Content
- What is tick disease?
- Symptoms of tick disease in dogs
- Diagnosis of Lyme Disease in Dogs
- Treatment for tick disease in dogs
- Preventing tick disease in dogs
Do you own a dog? He has the habit of taking him for a walk in the countryside and usually ends the tour with ticks? Be careful and protect your pet against them, as it is much better that your dog does not have them instead of arriving home and having to remove them, since ticks transmit many diseases.
One of the newly discovered diseases in dogs that ticks transmit is Lyme disease. Read carefully this PeritoAnimal article to know everything about tick disease in dogs, yours symptoms and respective treatment.
What is tick disease?
This disease, also known as Lyme disease, is caused by a bacteria, specifically a so-called Borrelia burgdorferi, which is transmitted by ticks of the genus Ixodes. In dogs this disease has been known since 1984 and in Brazil it was diagnosed for the first time in 1992.
Lyme disease causes several health problems, but if it is diagnosed early and if the proper antibiotics are administered, the disease can be overcome. The clinical picture it presents includes, as we have already mentioned, several health problems, but it is mainly associated with arthritis, joint deformity, nephritis, fever and carditis.
Symptoms of tick disease in dogs
Symptoms may take a few weeks or even months to appear. In this disease the symptoms are many and there may be dogs that present them all. It may be that only a single symptom manifests itself, such as limping, which is the most common symptom, several or most of them. The symptoms that may appear are as follows:
- Recurrent lameness due to joint inflammation. It often lasts only a few days but after a few weeks it comes back and remains continuous. Lameness can always be the same leg or change legs each time it occurs and can even occur in more than one leg at the same time.
- Arthritis and joint deformation.
- Fever, lack of appetite and depression, which often lead to joint inflammation.
- Sensitivity to touch, muscle and joint pain together with adynamia (muscle weakness with generalized fatigue that can lead to lack of movement or reaction).
- Walk with your back arched and rigid.
- In the area where the tick bite has occurred, inflammation and/or irritation may appear, accompanied by an inflammation of the superficial lymph nodes around this area.
- kidney problems which if not treated in time can lead to nephritis or glomerulonephritis and end up in kidney failure which causes more common symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, lack of appetite, increased thirst and urination and accumulation of fluid in the abdomen and in tissues, especially under the skin and in the paws.
- Carditis or inflammation of the heart, although infrequently and only in severe cases.
- Complications in the central nervous system, although less frequent and in severe cases.
Diagnosis of Lyme Disease in Dogs
When you go to the vet due to one or more of the symptoms described above appearing in your puppy, you should explain in full detail what you saw that was going on with your pet, what activities you have done recently and whether or not they are a habit, possible previous health problems (especially if you are not your regular veterinarian), answer anything you ask about the more clearly and sincerely, since any detail brings a lot of information to the specialist veterinarian.
Also, along with all the information, the veterinarian will need to perform tests on the dog to rule out or confirm possible causes of symptoms. shall perform blood and urine tests as complete as possible.
If the veterinarian deems it necessary, he may carry out other tests to determine the diagnosis, it may be necessary, for example, to extract fluid from the inflamed joints to analyze it, perform ultrasounds and x-rays, among many other tests useful for the specialist and that, if he wants to help the your four-legged friend must give permission to perform them.
The prognosis of this disease is good if it is diagnosed and acted quickly, it is reserved if it is a chronic case and it is bad if the disease affects the heart, the central nervous system or the kidneys, whenever it is not treated in time. in the case of the kidneys.
If you want to know how long a tick lives see this article by PeritoAnimal
Treatment for tick disease in dogs
Treatment for Lyme disease will depend on the organs and body parts affected. and how advanced the disease is. First antibiotics should be administered, in addition at home you should try that your dog makes little effort and that it is always warm and dry.
At first the antibiotic or antibiotics that your veterinarian recommends will be accompanied by some pain medication, but you should never administer an analgesic medication to your dog on your own, it should always be prescribed by the specialist veterinarian both the type, the dose and the administration time. The veterinarian should try to avoid the administration and prescription of corticosteroids, as in this case there is a risk of spreading Lyme disease.
Usually, with antibiotics, an improvement in the acute inflammation of the joints can be seen within a few days. Still, the general treatment should last at least a month.. Although it all depends on the severity of the illness.
Preventing tick disease in dogs
The only prevention of Lyme disease in dogs is tick prevention. Therefore, it is essential to apply the appropriate antiparasitic to your puppy with the frequency indicated by your veterinarian and in the way that is most convenient for your faithful friend, whether pipettes, collars, etc.
It is very important that, although we have antiparasitic protection up to date, every time we go out to areas such as the countryside, gardens, parks, etc., where there may be ticks, at the end of the tour it is important review the dog's entire body to make sure there are no ticks or other possible parasites on the skin.
In case you find any, you should extract it with the utmost care and try not to leave part of the tick attached to our dog's skin. To do this, you should be as well informed as possible of how to do it with minimal risks. IT'S It is essential that you remove the ticks on the same day, because the longer they are in our pet, the more likely they are to get infected.
Learn about home remedies for ticks on dogs in this PeritoAnimal article.
This article is for information purposes only, at PeritoAnimal.com.br we are not able to prescribe veterinary treatments or perform any type of diagnosis. We suggest that you take your pet to the veterinarian in case it has any type of condition or discomfort.