I have a 2 year old purebred GSD whom up until about 3 months ago was a completely healthy and happy dog. In September I took him in for his 2 year vaccinations to which he had a reaction. The day after the vaccines I noticed he was very slow moving and was not eating his food so I immediately took him to the vet. Once arrived they confirmed he had swollen joints and was running a fever, to which they kept him overnight on IV steroids to alleviate his fever and his swollen joints. They are claiming that his body had an auto immune reaction to the vaccine which is now causing his immune system to attack his joints. They did a joint tap and blood tests to make sure there were no preexisting joint diseases or other problems that could have caused this, all came back clean.

After coming home from the vet they had given me about a months worth of prednisone to suppress his immune system long enough for his joints to heal up. He was doing well until about a week after the prednisone was finished, when his joints once again swelled up and were causing him pain. After going back to the vet he was put back on prednisone for a longer term.

In the mean time, I had gone off on holidays and he was boarded at the kennel I've been boarding at for many years. I received a phone call while on holidays saying that the kennel owner had taken him into the vet as his front left leg had swollen up substantially overnight, to the point where he could no longer walk. Again the vet put him on antibiotics and steroids, this time claiming that a small cut in his leg had caused an infection and because of his immune system being suppressed by the steroids he was not able to fight it effectively.

I now have him back at home and his leg is healing up, however I'm still noticing that he's having joint pain even while on a full dose of prednisone. His legs are weak which is evident when he does stairs or walks on my tile floors.

With research I now see that reactions to vaccines are common, however after searching I was unable to find anything specifically involved with joint problems. The vet has said he may have to stay on prednisone his entire life, and of course I'm not happy with that answer due to the side effects involved with prednisone. I've ordered joint and immune system supplements online but it will be a while before I know if this will help at all.

I'm hoping somebody on this board will be able to offer some insight, advice, or has perhaps dealt with something similar to this in the past. I'm not sure where the next step is in his recovery, and I fear he may already have substantial joint damage would could substantially shorten his life span. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

What vax did he have? (You will find this on the invoice from that visit.) Distemper?

Does the lameness wander at all or it is always the same joints, same limbs?

Is this a GP vet? Have you considered a referral to a rheumatologist?

Vaccines given were Rabies, Distemper, and Parvo.

The lameness is in all joints, all 4 limbs. Aside from the infection caused by the cut, all of his joints have been swelling.

The vet is a GP, and she put in a call to a holistic vet based out of Calgary this afternoon to see if she could offer any other advice.

Was it a modified-live canine distemper vaccine?





eta
I know this is not the first thing on your mind, but this should be reported to the vax manufacturer.

Edited by Connie Sutherland (12/21/2011 05:19 PM)
Edit reason: eta

The vet did report it to the manufacturer who claimed there had been no other cases reported.

I'm happy to report I did hopefully make some progress today, I spoke personally with Dr. Jean Dodds after my breeder had recommended I do so. I have an appointment on Friday with a holistic vet referred to me by Dr. Dodds who told me she had seen many cases such as the one I'm describing.

My local GP vet is out of ideas so I'm hoping my appointment on Friday will bring good news. I'll continue to update this thread in case somebody else runs into this problem in the future.

Was it a modified-live canine distemper vaccine? Did you find out?

Hi - I'm going to slightly hijack this thread, rather than making a new one, because this problem is so similar to the one my sister's dog is currently having. I've been meaning to post about this for a while but haven't been able to get to it until now.

My sister's dog is the brother of my younger dog... a 4.5 yr old lab/border collie mix (that's our best guess). My dog got more of the lab in him and Ruben got more of the border collie.

To make a long story short: he was fine at the end of Aug and competed (successfully) in his first agility trial, but sometime in Sept he started to have some limping. My sister and the vets assumed he'd re-injured a soft-tissue injury he'd had a year ago. As time went by and it didn't improve, we came to realize it wasn't a soft-tissue thing at all and was in fact systemic instead. After numerous tests, he's been diagnosed recently with poly-arthritis. Probably auto-immune. We are speculating that 2 treatments of trifexis may have triggered the immune system freak-out, but there's no way to know. The timing is right though, so it seems possible.

The only symptoms I know of are swelling in his joints, especially ankles (hocks) and knees. And he's had some strange, crusty scabs on his ears.

Just a few days ago, they started him on a prednisone treatment to try and get his immune system to calm down. I don't think my sister's seen any results yet, but it hasn't been very long.

My question is this: what else can we do to help promote a calmer and more healthy immune system? I'm thinking diet-wise in particular. She feeds raw food, but is there anything in particular anyone can recommend? I referred her to the dog cancer diet since I figured that couldn't hurt, but maybe there's other foods or supplements that'd be helpful. It's really awful seeing such a young, active, happy dog feeling so miserable.

I'm sorry this was overlooked, Matt. I'm posting some material, partly to bump this.

http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=152657

http://www.terrificpets.com/articles/10268865.asp

http://www.acvim.org/websites/acvim/index.php?p=217

http://www.vet.uga.edu/VPP/clerk/gronfeld/index.php

That is so sad about your shepherd. I don't have much for advise on this. I do know the goal is to, reduce inflammation. Grain/carb free diets do a lot for that, as does adding krill oil (helps my scoliosis). It may also help his immune system function normally. Also probiotics can have a big effect on immune health (gut flora may seem irrelevant but its not). There's some homeopathic remedies for joint pain I think Rhus Toxidendron is one of them...but you'd want to research that or have a holistic vet treat it.

I know a Sm Fox Terrier who had a similar condition, hypertrophic osteo dystrophy. It was caused by a rabies vaccine and he had inflammation of the growth plates. They put him on steroids and rimadyl. Once he was done growing, he still has issues because his legs grew twisted, feet turned in. Luckily your dog is not growing but still, the inflammation can do damage I would think.

Thanks Connie - yeah it's been a rough month for pets over here!

Ruben has been on the prednisone for 2 weeks now. He is showing some improvement and the local vet is encouraged, but my sister is discouraged. She doesn't think he's shown that much improvement, plus the high dose of steroid is making him mopey and lethargic, plus he's losing weight and has gotten skinny, and he's still not able to walk all that much. He was on antibiotics for a few weeks after the biopsies of his ears, so he wasn't allowed to eat raw foods and now he has diarrhea too. Hopefully she's going to get him on some honest kitchen, and she's been trying to follow that dog cancer diet as much as possible figuring that it can't hurt, even if it maybe doesn't help with this problem.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. She's at wits end. I'm encouraging her to go see the internist again. It's a hassle making that drive (I know - I've done it several times recently), but even though I think her local vets are pretty good, they just don't see this kind of issue very often.