Muddy is still coughing

[katslady]

My thoughts and prayers are with you and Muddy, I hope he gets better soon.I hope the Torb. will help and he can function better on it. katslady

[Emeraldgreen]

We got Muddy off the Robitussin right away because the sedating effects were just too powerful. I picked up a prescription for Torbutrol 5mg and he gets a half tab in the morning and another at night. It worked so well for the first 3-4 days but he has started coughing again. It is not as much as when he is not on any meds but he is still coughing. I left a message with my vet but haven't heard back from her yet.
From what I understood, we were trying to get him to stop coughing for a long enough time so that the inflammation in his trachea/throat area would go down. Each time he coughs, it is supposed to be making the inflammtion worse and the inflammation is making him cough.
I don't know if the fact that he has started coughing again means that his dose needs to be increased or if he has something else causing the cough, like a foreign body that the xray didn't pick up.
The other thing is that my dog Finnigan coughed last night in exactly the same way Muddy has been. It was only the one time and he might have just had some food lodged the wrong way, he eats quickly. But now I'm wondering if it is something that is contagious.
They are never in contact with other dogs (because Muddy is not good with other dogs, he's a bit aggressive) and we walk them everyday but around our property, not in public where they might come across other dogs. We have some acreage so they have lots of room to run.
I do think the wolves come around at night and walk through our property and I don't know if there is something our dogs could catch from them?
There is one pack that frequents our area and I just found out they killed another dog about a block away from where we live. My neighbour says they travel through his property and ours on a regular basis at night but I have never seen them. Our dogs sleep inside with us so they haven't had direct contact with them.

But I don't think it is a contagious thing he's dealing with because the xrays showed a clear view of a collapsing trachea with inflammation of the tracheal sac. The vet said an irritant of somesort could have started it.
I'm waiting to hear back from the vet if I should increase his meds or change them.

I gave my vet the information about the Gabapentin that I received in this post (thank you guys for that!!) and she was really interested in it. She called in a prescription for a month's supply. I picked them up but don't want to start Muddy on them until I get him through this coughing/hacking problem. It makes him so uncomfortable.

[jennielynn1970]

Awe... poor Muddy! That 2nd video showing how he acts when he's on the cough medicine is just a heart breaker. I'm glad you found something else for him, but I hope you can find something that will stop the cough all together, or be able to reduce the inflammation so that the coughing stops all together. I hope Finnegan doesn't get it. Geez...

Thoughts and prayers going out to you and your crew. Hope Jimmy is doing better as well. How are the two new kitties doing??

[Emeraldgreen]

Awe... poor Muddy! That 2nd video showing how he acts when he's on the cough medicine is just a heart breaker. I'm glad you found something else for him, but I hope you can find something that will stop the cough all together, or be able to reduce the inflammation so that the coughing stops all together. I hope Finnegan doesn't get it. Geez...

Thoughts and prayers going out to you and your crew. Hope Jimmy is doing better as well. How are the two new kitties doing??

Thanks Jenn.
Finnigan hasn't coughed since that one time so I think it was just him eating too fast. Phew! I called the vet but she wasn't in so I spoke to a different one. She asked what the dose was for Muddy and seemed surprised that he was only getting 1/2 a 5mg tab twice a day. She said there was alot of room to increase the dose and she increased it to 1 tab twice a day. I picked up a two week prescription so hopefully this will knock this cough out!

Jimmy is doing really well. Thanks for asking about him. His belly is still bald from the ultrasound and looks like trout skin, it is so cute. He is on a 2 week treatment of Metronidazole which he hates but he is so frisky and happy lately, it is all worth it. I haven't given him anything but Gastro dry food and Hypo Gastro wet food. It's very bland but he is like a different cat, I'm so grateful.

The new guys are fabulous. Wallace is very shy but we're working on it. I wish I knew more about his injuries from the raccoon attack he suffered before he was surrendered to the SPCA. I think he has some nerve damage because he walks a little funny. He's very slow moving sometimes and almost seems traumatized. I'm going to see if I can get his vet records and once I get through the Muddy/Jimmy health issues, he will be next to the vet.

You probably didn't see my p.s. at the bottom of my post in the thread about Splinter but I'm a huge Indigo Girls fan. Love the new addition to your siggy

[jennielynn1970]

You know, I was racking my brain, thinking I asked about the new guys, and I was on Jimmy's thread, and I didn't see anything... I thought I was losing my mind, lol! So, I asked there too, earlier today, and now I see it was under Muddy's thread. I'm getting old!

Poor Wallace! I hope that he will come around and not be so timid and scared. Raccoons can be nasty and mean when they are being attacked, or if they are protecting young ones. Wallace probably got one heck of a working over by one if he's that traumatized. I hope he will continue to thrive under your care!!

I'll have to check out the Splinter thread. I love the Indigo Girls, and their lyrics just seem to speak to me when I'm down or feeling introspective.