Coonhound Paralysis?

[K9Rehab]

Hello,
I just got referred a lovely 1 year old Gr. Pyrenees with insidious onset quadrilateral paralysis about 10 days ago. Suspected Dx is either botulism or coonhound paralysis. He is slowly recovering some motor function front limbs much faster than the hind limbs but has also lost his bark. Does anyone have any experience with this? Just looking for timelines and prognosis for full recovery?

Thanks

[lehughes]

I'm glad you posted this because I'd be interested in the answer too!
I've not seen a Coonhound Paralysis case!

ANYBODY? ANYBODY?

Laurie

[sblovedvm@gmail.com]

I have. I've had a couple of cases and have seen a couple others. And they can be heartbreaking. All I can say is expect a timeline of recovery of months. Rarely a dog may require ventilation. Other things to watch for and avoid are aspiration pneumonia, pressure sores and UTIs. Having owners that are all in is great, otherwise boarding with rehab is great as well.

There's thought to be an association between acute polyradiculoneuritis and Toxoplasmosis, so it's worth treating for toxo, just in case. I've seen these dogs go for 3 months until they can stand without support. Hang in there!

Sarah

[larm40]

We had a heeler at our facility that was down for 3 months with gradual recovery back to near normal function. We spent so much time with her on a daily basis and it was so rewarding to see her come back! Initially it was so much work. She had to be repositioned every 2 hours to prevent decubital ulcers, carried out to try to get her to go potty. She had no control at first then was retaining and had to be put on meds. We had to prop her up to feed her etc. We worked with her through out our day with massage, passive range of motion, mimicking standing ,floating the treadmill and manually moving her limbs. We also spent lots of time working on muscle reeducation. She regained movement from front to back also. These cases are so much work but as we all know it doesn't matter because that's why we are here, to do our best to get them back on track.

We had an Akita once that the owner said their other 2 Akitas also had contracted it. I wondered if there are breeds that have a higher representation to this ??? Does anyone know of any research on this question??

[lehughes]

I did a pubmed search. There isn't much 'current'... but I did find a couple of open access articles:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... up;seq=493

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2032481/

It is otherwise found as Idiopathic polyneuritis, and akin to Guillain-Barré Syndrome (in people).
And alternately known as idiopathic polyradiculoneuritis.

My Pubmed search only pulled up 11 articles using the search term Coonhound Paralysis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?te ... +paralysis

You can also seem to find some additional resources on Google Scholar. I found the following for a presentation in 2005 (or 2007... it's confusing).
http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/scivac/ ... pdf?LA=1..

The term coonhound paralysis
refers to those dogs with a history of being bitten or scratched by a raccoon shortly before developing clinical
signs of disease. The term idiopathic polyradiculoneuritis refers to patients with an identical clinical disorder, but
Close window to return to IVIS
with no possible exposure to raccoons. These two subcategories probably reflect the same disease syndrome,
with the trigger for the inflammatory process being as yet unidentified in the latter subcategory. The typical clinical
scenario for acute idiopathic polyradiculoneuritis describes a rapidly developing LMN paresis/plegia, usually
beginning in the pelvic limbs, and eventually involving the thoracic limbs. Most affected animals will progress to
being either non-ambulatory tetraparetic or tetraplegic within 10 days of initial onset of clinical signs. It is not
uncommon for this stage of dysfunction to be reached within a 72 hour period of time.

Great discussion to bring back up!!! Thanks!

Laurie