It has been a lot of years since I have had to worry about Chylothorax. My GSD was diagnosed at the very young age of 1 year, she is now nearly 9. She never showed any sign that she was sick, then for 2 days she only nibbled at her food and on the third day she was breathing heavier than normal. I took her to our normal vet, they took x-rays and saw fluid so they tapped her chest, 3-4 Liters and kept her chest kept filling up within minutes. They told us they were not equip to handle the situation and our only chance was to take her to the specialist right then and there or euthanize. So my husband and I rushed our girl to the ER.
Once there, they did more diagnostics to try to figure out what was causing the Chylothorax so they knew how to go about trying to treat it. After about $2500 in diagnostics, it came back idiopathic, no medical reason for it. We ended up having to leave her at the ER overnight and finally by the next day she was doing a little better. She stopped building up fluid and she was allowed to go home. The doctors told us to start a low fat diet, Rutin, and minimize the exercise. I do not remember dosing of the Rutin, I believe we started out at 1500mg 3x/day (86lb at that time). I don’t know the science behind the dosing either, I just did what I was told.
Doing this treatment, Daisy did well for about 3 months before we had to take her in again to get her chest tapped. The doctors increased the Rutin to 3000mg 3x/day, I was going through I think 3-4 bottles a week. It must have helped some though because Daisy did well until November, about 11 months after being diagnosed. She was tapped the first week of November, then the third week, then 5 days later, then 3, then 2, then needed done again the next day. Each time was harder to get fluid out because of the fibrin that was building up after each tap. They told me I had to do surgery or euthanize.
We made an appointment with the surgeon for a consultation. We were hesitant because of everything we had been told and read it didn’t look good. The surgeon, however, told us that he had a 79% success chance (that may not sound good to most people but with the 35% odds that we were reading about this sounded great) so we set up the surgery for the next day. We were quoted $2500-$4000 depending on recovery. Daisy did very well with the surgery (thoracic duct ligation and pericardectomy), ended up having to stay 1 extra day because of mild fluid buildup still. I got to take her home the day before her 2nd birthday.
Daisy stayed on Rutin for I’d say 6 months or maybe more and still to this day stays on a low fat diet. I get yearly chest x-rays to make sure fluid is not building up again and so far it has not. She plays pretty normal for the most part, she will play until her tongue starts to turn blue so I do have to watch her.
My point to this lengthy response is this: The surgery may be pricey, and yes it is not a 100% guarantee it will cure Chylothorax, but there are still better odds of it helping rather than not doing a surgery at all. I feel a drain would be best if the surgery does not work (obviously curing the condition would be better than just treating) or if it is your only option because of money issues. On that note though, I wish I had found this forum when I was dealing with this. It would have been nice to know that there was another treatment if they surgery did not work, no doctor ever mentioned this to me.
I wish the best of luck to everyone that is battling Chylothorax and if I can help in any way, please feel free to reach out to me.
