Can a Dog Be Lyme Positive Again
June 12, 2019
This spring, domestic dog owners may accept noticed that we are using a different heartworm test this year. The exam is called a 4DX and information technology detects antibodies to heartworm plus the tick borne diseases Lyme, Erlichia, and Anaplasma.
It can be scary and confusing to become positive results, and then I'd like to have a few posts to go over what positive results on theses tests mean and what we recommend doing about them. This post will focus on Lyme.
Beginning: Don't panic! A positive Lyme exam does non necessarily hateful your canis familiaris has an active Lyme infection correct now requiring treatment. It ways that at some point your dog has been exposed to the Lyme organism and produced antibodies. The test does non tell us if the exposure was recent or in the past or whether your dog requires treatment.
How do we tell the difference? Primarily by whether your dog is currently showing symptoms of Lyme illness or not and some boosted testing. Merely about 5% of dogs exposed to Lyme disease will go sick; the residue successfully fight the bacteria off and show no or very mild symptoms. Symptoms of Lyme affliction may wax and wane and include lethargy, high fever, loss of ambition, lameness (which may shift from leg to leg or affect all legs with a "walking on eggshells" appearance), and enlarged lymph nodes.
If most dogs don't go sick from exposure to Lyme and a positive examination doesn't necessarily mean a domestic dog needs treatment, why do we do information technology or care about a positive exam? There are a few reasons:
- There are some rare but very serious complications that can exist associated with Lyme disease; these include Lyme nephritis, a type of kidney disease. Even a dog who showed only mild symptoms may develop these complications. Knowing that a dog has had exposure gives us an opportunity to identify dogs with nephritis and intervene to forestall progression.
- Prove of exposure to Lyme tells usa whether preventative measures such as tick control products have been effective and guide time to come decisions near vaccination for Lyme (as natural exposure does not requite any lasting immunity to futurity infections for this disease).
- Your canis familiaris's exposure to Lyme disease reminds yous that you need to be careful, too! Since most of us are spending time in the same places our dogs are, they tin can be an important sentinel for our own risks of exposure to tick-borne diseases.
Soooo… after all of that, what do nosotros actually Practise if a dog tests positive?
For a canis familiaris with a positive examination just no electric current symptoms of Lyme disease, we recommend a test chosen a urine poly peptide:creatinine ratio or Up:C. This test screens for aberrant protein loss in the urine which is an indication of Lyme nephritis. If that test is normal, no further testing should be needed. However, if you lot are not using a flea/tick control production, consider starting i and consider vaccinating your dog for Lyme.
For a dog with symptoms of Lyme illness and a positive test, nosotros treat with an antibiotic called doxycycline for 30 days plus hurting relievers equally needed. Typically we run into an comeback in symptoms inside one-3 days once starting treatment. We also recommend the UP:C examination described above also every bit chemistries to cheque kidney office and blood pressure level. For a dog with Lyme nephritis, boosted treatments may exist needed.
I hope this post has demystified a positive Lyme test and explained why we have added them to your dog's yearly heartworm examination. We want y'all to savor the great outdoors with your domestic dog but keep them rubber, as well! As always, if you have additional questions please feel free to speak to one of our doctors.
Karen Christopherson DVM CVA
Source: https://grandavevet.com/my-dog-tested-positive-for-lyme-disease-now-what/
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