Update - aspergillosis in beagle

[Birker2020]

I took our dog to the vets like I said I was going to who gave her a thorough examination, and said he thought she could have aspergillosis but wasn't sure. He's given us a swab to get some white mucous that comes out of her nose in a flurry and told us to bring the swab in and they will send it off to the lab for diagnosis. It will be cultured and they will see if she has a bacterial/fungal or viral infection and hopefully the little aspegillosis will show up and then she can be treated.

ON the downside he said if she did have asp then she would probably be dead by now as it attacks very quickly.

It was amusing as I thought I'd better mention to him that we were using another vets and told him who we'd been using (top class referral centre) and he said they were thieves who stole peoples money!

Will keep you posted on what the culture says.

 

[Dobiegirl]

Heres hoping its going to be a simple infection of some type which can be cleared up and not what you fear the most. Im very surprised the vet said that its not very professional but maybe he is sick and tired of picking up the fall-out from the other vets.

 

[MurphysMinder]

As Dg, hope it is something that can be sorted with the correct treatment. I too am quite surprised the vet said that, not very professional at all. There is a practice local to us who are not thought of very highly by our vets, but the most they have ever done is raised their eyebrows when they are mentioned, never called them thieves.

 

[karen_c]

I missed your previous thread so coming in on this a bit late...what tests has your dog had so far?

Aspergillus is a common contaminant of mucosal surfaces and the respiratory tract, so I would be reuluctant to make a definite diagnosis and start treatment on the basis of culture from a swab of the discharge alone. We see both false positives and false negatives with this test....the same is true of the blood tests to check for aspergillus antibody as so many dogs have been exposed to the aspergilus fungus without necessarily developing an infection.

Culture of a tissue biopsy would be much more convincing, as would seeing fungal plaques on rhinoscopy or seeing characteristic changes on a CT or MRI scan.

Good luck with getting your dog sorted out...let us know how she gets on

 

[Birker2020]

I missed your previous thread so coming in on this a bit late...what tests has your dog had so far?

Aspergillus is a common contaminant of mucosal surfaces and the respiratory tract, so I would be reuluctant to make a definite diagnosis and start treatment on the basis of culture from a swab of the discharge alone. We see both false positives and false negatives with this test....the same is true of the blood tests to check for aspergillus antibody as so many dogs have been exposed to the aspergilus fungus without necessarily developing an infection.

Culture of a tissue biopsy would be much more convincing, as would seeing fungal plaques on rhinoscopy or seeing characteristic changes on a CT or MRI scan.

Good luck with getting your dog sorted out...let us know how she gets on

Hi Karen. You sound like a vet - oh what I wouldn't give to be one. She's had a CT scan, a rhinoscopy, an xray and a nasal flush. They found dead and decaying tissue from her nose cartilage??? on the rhinoscopy. She has a short to medium sized nose, she is constantly reverse sneezing but also bringing up a lot of white snot, she is lethargic (although hard to determine this as she is 11). She has been exposed to wood chip (typical aspergillosis fungal site) which we laid for the chickens run and since then has developed all these symptoms. She constantly sneezes. We feel she has also lost her appetite somewhat. She shows signs of discomfort if you go near her nose or touch it in anyway. She also has lots of strange fatty type lumps all over her body. I'd say apart from the nosebleeds she has most if not all the symptoms.

We spent close on to £1800 on treatment. She's had clotrimazole, something that was a powder which was sprinkled on her food, steroids, inhalers, you name it she's had it. She was labelled 'allergic rhinnitis'. I am positive she has aspergillosis.

The vet thought that the next logical step would be the culture although he feels in his heart that although it could be aspergillosis it is more likely to be something else as he feels she would be dead by now (this has been going on for about 18 months/2years). He says the culture will show bacterial or fungal infection.

What are your thoughts? I will let you know the result of the culture. As per usual (called Sod's Law I think) the almost constant white mucous that comes out of her nose has dissapeared so we are at present waiting so we can get into action with the swab