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Old March 24th, 2015, 01:35 PM
tanyaden tanyaden is offline
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Healthy dog tested lyme-positive - do we need to use nosode?

We removed 2 ticks from our 4 year old Bernese Mountain dog last October (vacation in Vermont). Last week we did a SNAP test, and it came back with lyme and anaplasmosis positive. Our dog never showed any symptoms, she looks (and hopefully feels) great. Generic blood test doesn't show any abnormalities.

I did some research, and it looks like some dogs (Berners in particular) test positive but don't have lyme. Our vet thinks there's no need for treatment, and I tend to agree with him. On the other hand, I don't like to think that our girl carries lyme.
I know that some homeopathic remedies are very effective for treating lymes, namely Lyme Nosode.

So my question is: do we need to treat this lyme if there's no symptoms? If yes, is Lyme Nosode the best choice? And if yes again, then what's the protocol? Unfortunately I wasn't able to find homeopathic vet in our area :-(

Any help is greatly appreciated!

P.S. I know that Dr.Guindon sometimes answers questions here (at least did it in the past). I would be more than happy to hear his opinion.
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Old March 24th, 2015, 02:21 PM
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Dog Dancer Dog Dancer is offline
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Hello Tanyaden - one of our members here, Hazelrunpack, has experience with her pack with lyme. Hopefully she'll login sometime today and find this thread. If I don't see an answer from her I'll ask her to check.
Good luck.
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Old March 24th, 2015, 02:43 PM
Barkingdog Barkingdog is offline
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Does your dog show any signs of stiffness or limping ? My standard poodle was limping on his front leg and I thought he had hurt it from jumping . He had Lyme , Marty got Lyme too and his neck got so stiff he could not drink water form his bowl on the floor, he was using the one in his crate that was higher.
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Old March 24th, 2015, 05:23 PM
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hazelrunpack hazelrunpack is offline
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How did her blood work look? I know you said there were no abnormalities, but we've had dogs symptomatic for anaplasmosis with low (but normal) blood panel results. In particular, look at the platelets. If they're way on the low end of normal, we treat with doxycycline. Doxycycline will take care of both the anaplasmosis (which our dogs seem more prone to) and Lyme's disease. WBC counts can also sometimes be on the low end of normal when these diseases are active--something else to look for in the blood panel.

Tick-borne diseases are not always easy to detect, and the symptoms can be subtle. We had one girl, Belle, who had chronic Lyme's when we adopted her. She didn't always test positive for the disease, even though we knew it was present. So if there's any chance that your Berner has either Lyme's or anaplasmosis, I'd have a long talk with your vets and try to convince them to allow a course of doxycycline for at least 4 wks.
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Old March 25th, 2015, 01:05 AM
MaxaLisa MaxaLisa is offline
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What testing was done???? The SNAP should *always* be followed by the C6 test, and your vet should inform you of this.

Personally I would treat any new infection aggressively, at the dosage of 10 mg/kg twice a day, for 6 weeks, and monitor bloodwork.

It's not necessarily that the Bernese don't have clinical disease, but that you might not see it until Lyme causes kidney disease. Tick diseases causes silent disease in some cases, and just because we can't see it externally, doesn't mean that something isn't happening inside. Shelties, Goldens, and Labs also share this risk of kidney disesase from both "silent" lyme and also the lyme vaccination.

http://www.cliniciansbrief.com//arti...-mountain-dogs

"A familial glomerulonephritis has been reported in Bernese mountain dogs. Antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi were found in most of these dogs, raising the concern that glomerular disease in this breed may be related to infection or that the breed may be predisposed to B burgdorferi infection. A study performed in Switzerland examined 160 Bernese mountain dogs and 62 control dogs. All were considered healthy by their owners and had no obvious disease as evaluated by complete blood count, serum biochemical analysis, and urinalysis. Owners were asked questions regarding the dogs' environment, and all dogs in the study were found to live in similar environments in the same areas of Switzerland and were walked in the woods with the same frequency and length of time. ELISA and Western blot analysis found a seroprevalence of 58% in Bernese mountain dogs compared with 15% in control dogs. The presence of antibody against leptospires, history of vaccination against Lyme borreliosis, and hair coat color (fair vs dark) did not influence the results.This study suggests that Bernese mountain dogs are predisposed to B burgdorferi infection. Further study is needed to determine both the biological reasons for this predisposition as well as the clinical consequences.

COMMENTARY: Breed predispositions for tick-borne diseases have been previously recognized. German shepherds are thought to be more seriously affected by Ehrlichia and Siberian husky dogs seem to have more serous disease when infected with Rickettsia ricketsii. Breed predistribution has been speculated before for clinical signs of Lyme disease as well. A study at the University of Pennsylvania teaching hospital found that 37% of the general population and 57% of dogs with polyarthropathy were Lyme-positive. And 57% of lame retrievers compared with 24% of healthy retrievers were seropositive. The reasons for these predispositions are unknown.


Increased prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi infections in Bernese mountain dogs: A possible breed predisposition. Gerber B, Eichenberger S, Wittenbrink MM, Reusch CE. BMC VETERINARY RESEARCH 3:15, 2007.
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  #6  
Old March 25th, 2015, 07:17 AM
tanyaden tanyaden is offline
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Thank you very much all!

The blood work is really normal. Platelets are 279 (normal range 143-448), and WBC is 12.9 (range 4.9-17.6). Maya doesn't show anything abnormal - she's her normal self. I'm not sure I want to give her antibiotics at this point. I think that antibiotics are the last reserve. That's why I was thinking about some homeopathic treatment, but unfortunately I don't know good homeopathic vet in our area. And I don't feel comfortable to do it myself without doctor's guideline.

I'm aware that Lyme can cause kidney problem, so we're monitoring it. So far so good...
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