Haru is a 5 years old neutered male Goldendoodle with a chronic persistent cough and sneeze with mucus discharge. I've tried a LOT of herbal formulas at this stage for him and am getting a bit discouraged. It's likely that I need a different perspective!
He has dealt with chronic pneumonia for about 1year before coming to me for a more holistic approach on things.
This all started as a presumed kennel cough in February of 2023. It started out as a dry cough and quickly evolved to a wet, mucus producing cough and sneeze. The discharge started out as serous and progressed to a yellow thick colour and pneumonia. He has responded on and off to antibiotics, but they never fully got rid of his symptoms. He also would get bouts of fever, hyporexia, decreased water intake and lethargy.
From my findings and what I've tried:
His tongue is lavender/purple with a red tip. Seems pretty dry.
His pulse feels full to me, it's broad, easily palpated at the surface, I cannot compress it at all and is strong.
He is slender, on the thin side, with mild muscle atrophy overall. He used to be on a fresh food diet, but he was loosing weight and would have bouts of random diarrhea with it. He now gets beef high quality kibble and his stools are much better, along with keeping his weight on much more easily as well. I'd like for him to be on fresh foods, but for now the kibble is actually helpful.
He is VERY agitated for treatments which has made it pretty difficult to see what acupuncture points he responds to. He is very needle sensitive and tries to bounce around the entire room. Today he let me put a few calming and wind clearing points (BH, GB20, GV14) in and LU5 and that was it. We had to start doing home visits because he would literally move around the room constantly at my office. I have a very hard time just touching him if he knows we are doing his treatments, so pulse responsive AP is very challenging.
The 1st formula I tried was XCHT and he was slightly improved, but not fully. He would still cough and sneeze several times a day, especially after playing and first thing in the morning.
I've also tried over many months San Ren Tang with XCHT , Er Chen Tang, Chai Hu Gui Zhi Tang, Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang, Lui Jun Zhi Tang, Xin Yi San, Bu Fei Tang, Chu Shi Wei Ling Tang and Modified Xu Fu Zhu Yu Tang.
His owner notices he gets better on drier days and much worse on cold humid days.
In general he is a happy boy, good energy, great appetite, hasn't had any fever or lethargy since I've started treated him, but the cough and sneezing with mucus persists...
A couple of concerns for him :
I wasn't sure for a while if this was a wind damp cold or wind damp heat invasion. The tongue, behaviour (very exuberant) in the office, yellow coloured mucus and skinny nature made me think of a heat pathogen and Yin/Blood deficiency. I used to think of a wind cold pathogen with the owner telling me his relapses with the wet cold weather and his cold aversion (per the owner), BUT at this point it definitely progressed to deeper layers ?! Feels like I'm treating a Shao Yang + Heat entrapped in the Lungs perhaps ?
He seems prone to pododermatitis in the summer time (when it's hot and damp..)
My most recent try was with Chai Hu Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang and that gave me the most benefits ever I think. The benefits lasted about 3 weeks and then he started having productive coughing and mucus again, when it got warmer and more damp. I'm starting to wonder if it's really the cold that bothers him or is it simply that it's always damp in our region when it's cold.
I currently have him on Chai Hu Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang + added Ba Wei Di Huan Wan yesterday to see if extra kidney support would help?
I'm also wondering about the formula: Qing Qi Hua Tan Wan? I think it's my next move unless you tell me otherwise or have other ideas ? If yes, can I combine it with my CHJLGMLT and BWDHW combo?
Thank you thank you thank you as always!