[Kathy163]

I posted this message on a Golden Retriever forum a couple weeks ago but just found this forum and wanted to see if anyone here might have any ideas. Thanks!

Hi, my name is Kathy and I am new to this forum. We are having an issue with the Golden Retriever that we rescued about 2 years ago and I just wanted to see if anyone might have any ideas as to what is going on with our dog. I apoligize in advance for how long this is but would like to explain it in detail to see if anyone else has had a similar experience or might have an idea what it could be.

Our Golden is 4 years old and when we got him at the age of 2, we were given no medical history. A couple months after we got him, he started acting very lethargic and did not want to eat. We took him to the vet and he had an extremely high temperature. We kept him at the vet all day while they ran tests and gave him IVs. The vet could not figure out what caused it as the only thing they could find wrong through the blood tests they did was high white blood cell count. They gave us antibiotics and he got better within a day. They called it "fever of unknown origin".

A couple months later, this happened again. We took him back to the vet and once again they could not figure it out. They thought it might be a tick disease. We sent blood to a lab to be tested for tick diseases and that came back negative. One again, his fever went away and he got better within a day of getting on antiobiotics.

This cycle of getting sick every few months went on for a while without being able to get an answer from the vet as to what was causing it. We ran blood tests, did x-rays, and basically spent a lot of money at the vet with no answer as to what is causing this. Each time he would get on antibiotics and then he would be fine. It was always called "fever of unknown origin".

About the 4th or 5th time this happened, we realized he had a horrible skin rash all over his back. It wasn't something you could see unless you looked really closly underneath all the hair. It was extremely red and had pus filled bumps. We didn't have any idea how long this was there because you couldn't see it with all the hair on top of it. We decided to send a sample of the pus from the bumps out to be tested. It came back positive for pseudomonas infection. The vet said this was a very rare infection for dog's skin. It is usually an infection in the ears. The vet thought that this infection must have been causing him to get sick all along. They gave us cipro antiobiotics to give him for 3 months which was the treatment for pseudomonas. The rash eventually went away and this time a year and a half passed without him getting sick again, when he used to get sick every 3-4 months. This made me think that we had solved the problem.

This Monday night, about a year and a half since he was last sick, he started acting a little funny so we took his temperature and it was on the high side. The next morning we took his temperature again and he had a fever. I couldn't believe this was happening again after I thought we had fixed the problem! We took him to the vet and once again, they ran blood tests and said everything looked fine except elevated white blood cell count. Once again, "fever of unknown origin". He got better within 12 hours of being on antibiotics.

I am now at a loss of what to do. We have already spent thousands of dollars having him treated and tested every time he gets these fevers and gets sick. Our vet office has 4 different doctors and he has been treated by all of them. None of the doctors can figure out the problem. I have done some researching online about his symptoms and the only thing I thought it might be is an autoimmune problem but the vet says that usually causes dogs to be anemic, which he is not. I thought maybe by asking on here I might find someone that has had a dog with a similar problem or know of something that might cause it. I am starting to think that whatever is causing this must be something rare since all of the vets we have seen aren't sure what the problem is and I can't find much information online about it. I'm sure it is a long shot but thought it would be worth asking on here to see if anyone knows anything about this.

Sorry this was so lengthy!

[Dswtx]

Kathy, your issue with your golden has some similarities with my experience. At one year of age my male golden began having similar cyclical episodes (every 2-3 months) of sudden high fever (104-105) with elelvated white count, slight anemia and slightly decrease platelets. He got better with or without antibiotics or other meds. We had a 6 month period of no episodes and then he started having episodes more frequently. After much testing and ruling out, the veterinary specialist diagnosed "unspecified autoimmune disorder." Basically, his immune system goes reacts inapprorpiately. He has been on different meds: Azathioprine and Prednisone - didn't work. He is now on Cyclosporine and Cell Cept. At age 3, he began having GI symptoms that did not resolve with normal treatment. Again, after many tests, it looks like he has Inflammatory Bowel Disease - another autoimmune disease. He is well controlled on prescriprion diet and continues his other meds. My point is, the fever may be a symptom of some kind of autoimmune issue. If your vet has not suggested this, you might ask. Hope this is of some help. Donna

[Lunareclipse]

Originally Posted by Dswtx

Kathy, your issue with your golden has some similarities with my experience. At one year of age my male golden began having similar cyclical episodes (every 2-3 months) of sudden high fever (104-105) with elelvated white count, slight anemia and slightly decrease platelets. He got better with or without antibiotics or other meds. We had a 6 month period of no episodes and then he started having episodes more frequently. After much testing and ruling out, the veterinary specialist diagnosed "unspecified autoimmune disorder." Basically, his immune system goes reacts inapprorpiately. He has been on different meds: Azathioprine and Prednisone - didn't work. He is now on Cyclosporine and Cell Cept. At age 3, he began having GI symptoms that did not resolve with normal treatment. Again, after many tests, it looks like he has Inflammatory Bowel Disease - another autoimmune disease. He is well controlled on prescriprion diet and continues his other meds. My point is, the fever may be a symptom of some kind of autoimmune issue. If your vet has not suggested this, you might ask. Hope this is of some help. Donna

I agree. Ask your vet about autoimmune syndrome. I know you already stated you did once. Go to a different vet and get a second opinion.

[CorkyMax]

And get copies of all the blood work and 'reports' the vets wrote up to take with you otherwise the same things may be repeated unnecessarily, etc. They have to give you this paperwork if you ask for it--You sure as heck have paid enough for them!!--and if they didn't do write-ups on this---Ask them to!!

[Kathy163]

Thank you for sharing your experience and offering up advice. It has now been just over 2 months since he last got sick and I wrote the original post. He has had no problems or any symptoms at all during the last 2 months. It is so strange how quickly he bounces back and has no other health problems. I am really hoping it won't happen again but you just never know.

I did already suspect that it might be an autoimmune issue but the vet said that typically that causes anemia, which he does not have. If this happens again (I hope not!) I will definitely talk to the vet more about this possibility as I just don't know what else it could be. He has never had any GI problems.

I will update this post if I get any new information, but I am really hoping he is fine now and won't get sick with a fever again.

The only other thing I could think of that could have possibly caused it is that a day or two before he got sick last time, he got into a whole bag of english muffins off the counter while we were at work and ate them all. He has been known to do this every once in a while if we forget and leave food out but I just can't remember if he had gotten into any food prior to getting sick the other times. It has been about two years since he had these issues before so I don't recall if he had eaten anything off the counter on those times. I was wondering if there is any way it could be a severe allergic reaction to certain foods or something. I'm sure that isn't likely, but just another theory. We're being very careful now about not leaving any food on the counter while we're gone just in case that may have caused it.

Thanks for your help and please let me know if you have any other ideas.

[Blazen56k]

My 2 year old yorkie had the same problem every 5-7 weeks. Very high fever, 104 degrees and up. He'd get lethargic and wouldn't want to eat or drink. They thought it was a tick related disease and tested him for that, came back negative. The doctor gave him a shot of hydrocortisone and like magic, he was acting his normal self in 30mins or so. Anyway, she gave us a low dose prednisone for fever onsets. It generally knocks out the fever in 4-6hours after taking it. However, this week he started throwing up and having bloody diarrhea. Which are more typical symptoms of Addison's, so she's now looking into the correct dosage of weekly maintenance hormone. Hopefully, we'll all be able to continue on no more episodes.

P.S. I'd recommend just treating for addison's vs testing for it. The test is like 500 dollars and the treatment is 5 dollars.