stage of the disease and the symptoms that occur. 


2. Infected dog with mild symptoms (the early stage of Lyme disease) are usually considered with outpatient treatment, unless if its condition is severe!


3. Your vet usually gives advice to keep your pet in warm & dry place. Furthermore, you need to keep monitoring the activities of your pet and the progress of its symptoms!


4. You may want to use some pain medications, but much better to avoid them until your vet recommends them!


5. How about with the dietary changes? It is usually not required, but sometimes may be recommended by your vet.

In addition, read also the previous post about Lyme disease in children!

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Reference: WebMD and PetMD
Image credit to ‘shutterstock’ for illustration

BC Dogs Get Better Lyme Treatment Than People

B.C. dogs get better Lyme treatment than people

Because disease rarely detected in humans, infected often denied cure

By David Cubberly, Special to Times ColonistJuly 6, 2010

It’s astounding that a single Victoria veterinarian sees more Lyme disease in dogs yearly than are “confirmed” by the Centre for Disease Control for humans across B.C. (“Tests spot tick-borne disease in retriever,” June 26).

How can it be that we see only four to six cases a year of Lyme in humans if one vet sees a case a month of tick-borne disease in dogs (and most often Lyme)?

I hope the standard of care given Annie the retriever will one day be available to people in B.C. Right now it’s not. Annie’s vet suspected tick-borne illness, recognized the need to test for Lyme disease and knew enough to also test for other tick-borne illnesses.

Humans come to doctors with known symptoms of tick-borne illness, yet often face incomprehension or worse.

The few suspected of having Lyme face a flawed test that misses most Lyme disease, which allows those responsible to continue claiming that the disease is rare.

What’s rare about Lyme is its detection in humans, which denies many infected people prompt access to cure.

Annie’s vet began treating her immediately with antibiotics, based on clinical diagnosis — something our doctors are said to be able to do, but rarely can.

Antibiotics are typically withheld from humans unless a blood test “proves” there’s Lyme disease, which it rarely does in B.C. Really unlucky people — those who get chronic Lyme disease because their initial infection isn’t treated — are typically denied antibiotics entirely.

Annie’s vet also understands that an array of disease can be communicated by ticks and arranged a battery of tests. If B.C. doctors are reluctant to test for Lyme disease, they’re even less likely to order tests for infections like Babesiosis or Bartonella. (It turned out in the end that Annie had Erlichiosis, not Lyme.)

Annie’s vet ordered the tests through a California lab, with reliable results, and Annie’s owner privately paid. Yet when people pay out of pocket to have themselves tested in California, B.C. health care refuses to accept the results as diagnostic of Lyme disease and denies them access to antibiotic therapy. Antibiotics are the only medicine effective in treating Lyme disease.

Compared to humans, dogs enjoy an enviable standard of care for Lyme and other tick-borne infections. In fact, it would be more accurate to say people face a standard of neglect in B.C. today, and that those responsible have their heads firmly planted in the sand.

David Cubberley is a director of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation and former MLA for Saanich South.

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Dogs, Cats and Lymes Disease Symptoms and Treatment

Lymes disease is resourceful to regard human pets differently. Doomed pets demonstration lymes disease symptoms symptoms, piece several others display fever, uncomfortable joints, ejection, tiredness, and death of craving. The spirochaete may impairment excited system, organs, eyes, and kidneys of pets, if their Lymes disease is not dressed in instance.

Cats:

Cats are possible to take travel difficulties, decease of appetence, eye harm, unusual inhaling, and pyrexia. Individual cats pussy with Lymes disease also take seeable symptoms.

Dogs:

Dogs diagnosed with Lymes disease may be listless, and can soul pyrexia ranging between 103°F – 105°F, along lymes disease symptoms bad craving. They may also receive gameness. Hunch disorders, kidney unfortunate, hostility, and embarrassment are otherwise Lymes disease symptoms seen in dogs.

From my personalized pet’s get, I can say that dogs are contractable to Lymes bacterium, but they do not evince viewable Lymes disease symptoms. They also demo the synoptical demonstration for the disease as of humans.

Precautional Measures:

In fee with my ain experience and research, beneath mentioned are destined healthful measures that you can rely on to service your pets rescript unoccupied from Lymes disease lymes disease symptoms

o Pertain tick-terminating chemicals on your pet’s region to armour them from Lymes disease extension catching ticks. You can use dips and sprays containing pyrethrins and permethrins to penalize ticks on horses, cats, and dogs. Handle the utilisation really carefully, as individual pets are supersensitive or are nociceptive to these sprays and chemicals.

o You can use foam handwear during the utilization enation. Tick collars faculty also aid to dismay ticks from offensive your pets. Assure that you never dispense double repellents on your pet, lymes disease symptoms a harmonise of various chemicals could egest your pet really sick.

o Insure to safeguard your pet against ticks when admitting in a sound environs, specified as beach sens, timbered, fruticulose, or grasslike areas. Tidy grasslike areas frequently to belittle mark habitation, which is the root grounds of Lymes disease.

o Require mind of the habitat with insecticides motivated specifically for ticks. One determinative object that I would equivalent to add is to refrain contaminating irrigate, as experts have suggested to spray insecticides at minimal 75 feet departed grade a wellspring or any intemperance liquid embody.

o Tidy timed tick-checks and examine your pets intimately to domino any embedded ticks, which can seriously affect lymes disease symptoms pet with Lymes disease contagion.

Finally, my blossom tip for you is to ask your veterinarian to obtain an befitting treatment for your pet’s Lymes disease

Treatment for Lyme Disease in Dogs

By Geraldine Dimarco

What is canine Lyme disease? This is a condition that has affected thousands of dogs every year. This is not specific only to dogs – humans and other pets can contract Lyme disease. While it is generally not fatal in nature; it can cause extreme pain to the canine and possibly bring severe damage to him when left untreated for a long time.

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium called Borrelia. It is transmitted through deer ticks and is more prevalent in certain areas in the United States. This feeding tick secretes enzymes to keep the host?s blood from clotting and it is this particular enzyme that causes the dog to be sick. If the tick is removed within 48 hours, the spirochete is not transmitted and the dog will not get infected.

Knowing the signs and symptoms of dog diseases will help in keeping your pet from having to suffer this dreaded ailment. Dog Lyme symptoms are not as easily detected as pet owners would have liked? nevertheless, they are useful to know about for future reference.

Typically, the infected dog will have fever of 103 to 105 Fahrenheit in the earlier stages of Lyme disease. He will also lose interest in food. While fever and loss of appetite are common signs and symptoms of dog diseases, when coupled with other factors related to dog Lyme disease, it is reasonable to conclude that the canine is indeed suffering from this condition.

The most common symptom linked to this disease is the victim’s lameness. Indeed, Lyme disease has often been mistaken as arthritis even by some veterinarians. You will notice that this limp may transfer to another limb and disappear, only to come back after a few weeks or months.

Lymphadenopathy (disease of the lymph nodes) will accompany the arthritis-like symptoms. The tick transmits the infection to the bloodstream. It then travels to the other body parts, specifically to the joints and limbs , and you will see a swelling of the lymph nodes. When you notice that the pain is not localized in the joints and limbs, it is highly probable that the disease has reached its more progressive stages.

Severe pain throughout the whole body is an indication that the disease is already widespread and has affected the dog’s neurological system. The more critical cases of Lyme disease will cause heart and kidney problems, as well as complications in the nervous system of the dog.

If your canine has been exhibiting dog Lyme disease symptoms, visit the vet immediately to obtain a diagnosis. Take note of when your dog has been exposed to ticks or if you have seen any of these parasites on your dog lately. If your dog has been previously vaccinated for ticks, his immune system will be able to fight off Lyme disease on its own.

The good news is Lyme disease is simple to address. Be sure to vaccinate and groom your pet regularly to inhibit this condition. Check with your vet if there are any changes in your dog’s physical and behavioral patterns.

About the Author:

Knowing about common dog diseases is essential to keep your pet as healthy as possible. Discover important information on dog diseases and symptoms that can help save your dog’s life one day.