Extreme allergic reaction - update allergic conjunctivitis

ronan.h · 07-10-2011 8:52pm #1

This evening I had my cocker spaniel in the car and drove for about 40mins, when i stopped the car I looked down and noticed her whole head has swelled and her eyes had gone back in her head - we could see all the ligaments and muscles where her eyes should have been. Rushed her to the nearest vet and she was seen straight away. he said it was an extreme allergic reaction to something she came in contact with but doesn't know what. she was on a drip, got antihistamines, anti-inflammatories and antibiotics. then we brought her home after an hour and have drops for her eyes. They stilll look bad but are improving slowly.

we have no idea what caused it. she was sitting on the floor on front seat of car where she has sat a hundred times over the past 18months so can't understand it. nothing out of the ordinary in her daily routine. any ideas or anyone experienced anything like this before?

ppink · 07-10-2011 8:56pm

any chance she ate a wasp or anything like that before you got in the car?

Zapperzy · 07-10-2011 8:58pm

Could she have eaten something on a walk? Or would a bee sting cause something that severe? I know a relative of mine is allergic to either bee or wasp stings and would really swell up if stung by one so could it be something similar?

cgarrad · 07-10-2011 8:59pm

Sounds like a one off if she never displayed any symptoms before.

Hope she is OK

ronan.h · 07-10-2011 9:00pm

she has had a reaction to bee stings before but the vet was 100% sure it wasn't that. he said the fact that she had a reaction to that shows she might have a sensitive immune system. apart from this incident and the bee sting she has been such a healthy dog and no problems before.

ppink · 07-10-2011 9:02pm

how did he rule out a sting?

ronan.h · 07-10-2011 9:05pm

I don't know how he ruled it out, can't remember what he said to be honest i thought i was coming back to be told she was gone so when we saw her we were both delighted and probably didn't take everything in.

it was completely different to the bee sting. the bee sting was just swellings, this was her eyes slipped out of the sockets and went back into her head.

ppink · 07-10-2011 9:09pm

well i can understand you not taking it all in you must have got an awful fright!
i suffer severly from stings and the docs told me it does not get better it gets worse! my last one took a long time to effect me actually. i got stung in the afternoon but it was the following morning I was in trouble.

perhaps you could call the vet again and ask him how he ruled it out or speak to you own vet.

zenno · 07-10-2011 9:17pm

that sounds like a very bad reaction, the only thing that I found about this is in the following link. it might be of help. read through pages 1 and 2...

http://vetmedicine.about.com/cs/dogdiseasesb/a/bugsandbenadryl.htm

ronan.h · 07-10-2011 9:20pm

we have to go back to the vet tomorrow morning so will ask again then. we were gonna go back to the guy who saw her today rather than going to our own vet as he knows how bad she was today. he said he only ever saw a case like this once in his career about 5 years ago.

ronan.h · 08-10-2011 1:32pm

right so went back to vet today and she got more shots. its called "allergic conjuntivitis". i know he told us that yesterday but neither of us took it in.

so he said it definitely isn't a bee sting as it a contact reaction, as if she brushed off a plant that she was allergic to or something?? he reckons it could have happened at any stage during the day and wasn't something actually in the car.

he is happy with her progress and no infection yet or permanent damage thank god. i have google imaged "allergic conjunctivitis" and cannot find pics of anything as extreme as what our poor doggie had so if anyone has seen this before please let me know if you have any idea what caused it.

moses13 · 08-10-2011 8:16pm

My Boxer had a very bad reaction to new worm tablets. It took 2 hours but she went into Anaphylactic shock. Her head swelled massively, the whites of her eyes went red, she came out in small lumps all over her, she vomited and excreted and all her airways started to get blocked by the swelling in her throat which caused her to fit. It was the most terrible thing I had ever seen but 1 little steroid injection reversed everything. It's amazing what can be done today.
I hope everything goes ok for you too.

ppink · 10-10-2011 10:38am

That is amazing! thanks for letting us know and hopefully you wont be going throught that again.
I wonder if there is any good way of allergy testing her so you could find out what may have caused it.

ronan.h · 10-10-2011 2:02pm

the vet we went to on Friday evening for the emergency said there was no way of testing to see what causes it but might check it out with my own vet. would definitely like to get this done so we can avoid whatever caused it cos I definitely don't wanna go through this again!

she is in great form, much better. she can't understand why she is not getting to play ball and go on walks but her eyes still have a gap (they haven't fully gone back to their normal shape) so there is a risk of infection so we have been keeping her inside - cabin fever is definitely setting in.

recovery took longer than the vet was expecting but nearly there now.

moses13 · 10-10-2011 9:04pm

Hope she goes on to make a full recovery.

Extreme allergic reaction - update allergic conjunctivitis

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