IMHA
Have any of you dog lovers heard of that? It stands for Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia. It sucks. My Vet thinks it was caused by the Leptosporsis vaccine. He gave us a 50/50 chance of recovery. While our dog was not responding to treatment, we went to a specialist. We have been dealing with this for eight months and nearly 10 grand worth of tests and medications. Just learned from the specialist at our last visit, that dogs requiring 3 immune suppressors rarely make it. She is still hanging in there. In the meantime she had an acute hepatitis incident that also could have killed her. Got past that. She is now suffering from chronic diarrhea and fur loss. Our beautiful girl looks like a ragamuffin It is so incredibly difficult to convey what you need to deal with this disease. Ask for titer tests. If I had known at the beginning how difficult it would be, I might have made a different decision. Her odds of getting through all the weaning from medications, scares the hell out of me. It doesn’t take much for them to relapse. We won’t put her through it again, should that happen.
= new reply since forum marked as read
strong. You are amazing and she is lucky to have your love. She will make it!!!
Now is hardly the time when counseling you to keep perspective seems appropriate, but you asked for information, so here goes. Just know the evidence for vaccines as the primary or most important cause in dogs is not strong, though at least plausible in rare cases. Cold comfort that, though, isn't it?
It is true that in HUMANS, approximately 1-3 children/100,000 MMR vaccines can develop a related autoimmune syndrome that causes clotting defects (ITP), so there is some better evidence for the rare phenomenon in humans that is at least correlated with (though conceivably not caused by) a vaccine.
Right now, here is probably the best but small study (only 44 dogs) and thus weak evidence for it in dogs (2017 study):
Moon, AKB. Veir, J. Vaccination Behavior and Adverse Events in Dogs Treated for Primary Immune-Mediated Hemolytic Anemia (Abstract HM17) ACVIM Forum, National Harbor, MD, 2017.
1) The average time from most recent vaccination to the initial onset of IMHA was 351 days. Such a long period makes it unlikely that vaccination was a major trigger for IMHA in many of these dogs. It still might have been in the subset who were vaccinated closer in time to the onset of their illness. This study found no such temporal relationship, but a different study design would be necesary to confirm that.Previous studies have found only a small proportion of IMHA cases received vaccinations in the 2-4 weeks before the onset of their illness, and most found no difference in recent vaccination rates between dogs who developed these diseases and comparison dogs who did not. So far, the overall data suggests that vaccination is rarely a proximal trigger for these autoimmune disease, though whether they play a role as an overall risk factor isn’t known.
2) About half of the dogs had not been vaccinated since their IMHA diagnosis. This is consistent with the common practice of many vets to eschew vaccination in dogs who have had a history of autoimmune disease. However, about half of these dogs did receive vaccines after their diagnosis, and almost all of these were rabies vaccines. This is likely because rabies vaccination is legally required in most of the U.S. and exceptions are not always allowed for dogs with a history of autoimmune disease.Only 2 of the 21 dogs who were vaccinated following their IMHA had any reported adverse reaction. These two reactions were typical of the acute hypersensitivity reaction seen with vaccination. No relapse of IMHA or other autoimmune disease was reported in the vaccinated dogs. This suggests that such dogs may not be more sensitive to vaccination than other dogs, though again the size and methodology of this study is not adequate to demonstrate that with any certainty.
3)Though this is just a small bit of data, it does fit into the larger context of existing evidence in dogs, and the much more comprehensive evidence in humans, suggesting that vaccines play an extremely small role, if any, in triggering such autoimmune diseases, While caution is warranted, and certainly unnecessary vaccination should be avoided on principle, there is no justification for extreme and confident claims that vaccines are a major cause of these autoimmune diseases in our pets or that what risk may exist outweighs the benefits of appropriate vaccination.
The consensus is that given the increase in parvovirus nationwide, obvious risk in nearly all locales from wildlife rabies, and the highly infectious nature of distemper, the risk for disease far outweighs the risk of developing autoimmune disease, yet this is no comfort for the owners of a beloved affected dog. Leptospirosis is a complicated bacterial disease spread through the urine of rodents and other wildlife. In prior years the vaccines were not very protective and there are still issues with the improved vaccine, given the many subtypes of the Leptospire bacteria. Still, it is a serious disease, which destroys kidneys and liver and can be spread to humans from infected dogs, so in areas where it is prevalent, the vaccine is likely a necessity as well--at least for active dogs. It is also true that more reactions have been reported from the current Lepto vaccine than others, though most are mild and again, not all "reactions" are truly a result of this or any other vaccine. Temporal timing is key to that determination. among other factors.
I wish you and your beloved babe the very best, cate94. Truly.
I’ve lost several dogs over the years and it is always painful. They are such important family members.
