Are these symptoms Wegener's? In November of 2002, my husband was selected to be deployed to the Gulf when it was discovered that someone with his expertise was needed. Due to the last minute nature of his selection, several inoculations were administered together in the fall of 2002. He immediately became very ill, and fluid was found to be in his lungs. Antibiotics were required due to bacterial infection. He was not deployed at that time due to the illness. A few weeks later, on February of 2003, he had been sick for three days and saw a physician. At that time, symptoms included headache, nasal drainage, cough, weakness/achy, nasal congestion and wheezing. He was again diagnosed with pneumonia. A few months later in December of 2003, he was again seen by his physician after being sick for four days. He had blood in his sputum due to oral lesions, nasal drainage, and chest symptoms and was diagnosed again with pneumonia. (Diagnosed with pneumonia 3 times in about a year). In September 2004, he was seen by his physician with symptoms involving lesions (spots) on both ankles. The lesions were misdiagnosed as spider bites and he was treated with prednisone and colchicine. He saw his physician on March 13, 2005 after being ill for six days. Symptoms included: cough, fever, nasal drainage, and chest symptoms. He was diagnosed with acute bronchitis. In 2005, we relocated. He saw a physician in November of 2005. Symptoms included: painful lesions that had developed on his legs, severe pain in joints in legs up to hips, swelling in left ankle, nausea, severe stomach cramps and flu-like symptoms (body aches, headaches and feverish sensations). All of this was preceded by bronchitis three weeks prior. Around the time the upper respiratory symptoms resolved, severe stomach cramps started and he believed he lost about twenty pounds in this time frame. Additional symptoms at that time included: significant decrease in energy, some intermittent dizziness during flu-like bouts, diminished urine output, course sounding breath, nosebleeds and discomfort in hands and shoulders. After seeing a rheumatologist, it was determined that he had purpura and intermittent abdominal pain consistent with an autoimmune (vasculitic) syndrome. He was prescribed prednisone which was very helpful at that time. On December 22, 2005, he was seen by a physician and had the following symptoms: chest filled with fluid, lots of clear phlegm, left foot felt asleep, right foot felt tingly. Most recently, in February of 2008, he experienced the onset of right extremity purpura again. Symptoms since February 2008 have included severe joint pain, recurrence of lesions, vision problems (blurred vision, burning, itching, painful eyes), bulging, painful and itching and very enlarged veins in hands and feet, hot flashes/night sweats, severe fatigue, nausea, numbness/tingling in extremities, numbness in upper spine and anterior scalp, muscle weakness (particularly the legs necessitating use of a stick to aid in walking and can’t walk very far), mood and anxiety symptoms (depressed mood, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, loss of interest in activities, difficulty concentrating, short term memory loss, loss of appetite, weight loss and fatigue: for which he was prescribed an antidepressant), urinary problems (painful and difficult urination followed by milky discharge, severe pain in right testicle/groin area), migratory pain, insomnia, muscle twitches, new smaller red spots on legs and painful nasal lesions. During the last few months, he has had to take stronger and higher doses of pain medication to manage his pain. In August of 2008, his symptoms have significantly worsened, the prednisone has not been as helpful (currently 60 mg.), and he appears to meet criteria for the diagnosis of Wegener’s granulomatosis, fatigue and neuropathy. (Differential: midline granuloma; upper airway malignancy; relapsing polychondritis; goodpasture’s; polyarteriis nodosa and other vasculitis). ANCA tests and kidney biopsy have not shown what they need for diagnosis to be definitive. They've tried tapering him off Pred. at least twice, but have to increase it again due to symptoms becoming much more severe. He wants to try Methotrexate or Cytotoxin, doctors want to taper him AGAIN. Unable to work at this point. Still trying to get a diagnosis and treatment. Some sinus issues on MRI.

My almost 2 year old chow mix died 14 days after being neutered, what could have happened? The vet said he did fine during and right after surgery. She claims they did a pre-surgical panel for any underlying problems he may have had to make sure it was safe to sedate him for this routine procedure. Right after we went to pick him up he was acting pretty normal considering he just had surgery, the next day we noticed quite a lot of swelling in his scrotum area with some discoloration (almost bruising) his incision site looked normal. I didn't like how it looked so we called the vet and she had us bring him back in the next day to get a look at him. She said it looked like he had licked his incision site and cause a rupture of blood vessels to cause the bruising and swelling. She prescribed prednisone for the swelling along with Cipro for any possible infection and we left. the next couple of days we noticed he wasn't eating. The vet said it may take him a little while after surgery to get his appetite back up so we gave him a day or 2 and he finally ate a little bit, that night he got sick and threw it all back up, he continued not to eat the next morning so again i called the vet and she wanted him to come back in to get a better look and see if there was anything else going on. She wasn't able to see him so we saw another vet. He took the dog's temperature and said he didnt have any fever but could tell he had lost a significant amount of weight, so he put him on the scale and he had lost 5 lbs since surgery. The vet told us that he could possibly be having a reaction to the antibiotic Cipro that was given so he kept the prednisone and changed the Cipro to Clavamox. We took him home and he still wasn't quite himself, the next day he still didn't eat but we forced the pills to him cause the vet said he needed to take it. He would drink water but still did not eat any food for a day. That next afternoon he really got to feeling bad i could tell, then we noticed his breathing wasn't right and he started gasping for air, we took him straight to the vet and he died in the car before we could get him to the office. They have no idea what happened. The vet wrote me a letter saying how sorry she was and all shocked everyone in the office was about what happened, but they had no reason for what happened...I requested my dog's chart just to read all the notes cause i was so angry about what happened, i was looking for clues as to what may have happened. He went in over a year ago for pnuemonia symptoms and was given Cipro and Clavamox at that time, so im thinking he didnt have an allergic reaction to those meds (i had forgotten he took those or i would have told the vet he took them before and had no problems, so he may not be having an allergic reaction to them) also i read the surgical notes taken before they neutered him, besides "lab work" they wrote "n/a" so im wondering if they even did any labs before hand to make sure his kidney and liver function was ok before sedating him. anyone have any ideas or input to what could have happened??????? I did have a conversation with the vet and she said it could have been a number of things including the dog acquiring distemper, well he had his vaccines. She said it could have been an underlying condition such as a neurological problem or metabolic disease that caused this, she was only human and i totally understand that but i honestly don't think she had any idea what was going on with him. If he did have distemper, he did not show any signs before hand and it didn't progress like i had read about the disease doing. he was totally healthy when we took him in to get neutered. He was pretty aggressive with other people that he had never met before but was a loving and wonderful dog to my husband and I, thats why we were wanting to have him fixed, along with him jumping the fence to get to our neighbors female dog