Just a quick post to announce that the hard drive on my computer has died. It will take a week or two to get everything fixed and transferred over, so I'll have less internet access until then. I'll be back to posting by the end of the mon...
Always Double Check
On Sunday one of my associates saw a puppy who had swallowed some rocks. The abdominal radiographs showed the rocks clearly and one was somewhat large. Since the puppy was acting normal, she recommended that he come back the following day to repeat the x-rays and see if the rocks had passed through the gastrointestinal tract. I saw him on Monday, repeated the radiographs, and noted that the larger stone and one other were still in his stomach. This was concerning because it should only take 2-3 hours for the stomach to empty and less than a day for everything to pass through the other end. Here were were a full day later and the rocks remained. This meant that we were going to have to go in surgically and remove them to prevent further problems. Since...
Veterinary Shortage
Believe it or not, here in the US there is a shortage of veterinarians. More specifically there is a shortage of vets entering large animal (livestock) medicine and public health medicine. This concern is frequently mentioned in industry journals and articles, and has become a real issue here. Fewer and fewer graduating vets are choosing to enter these fields of medicine, so as older practitioners retire there are less waiting to replace them. In some parts of the country there is only one vet per 100,000 or more cattle. About 75% of newly graduated vets pursue a career in small animal medicine. I believe that this problem is related to the changing demographics of where people live. A century ago most people were from rural communities, growing up...
Horner's syndrome, revisited, again
By far, this topic has received the most attention and comments on this blog. Many, if not most, cases of Horner's syndrome are idiopathic, meaning that no discernible causes can be found. Again, Horner's syndrome is not a disease per se, but rather a constellation of clinical signs that make up the syndrome: ptosis (or drooping eyelid), enophthalmos (or sinking in of the eyeball), miosis (constricted pupil), and prolapsed nictitans (presence of 3rd eyelid covering the eyeball more than usual). When this young Cocker Spaniel was presented to me yesterday for an eye infection, she exhibited all signs of Horner's mentioned above. By default,...
A Time Bomb--Atlantoaxial Problems
I had a rather scary problem today, and one I've faced before. A terrier-mix had been having mysterious pain for a week or more. Another vet had taken radiographs and noted extensive fusing of many vertebrae in the spine, a condition called spondylosis. This certainly can cause pain, and I've seen those cases before. The dog was placed on two analgesics and sent home for observation. Unfortunately the pain didn't go away. The owner thought it was in the neck and not the back. Ironically, the only part of the spine that the other vet didn't get images of was the neck. It was also puzzling because...
A Night At The Museum
In my area we have a local science museum, the Tellus, that has some cool events. Most recently they hosted their second annual "Night At The Museum". The premise was very similar to the movies of the same name. Various displays of historical people come to life at night and interact with the museum visitors. My wife and I participated as Jules Verne (me) and Amelia Earhart (my wife). Other people portrayed figures such as Henry Ford, Galileo, Marie Curie, the Wright Brothers, and Nicola Tesla. For the entire night we acted in character, pretending we were the various characters come to life. Since we...
An Emergency Repair
Being a vet can teach you unexpected skills and bring unexpected dangers. Here's a typical case....Last week one of my techs was trying to restrain an unruly dog. He wasn't aggressive, just very wiggly and didn't want to stay still. We did what we needed to do with him, but she had difficulty getting him still enough and he kept trying to get out of her hold. She managed to pick up a few new bruises and some minor scratches. But one of the worst things that happened was that the dog got a foot in the pocket of her scrub top and tore the stitches from a corner.Okay, so it wasn't a life-threatening problem. And...
Bye-Bye Eye
Most of the surgeries veterinarians perform are spays and neuters and are very routine. But it's not uncommon to do more advanced and uncommon procedures. Monday was one such surgery, as I removed a dog's eye, a surgery called "enucleation".The dog is an old poodle who had a history of eye problems. His left eye had been injured many years ago and was shrunken and useless. His right eye had developed a cataract, so he was essentially blind. Last week the right eye suddenly became worse and the eye protruded. Apparently the globe (eyeball) had slightly popped out and the eyelids had slid behind it, trapping...
Who Knows Best?
A reader made this comment on another topic, and I thought it was worth addressing.Except my vet doesn't think that I am smart enough nor know my pet well enough to hold it for him!!!Buddy, I know MY dog. And yes, he might snap. I'm no pushover, if you know what's best for you, you'd best let me doing the holdin'!Not to be rude, but this is absolutely the wrong attitude to have. Most veterinarians won't let owners hold their pets because of safety, not because we don't think an owner is smart enough. In fact, I will generally refuse to see an aggressive pet if the owner won't let us restrain.There are certain ways to properly hold a pet, and certain ways not do. This is important for the safety of the pet as well as the safety of anyone around them. If a person...
Updating
This past month I put up a non-veterinary poll out of curiosity. Though I don't get paid for this blog, I try to update frequently to keep people interested. However, since I don't get paid I also sometimes don't feel much motivation to post daily. For the most part this is done for fun and not profit. Even so, I know there are some regular readers and I don't want to disappoint too much. So how often do people like their blogs to update? Based on the results, fairly frequently!Daily--35%2-3 Times Weekly--52%Weekly-9%2-3 Times Monthly--3%Once Monthly--0%Most months I average around a post every other day, so it looks like I'm keeping it in the area of the top two choices. Obviously the more important part is that the posts are entertaining and informative,...
