Once again, I am the queen of weird-ass cases! Georgy is a 6 month old poodle puppy who breathes rapidly and shallowly at night, sometimes to the point of respiratory distress. The owner says he did this from his first night home, mid-April, DOB 2/1/23. It seemed to get progressively worse until keeping both of them up at night by early May. She had heart and lungs checked out by (conventional) vet friend. Puppy has never shown any exercise intolerance, great appetite (eats only raw), active, happy, growing appropriately. On Jean Dodds vaccination schedule.
So when obvious things check out, and owner is still concerned, I suggest she make an appt for some diagnostics. On 6/21, internist takes rads, which are interpreted by radiologist as "interstitial pattern" in lungs, and suggests could be parasites. So they put him on a course of wormers, which do not change anything. In another couple of weeks, after a particularly bad night, she goes to ER (same clinic) and insists they do a diagnostic workup. CT agrees with plain rads-- now calling it "ground glass" appearance in lungs. Pulse ox normal. Owner describes the resp. distress as expiratory, as he breathes out hard and rapidly, progresses to panting. Keeps them both up all night, then he collapses at 5 am and sleeps for 6 hours.
I am thinking Yin def, Jing def, LU channel involvement, but hardly know where to begin. I am getting desperate, and put the case up on the Holistic FB group, and Heather O'Leary suggests a treatment based on Balanced AP, which she is studying now. So she walks me through a treatment of He Sea points, alternating Yin and Yang, HT, SI, KI, BL, as opposite circadian clock from LU time of 3-5 am. I can barely keep the needles in for 30 seconds (puppy!), but damned if the problem doesn't stop that night. Meanwhile, BAL comes back a week later positive for Bordatella. (He has never coughed, no bronchial involvement). Conventional vet puts him on Doxy, and he seems to be okay on it, with extra probiotics. So Heather has me repeat weekly two more times, and dog continues to do well. Until last Friday night (~ 3 weeks from initial), it's back to as bad as ever.
The owner is a professional trauma and grief counselor, with chronic lung issues. And as you can imagine, long personal history of trauma/grief/loss. Let's say a LU constitution? I am trying to get her some treatment with emotional balancing. Dog channeling her?
I tried a treatment today where I reversed the polarity of the balanced acupuncture treatment-- flipped Yin to Yang. Waiting to hear if he sleeps tonight. I also dosed him with Thuja 200C in case some weird vaccine reaction. Today his tongue was pale-ish pink, pulse superficial, compressible, but kind of sharp. His tongue is never red. He is not particularly heat intolerant. She can tell he is going to have a bad night by around 10 pm (TH?) The other vet gave her some Trazodone, which eventually knocks him out.
Does this resemble any pattern you can recognize? Any herbal suggestions? In every other way, he is a normal, active, happy puppy!!