I took her for her annual checkup and vaccines. I also talked with the doctor about her itchy ears, and he gave her a gel medicine in her ears to take care of any infection present. He said I could wipe off any excess that worked it's way out of her ears.
Once we were home her ears looked kinda gross, to be honest. She had shook her head enough, I guess, that a lot of the gel was coming out. I wiped them down, then went in my vest room to check something on my iPad. She followed me in there and proceeded to roll around on the floor, rubbing her head and ears on the carpet. I half expected her to do this, because any time we put medicine or anything in her ears, she hates it, and tries to rub her ears on the carpet. I tried to stop her. She got smart and went under the bed where I couldn't reach her, haha. But I could tell she was still bothered by it, because she was rolling around under the bed and licking the carpet compulsively. But it wasn't just her ears, it looked like she was just trying to rub the side of her face, in general, on the carpet.
I coaxed her out and noticed her ears were RED, I mean really, really red. They were also really hot. As I started to look her over more, and still trying to wipe off the goo and prevent her from rolling around and getting away from me, I saw the area around her eyes was puffy and turning red. A couple of her paws were swelling up and pink too. Okay, something is not right here, this seems like an allergic reaction.
I called the vet, and they said to bring her back. I sat and waited while they checked her out. After some time, one of the vet tech's came out saying that she was definitely reacting to something, but they'd never seen a reaction like that to the ear gel. They had to call the doctor, because he was out on a farm call. He was surprised by the news, and wanted to look her over once he was back. That wouldn't be for at least another 20 minutes, so they said I could leave her there and come back to pick her up. They were giving her some Benedryl by injection, wiping out all of the ear gel, and they were putting cold packs on her ears because they were on fire.
I ran some errands, and by then it was silly to come home for ten minutes, so I went back a little early. The doctor talked with me, and said he thought she was having a reaction to one of the vaccines. I assumed it was the ear gel, since that was the only part of her visit yesterday that was different, but he explained for her to have such a systemic reaction, involving her entire body, instead of just locally in the ears, it was likely the vaccine. I mentioned she's never reacted like this before, just been a tad lethargic the following day. After hearing that, he was even more inclined to believe it was the vaccine. Even though I think lethargy after, like, a rabies vaccine is pretty common, I guess it's still kind of a reaction in it's own way. (All that being said, a tiny part of me still wonders if it was the gel because the entire episode seemed to start with her ears. Who knows.)
He said she was running a pretty good fever, her face was still swollen, and her heart rate was up, so he was going to give her something like "doggie Tylenol" to help with that. He wanted us to watch her closely last night, make sure there were no breathing problems and that her fever came down.
When they brought her out to me, she was a bit mellow. I'm sure that was partly the Benedryl; I know how I feel on Benedryl, and getting an injection is even stronger than taking the pill. But her face was still puffy around her nose and mouth. That part had not yet happen when I dropped her off, so that must have presented itself after I handed her off. Poor Josie.
Since posting about this on social media, I've had 4 other dog owners share similar stories of their dogs having an out-of-the-blue reaction to their annual vaccines. In some cases, they said it continued, and in others they said it was only the one year and every time since then has been fine. I'll see what they say next year as to what they want to do for her.
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| Muzzle still a little puffy and swollen |
Unfortunately it's impossible to determine which vaccine caused the issue. She got her usual three yesterday. Maybe we'll try them one at a time next year, at least that would be my suggestion.
She's doing better this morning. I think her fever went away around 8:00 last night. I never took her temp, but I could easily feel she was hotter than normal for a while. I encouraged her to drink water and rest a lot, because she could barely keep her head up and her eyes open anyways. This morning she was a bit groggy still, but I think in the past hour she's started to act more normal. She's laying in the sunshine right now :).
We're very thankful this was a one day thing and she's been doing better. Here's hoping it doesn't happen again or, if it does, we can pinpoint the cause.
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