Byron"s ear infection a.k.a. liver disease

I think it’s vitally important to explain how the conclusion was made that Byron had liver disease. And unfortunately, this story is a bit of a long one. I hope to raise the issues of an unknown vet treating your dog as well.

Back in August 2011, Byron had a sore ear. You could tell it’s sore by his constant head shaking, scratching and holding it like someone had stuck it on the side of his head rather than the top. There aren’t many dog owners out there who haven’t had a dog with an ear infection. It’s one of those standard niggly issues that we’d rather do without and try to avoid but occasionally they happen. Some dogs, like Alpha, are prone to them. I actually had the two medicines the vet had prescribed Alpha a couple of years before, some Canaural drops and CleanAural drops but they’d both run out of date so off to the vets I went with Byron.

Byron was 11 years old at this point so no spring chicken but he was in very good general health. The first problem with the vet surgery I was using was that you never saw the same vet twice. So unsurprisingly Byron was put in front of a locum vet called ‘Lynsay’. She prodded and poked his ears and made the diagnosis of an ear infection (yep, who’d have guessed) and said that she’d prescribe some tablets and some drops. Tablets? Well this is a new one on me, perhaps things had changed since Alpha’s ear infection. So I was given a little bottle of Canaural drops (no surprise there), some Prednicare tablets and a follow up appointment for 7 days later.

The Prednicare tablets were 5mg each. Byron was to take two tablets twice a day for three days (20mg per day), then two tablets once a day for three days (10mg per day) then two tablets every other day until he’d run out. The sticker on the bottle said ‘may increase appetite and thirst’.

So off we went. I was filling Byron up with tablets and drops. He panted and drank and peed. Panted, drank, peed. Panted, drank, peed. All through the day and all through the night. I was getting up three times each night to see to him. The dogs all share a 3 litre water bowl and Byron was clearing the lot. ‘May increase appetite and thirst’ the sticker said but this is madness. I can’t comment on the appetite side of things because all my dogs act hungry when there’s really no need but the thirst was through the roof.

A week after the first appointment we went back to the vets, and surprise, surprise saw another vet who was obviously on their hop-on-hop-off merry-go-round at this veterinary group. I told ‘Penny’ that his ear was much better now but I really was quite concerned about the thirst and drinking. She assured me it’s fine and normal – he’ll stop soon.

15 days later I was back at the vets with Byron to have a full blood screen. In those 15 days the pant/drink/pee routine hadn’t given up. I was barely sleeping, Byron was barely sleeping, the water bowl was constantly needing refilling and the Prednicare tablets were well and truly out of his system by now. I saw another vet (again, no surprise) and ‘Kimberley’ did a full haematology, full biochemistry health screen and thyroid function tests. I also had to collect some urine from B so they could do a urine-specific gravity test and urine biochemistry. Something was wrong here but no one could explain to me why this had suddenly happened.

The results came back the next day and they weren’t good. Byron’s thyroid was fine but his liver wasn’t good. He was booked in to have a full ultrasound examination, a blood sample, followed by some good fatty food (they used two 470g cans of Royal Canin Sensitivity Control), then another blood sample so they could see how the liver was processing the food.

The worst part of this was that still no one told me what was going on. I handed the receptionist my insurance claim form as it was getting pretty damn expensive by this point and under the heading ‘condition’ I naively wrote: ‘liver condition’ thinking that this was just a condition. For some reason I told the receptionist I would come and collect the completed claim form once they had filled in their section rather than them sending it off directly. I don’t know why, I just wanted a copy. Some people might call it instinct.

Within 5 days, one of the numerous vets rang me and told me that Byron would do well to go on a liver supplement called Hepatosyl Plus. It’s self explanatory – it’ll supplement his liver. So I agreed and went to the vets to pick up this expensive supplement (£96.04 in 2011 for a pot of 90 x 100mg) and at the same time I picked up the claim form that I’d left with them. When I got in my car, I remember having a flick through the paperwork that they’d attached and under the same section where the form asks for the ‘condition’, they had written: LIVER DISEASE. And no one had bothered to tell me this. My gorgeous, old dog had liver disease, something which is very serious and no one, not a single person had the decency to share this information. I had to find out through what was written on the claim form.

I then went mad – I got home and hit the roof. I was going to ring them and go mad but instead I took to the internet. How did all this start? The symptoms of increased thirst and subsequent peeing were right up there with the top symptoms of liver disease. And then I searched on Prednicare. I found out it was a steroid. So the locum vet ‘Lynsay’ thought it was a good idea to prescribe an 11 year old dog some steroids for a simple ear infection. The expression of cracking a nut with a sledgehammer comes to mind. Steroids are known for causing irreversible liver damage and it’s even more likely when given to an elderly being. Whilst I’m not concluding that the Prednicare tablets are fully to blame, I just find the whole thing far too convenient. Interestingly, when my current vet saw the notes on Byron’s case, she was gobsmacked that he was prescribed steroids at all for an ear infection – they are usually only brought out for a relentless infection which has been hard work to shake off, not as an immediate treatment.

I never went back to that vet group again. I moved to another veterinary surgery nearby where we see the same vet each time unless she happens to be on holiday then we happily let one of the other vets take a look at Byron.