{"id":1003,"date":"2010-04-20T06:43:19","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T11:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cynthomas.com\/dogblog\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2010-04-20T06:43:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-20T11:43:19","slug":"old-lyme-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthomas.com\/journal\/old-lyme-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Lyme Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh yeah, I’ve got it. The dreaded Lyme. The big L.

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***<\/figcaption><\/figure>My humans are pretty clever or just this side of paranoid. Either way, they saved me a lot of pain and discomfort by taking me to the vet.
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\nI had been limping on my front right leg for a few days. I usually recover from tweaking my leg in a day or two. This had turned into three. On the fourth day, I seemed good to go, so A-Dog and I went running in the woods. Later that day, the front leg tweak had returned and now my back left leg was lame.
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\nShoes-on-the-Floor (the Dad of the house) gave me baby aspirin that night and I hit the sack hard. I seemed a bit more spry in the morning, but still limping. My humans were trying not to worry too much, but my birth mom<\/a> just passed recently and the start of her illness was a limp that wouldn’t go away.
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\nThey L-O-V-E me at the vet’s office. I’ve been going there since I was a puppy. Everybody is so lovey-dovey and give me ear scratches and treats. Sounds great, right? As soon as I catch the smell of the place, I’m on high-alert and become a lap dog. If I could crawl inside my humans, I would. But my only strategy is to try and hide this 76-pound body behind my 18-inch wide human. Great plan.
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\nAnyhoo, they checked out my limbs, ask a bunch of questions and took some blood. After losing about a pound of hair from fear, we waited for the results and it was Lyme Disease<\/a>. Treatment is fairly simple. I’m taking antibiotics for three weeks and then I should be fine.
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\nI don’t share product information very often, but these two things I’m going to share are awesome! First is the new way I get to take my pills.
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\n\"pill-poppers\"
\nThese are great. No more messy peanut butter or trying to jam a pill into cheese. These little babies hold the pills just so. They smell and taste just like my other treats. They come in a capsule style too.
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\nThe last thing I want to share is a tool that we have used here in the birth place of Lyme Disease (I’m so proud!) many, many times on humans, as well as dogs. It’s been dubbed the “tick spoon” and I don’t remember where we originally got it. It’s called Ticked Off<\/em><\/strong> and they have a website here<\/a>. The notched end of the spoon goes under the tick that’s embedded and removes the whole thing with a satisfying, yet disgusting, POP sound. See? Awesome.
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\n\"tick-spoon\"
\nI am on the road to recovery. Everyone is relieved that my diagnosis was not more dire. We’ll all be grateful for now and live in the moment, just like a dog should.<\/p>\n
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