@Susan
I just wanted to give you an update on Oscar. Bloodwork was done. ALT was a tiny bit above normal and Calcium was also a tiny bit above normal. During all this, I’ve always asked the vets to sedate Oscar to properly look in his mouth. FYI, he turns in Cujo at the vet office.
Bile acid and PTH/ionized calcium were done. Bile acid was over the high normal range. He’s now on Zentonil for the liver. We asked if we caught it early enough and was told yes, very early. The PTH/ionized calcium were elevated. PTH (normal 0.5-5.8) is 3.98 and Ionized calcium (normal 1.25-1.45) is 1.47. He has been diagnosed with mild hypercalcemia. If the ionized calcium elevates the diagnosis will be primary hyperparathyroidism. Will be rechecking in August. The next step would be ultrasound and surgery to remove the parathyroid gland/s.
Oscar was still gulping/smacking/swallowing more and more and having funky breath. A prior vet insisted I do an endoscopy as she was certain it had to do with his GI. I was positive it was his teeth because of the symptoms. She said she looked at them and they were fine. Oscar was muzzled for the vet to examine him. Yeah, right she could examine his teeth properly.
I made an appt. to have his teeth looked at with our current vet. Yup, that’s the problem. He had 4 teeth removed as they were fractured at the root. This also happened last August and he had 4 teeth removed then (by another vet but didn’t do x-rays). We just thought it was from chewing on a knuckle bone. Our current vet has a dental x-ray machine and showed me his poor little teeth. It’s because of the hypercalcemia.
He has his teeth extracted on Wednesday and his gulping thing has disappeared by 98%. He used to hack a lot to, even after drinking water or getting excited. That’s gone too.
I look forward to the future and enjoying many years with my wonderful Poochie.
Thank you for your advice and help. 🙂
I will update you after the next round of blood work is done.
