poorly dog suspected lungworm, advise/help please

[lizzieuk1]

Hi, my parents dog has been really really struggling for breath today so parents took her to vet well they xrayed and ultrasounded her. apparantly the chest xray showed something on the lung field that they were unsure of, sent ot consultant who said could be blood, lungworm, fluid but couldn't pinpoint it. So vet said prob lungworm but no def diagnosis given, has given antibios + wormer and mum brought her home as vet said they would only monitor if in and she can do that at home.
well poor dog is still struggling for breath (she is 12) like really heaving her diaphragm
so i was wondering if anyone else had experience of this and did the dog really heave aswell?
any advise/experiences appreciated.

 

[unitedkatey]

If it was lungworm it wouldnt come on so suddenly you would notice it slowly getting worse. And the vet sounds pretty useless to me, if he suspected lungworm the dog needs special medication for that and to be kept confined so it couldnt move around to much. I would get a secons opinion if i was you!

 

[star]

if it's lungworm it needs treating with Advocate not just any old wormer. it also needs diagnosing for definite using a Baermann's faecal flotation on a poo sample or looking at washes from the lungs. it sounds a bit worrying if she's still really struggling for breath and i'd get her looked at again soon.

 

[lizzieuk1]

thanks both of you, yes the baerman technique is one they're using but oddly they didn't take a faecal sample til after she'd had a dose of the panacur, they're treating it as a specific lungworm without def diagnosis no scope taken as said invasive but she'd had a general for the xray so don;t know why it wasn;t done then, mum's been in touch with a friends son who's a vet in canada & has a PhD in parasitology and he said the same also that the technique won't work if worms are already dead so may show nothing. we're hoping to email the xray to him so he can be a bit more specific for us apparantly where the lesions are will give more idea of the cause. bloody vet here is so arrogant i'm wondering if he has a clue what it is they start off seeing nice lady vet or other partner then when things get more complex he just takes over and mum really doesn;t like him so thats not helping

she seems ok at the mo, still heavy diaphragm breathing but colour is good and she still quite perky, just tired as i don't think she's getting much sleep.
any idea how long it takes to start and clear? and is there anything esle that can help?