Dr. Karen Emerson of the Emerson Animal Hospital in West Point describes the symptoms and treatment for pets that come down with tick diseases.
For a consultation for your pet, call (662) 524-4145
Dr. karen emerson: good morning sunrisers!
I'm dr. karen emerson.
Today i have with me my kennel manager, david perry, and this beautiful black domestic short hair cat is pepper.
Pepper actually presented last week for non- weightbearing lameness on the front leg and on the back rear legs.
She also had severely enlarged lymph nodes in her back legs.
At that moment in time, we did blood work.
We did x-rays.
I was talking to the owner about flea and tick preventative.
This cat does go in and outdoors.
She has been on flea and tick preventative, but we decided to go ahead and treat her like she had a tick disease because of the fact she was showing all the clinical signs.
Dr. karen emerson: tick diseases can cause non weight bearing lameness.
They can cause a big inflammatory response where all the lymph nodes will get large.
Pepper was also not wanting us to touch her at all.
She was in severe pain.
She was not eating.
She was not drinking.
And now, as you can see, she feels wonderful.
She's wanting us to love all over her.
Dr. karen emerson: there's also really dangerous tick that comes from bobcats.
It causes a cytauxzoon disease, and it actually can kill your cat.
Normally your cat will come in, they will be very, very lethargic.
And then they would normally die in hospital because this is such a deadly tick disease.
So it's so important to keep your cats on a flea and tick preventative, especially if they're going indoor and outdoor.
Dr. karen emerson: we started pepper on doxycycline.
She takes it very well.
And we started her on a low dose steroid.
All her lymph nodes went back to normal.
She's eating, she's drinking.
She will have to be on this tick medication for another couple of weeks, and then we're going to recheck her.
But this was one of those things where it's just kind of a process of elimination in cats because we just don't have the best tests to see if they have tick diseases.
Dr. karen emerson: but since she responded to the medication and did so well, we're pretty much a hundred percent sure that's what she was suffering from, especially after her rapid recovery.
So if you have an indoor outdoor cat or a dog it's indoor outdoor, even just indoor and you're worried about fleas and ticks, it is so important, guys, to put them on a preventative.
Please give us a call, make that appointment today.
I promise your pets will thank you.
And i hope you have a great rest of your week.
Announcer: wcbi animal health with dr. emerson was brought
Dr. Emerson is joined with David Perry and Pepper, who presented a few issues such as non-weight bearing lameness due to a flea and..