Wednesday, February 20

A Veterinary Mystery--Wasabi

Wasabi has been in foster care for some months, now, and though we have taken him to a number of specialists, we remain completely stumped about the cause of his urinary incontinence, desperate and constant thirst and frequent bowel movements.
His foster mom is a vet tech and explains below the range and clinical findings on Wasabi. If any vet or reader can make suggestions of areas we have failed to explore, we would be truly grateful for the help. Here's Wasabi's foster mom, updating the volunteers on Wasabi's condition last month:

"Wasabi is a sweetie that just loves everyone and everything, he is an extremely easy foster that just seamlessly fits into the groove of things around here. That is other than he does a lot of odd little quirky things! Those things do not bother us, but we definitely need to pinpoint what is going on so that we are able to correct it and get him placed!

He has been in foster care for a couple of months now and we are really no further than we were when he came in. For those of you who do not remember, Wasabi was surrendered due to the fact the owner did not have the monetary means to take care of him and her vet thought that he had diabetes insipidus.

I will tell you what is strange about him and what we have done:

He urinates on average once every 30 minutes or so, has 4-5 bowel movements a day, drinks a TON of water like there will never be any more on earth. Then, a month after getting him, his toenails started to get white stripes down them. Also, he does this funny thing with his eyes when he is focused on a bone, looks almost like nystagmus.

Suddenly, the week of Christmas, he had a hematoma on his left ear and needed to have surgery to repair it. It started as a bruise on the ear about two days prior and then gradually filled with fluid. He was not bitten, and he didn't, get into anything, so I was stumped. He bled too much during surgery so we ran a blood clotting panel and he was normal.

Then while he was living in complete confinement in the other half of the house (where my own dogs are not allowed) because he still had sutures, I noticed a similar looking bruise on the right ear and within days it, too, filled and he needed it repaired. Now we have a double scarred Wasabi :( But hey the ears still stand...lol.
With all that being said, now onto what testing has been done.

We have run every blood test known to canine and nothing!!!!

Wasabi has been tested for Cushings and Addisons, ruled out diabetes, he has had a urinalysis, urine culture and specific gravity all within normal limits, brucellosis test negative, heartworm negative, all platelet, white and red blood cells normal. ALL NORMAL?

He has been seen by a general practice, and internal specialist and last week a neurologist. The internist did radiographs and they seemed to see some issues with his spine, so they referred me to neuro. The neurologist does indeed see the same thing. He has some bone lysing or lesions along the L-7 and S1 areas. They are calling it diskospondylitis (http://www.rottweilerhealth.org/pdfs/sept_disko_betbeze_02.pdf) basically a bacteria is eating away at the bone and it can sometimes be caused by brucellosis which is why he was tested for it. His body is not strong enough for them to go in and find out exactly which bacteria is causing it so we are using a broad spectrum antibiotic.

The neurologist says his neuro exam itself was completely normal. All reflexes normal and no pain noted. She does not think that the diskospondylitis is all of his problems and thinks that the urination could possibly be behavioral.

So with all that said, it does not seem that Wasabi will be finding a forever home in time for Valentine's day, but keep him in your thoughts and if anyone else has any ideas I am up for anything at this point."

He's a frog of mystery! He's Wasabi! If you can help, please drop us a note in the comments section. Wasabi is being fostered in Texas.

We do enjoy a mystery, but this is getting ridiculous! frets
The Frog Princess

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

has he been checked for toxins? the white stripe reminds me of some kind of poison case i heard about a long time ago

Anonymous said...

Is there a chance this poor frog has concominant disorders? A lack of desmopressin would be an etiology of polyuria which obviously you have investigated. What if in addition he has type III von willebrand's dz where normal clotting can be further exacerbated by the former disorder and present in an otherwise subclinical VWF case? Just a guess. Im not sure if canines can suffer from this. I will run the case by my neurology and nephrology colleagues and get back to you.

Anonymous said...

What a strange set of symptoms! Maybe something along the lines of good bacteria (from yoghurt &/or acidophilus) might help the diarrhea? Or digestive enzymes (like Prozyme)? Best of luck to the little man!

Melissa said...

Poor kid!
I'm glad he has FBRN.

Anonymous said...

Hi there! I'm sorry to hear that little Wasabi is having such problems. My frog has some similar incontinent issues, with her hemivertebra.
My question, is where do you find these diapers that Wasabi is wearing? My little froggie would love to have one that actually stays on for more than 5 minutes!
Hugs and kisses for little Wasabi!

Anonymous said...

the poison you are probably referencing is arsenic. symptoms include white stripes in nails and excessive urination and thirst. i feel like that's unlikely though bc it's been ongoing for so long. if he got into rat poison or something, it should be out of his system by now. good luck fbrn!

Anonymous said...

Dear little Wasabi I hope one of these wonderful readers can point FBRN in a direction that will find answers for you.

Get well soon you precious little boy.

Anonymous said...

We had a female frenchie dx. with diaetes insipidus who had the same symptoms. She was d. with Desmopressin (human nasal spray used as eyedrops) in 2004. shortly after (about a year) she developed neuro problems (including severe nystagmus) and after much extensive/expensive testing was dx. with an extremely rare inner ear tumor. She was treated with an experimental treatment of high dose antibiotocs, which shrunk the tumor and for all purposed "cured" her. We lost her in 9/06 to acute kidney failure for no apparent reason at the age of 8; altho I think it might have been secondary to the high dose of antibiotics. In any case we enjoyed 2 wonderful years with Serengeti that we wouldn't have had. Hope this helps, if you want to get in touch with me please do..she was treated at VCA Aurora (IL) by Dr. McKay.

Alana said...

Hang in there, Wasabi!

Anonymous said...

Would it be possible to find out results of his Complete Blood Profile/CBC? I am a vet tech and had one of our vets read the blog and tried to pick her brain for ideas- she was wondering about the blood profile-any elevations, decreases? I would love to run it by one of the vets at the local Vet. Tech school as well for any more possible ideas. I have been in love with Wasabi since he was first posted in Foster care. My boys are also in love with him now as they have watched me check in on him to see if there has been any progress made on him and we LOVE his name!!! We are rooting for an answer to be found for Mr. Wasabi.

Frog Princess said...

Amy,
Send your email address to the FP at
fp-fbrn at comcast dot net. We may be able to get the records to you.
FP

Anonymous said...

poor WASABI HANG ON!!!!!