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Watering mouth, lethargic, neurological symptoms. PLEASE HELP
My 2 year old, 5 pound Maltese was falling over and disoriented about a week ago. I took her to a vet and they said that it was probably from a mild ear infection. She seemed to be doing fine but the all of a sudden became lethargic during the day, she wont walk and she is drooling a lot leaving puddles of water wherever she lies. Her head bobs when she tries to keep her head up. When she has the energy, usually at night she walks around the bed in circles stepping on us and the other dogs or paces around the apartment sad with her tail between her leg. I took her back to the vet today and he is running some blood tests but said he thinks that she has a splint in her liver causing some of the waste to go into her body. He said this was going to be very expensive to correct and I've had dogs misdiagnosed to the sum of 10K in the past. I swore I would never do that again and don't want to lose her. Does anyone have any ideas of what could make a 2 year old 5 pound Maltese act like this?
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Answers
Unfortunately, the symptoms that you are taking about sound a lot more serious than an ear infection.
There are a number of conditions that can cause this sort of thing, but it's impossible to tell for sure unless you have a vet do exactly what he's doing; running bloodwork and tests.
My advice if you're not comfortable with the diagnosis is to get a second opinion. Obviously, time is of the essence and getting her to another doctor soon is a good idea since the longer you have to wait for results, the longer treatment is delayed.
As for what else it might be, well....it could be something called White Shaker Syndrome which affects any kind of dog, but commonly white dogs like Westies and Maltese. It's usually treated with valium or diazepam and it's curable but it needs to be definitively diagnosed first. Ask your vet about this syndrome just to be sure.
Good luck, please come back and let us know how she is.
while he's at it, have him do a blood test for tick borne diseases, at least two can cause neurolgical problems. Even if you are sure she didn't have a tick check, some ticks are really teeny and with a long haired dog could be easy to miss.
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