Steroid Responsive Meningitis Arteritis (SMRA)

[Delia Bryce]

All

 

Took me a few days to actually begin writing this blog as quite frankly my boy has had an awful week  my family and I have cried buckets but now we believe he has turned the corner and although he has some hurdles ahead the future is good! Murphy has SMRA and has been ill for almost a week and in hospital since Wednesday last week ..... I will let you google it but I feel its important to share this as he has made terrific progress, despite my initial horror at the mention of meningitis .......

A brief diary of the last week;

• Monday afternoon became very quiet as the night progressed I realised he was sick and was refusing food or water ...
• Tuesday morning seen the vet who thought some sort of allergic reaction to something he had picked up outside but told to watch closely ...
• Wednesday 430 am was crying .... rushed to our local vets again http://www.ayrton.org.uk/ where he was admitted and the vet first mentioned meningitis as a possibility .... I was so scared as my boy was very weak but was put on a drip and closely monitored and given pain relief ......
• Wednesday early afternoon, telephone call to say he wasnt too well he should go to Glasgow University Small Animal Hospital was given morphine for the pain and was comfortable if very ill .........
• Thursday we took him to  Glasgow http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/vet/smallanimalhospital/ where from the moment we arrived he received more excellent care from the minute we walked in the door ...... Although was more talk of how Murphy was very ill and I/we should be prepared (we had no diagnosis at this point) ...... His breathing was laboured he was stressed and had no energy and was displaying signs of being in pain ..... Immediately he began to have Methadone administered ...... I was in a bubble but again they spoke of meningitis.
• Friday was a very busy day...... Chest xray, tummy ultrasound, MRI of neck and head, spinal tap then CT scan then a diagnosis of SMRA and hope of a great recovery...... I felt like I had won the lottery.. we all did ...High dose steroid therapy began......
• Sat we visited to be greated by a full body wagging boy shouting with excitement and kissing us like we had been away for weeks ........He tired easily and was rather doped up - still on Methadone so you can imagine but never in a while have I experienced such joy ..........
• Sunday and today have visted and seen nothing but improvements he is tired but depending on blood work he will be back home tomorrow .......

Some way to go balancing the drugs but I cant stress how much he has came on and how from the scarey diagnosis my mind has turned as I seen it for my own eyes ........... He will see his own vet initally every couple of days but he wont be 17mths till end of this month so you can imagine .......I have some pics ......... which I will post too ....... But wanted to share as whilst this isnt common it isnt unheard of ..... Its not genetic nor can anyone or any dog catch it from him ...... he was unlucky but lets just say the luck of the Irish kicked in! now I cant help my self but today his Irish eyes were smiling!

Steroid therapy maybe will continue for some months but he will be just fine ...... actually no Murphy to me is perfect!

 And today looking at my car

[Chantal McIlveen-Wright]

What a wonderful news Delia!!!!  We are so happy for you Delia, what an horrible time, I cannot wait to see pictures of Murphy playing again. Pity you cannot tape his song.....  :-)

[Delia Bryce]

Oh an idea for his birthday video at Christmas, we shall try!

[Myra Thomas-Rhodes]

Delia, I have only just had chance to read through this, and my heart goes out to you. Thank goodness your little man will be alright. It will have been a very scary, exhausting time for you all. Very best wishes for a quick and full recovery.

M XX

[Cheryl Gorey]

So sorry to read such a painful journey.  Glad to hear he is on the mend and thank-you for sharing information about this.

[Rita Whitmore]

Hi Delia,

I am happy that Murphy is home and on his way to a full recovery. As you saw on my page, Poppy our setter had SRMA earlier this year. While on steroids she was hungry and thirsty all the time and she put on a lot of weight, which was good, because she was too skinny before she got ill. She is such a fussy eater. While Poppy was on steroids she started to steal food from the kitchen worktop, that lasted for about a month.  We also found that the steroids changed her personality, she seemed to be depressed and while she was the bossy dog before, her older half sister started to be the dominant one. Every two weeks we could half the steroid dosage and every time her old lovely and naughty personality returned a bit more. Poppy is again the boss and her food intake is back to normal. The hair will take a long time to grow back, I don't know if the steroids affect hair growth. You can still see the patches where the vet shaved Poppy. She was on steroids for about 8 to 10 weeks.

Murphy looks quite silimar to Poppy. Let me know how he is getting on. You have passed the most scariest phase of the illness and he will need a lot of love and attention now, which I am sure he will get! 

All the best for the coming weeks

Rita

[Marta Magi]

Terrific time behind you, wishing you all the best and full recovery. Fingers crossed!!!

[Margaret Sierakowski]

I would like to say a very big thank you to Delia and Eva. Two days ago I was absolutely stunned when Archie was diagnosed with Steroid Responsive Meningitis. He had been looking unwell for a while, sometimes unsteady on his feet, and he had had recurrent ear infections, but I put it down to his age (he is approaching his twelfth birthday). Then he really deteriorated over a couple of days, stopped eating and drinking, and was yelping intermittently, which turned into screaming if I touched his head or neck. I took him into my vets, where as soon as the vet heard him scream when she tried to lift his head, she thought he had meningitis. He was  given a very high dose of steroids, rather than waiting for the results of  blood tests or a spinal tap, and is now getting high doses of prednisolone. I knew that steroid responsive meningitis is a known disease in young beagles , but had never come accross it in setters, or any other gundogs. A Google search led me to Delia's dog, Murphy! Within 24 hours Eva had put me in touch with Delia, and it was great to be able to compare symptoms, talk about the steroid treatment etc . Like Murphy, Archie's response to the steroids was incredibly fast, within five or six hours he went from looking at death's door to being back on his feet , and was starting to eat and drink again. By today he was looking almost his normal self, a little stiff in his movement and walking with his head low. Has anybody else heard of SRM in Irish Red and White Setters? It is something completely new to me. I'm also very surprised to see it in a dog of nearly twelve years old, as it is usually seen in very young dogs. Certainly a very frightening disease at its worst. I think I was fortunate that my vet gave Archie a high dose of steroids straight away, whereas Delia's Murphy waited two days on a drip in a vet hospital while having tests done before

Its at times like this that Exclusively Setters is so good - it was so reassuring to be able to talk to somebody else who had had a dog with the same frightening illness, who had come through it.

[Delia Bryce]

Margaret, I have just seen this so glad he got well so soon. My apologies for missing our post. Eva most certainly did the right thing contacting me and should anyone else need to please don't hesitate either. Murphy was a happy healthy boy before and is now again. We call it his wee blip!
I don't use this site much but I am more than happy to help although I hope there is no need to.