Anybody dealt with this in a Lab?

My lab came home from training with an eye and ear infection. Took her to the vet to be treated and when she came home she had trouble opening her mouth (Can't pick up bumpers, toys, etc.). Took her back to the vet and he diagnosed Masticatory Myositis.

Everything I've read says that this is an immunodeficiency that can be triggered by just about anything. Seems the treatment of the infections was the trigger... I've also read that this can be treated with prednisone with some success. Anybody have any experience with this? I'm happy to have a healthy dog that can open her mouth to eat and drink, but I'm really going to miss my hunting buddy if she can't pick up birds.

I've never heard of that but I hope your girl can still hunt but even more so get some treatment so she can be a healthy companion, because they are they best at that!

Sorry, this is going to be long to explain.

My Vizsla Blaze had a tick disease Ehrlichiosis. Terrible cruel disease. One of the things it did was mimic Masticatory Muscle Myositis with her immune system attacking the bones and muscles of her head including her jaw. Her jaw pain was so intense she could not eat or drink. She initially was diagnosed with both the tick disease and MMM which presented a problem. The tick disease called for treatment with doxycycline and the MMM with Prednisone. The two together presents complications not good for the dog. My research found me on a tick disease listserve with dozens of people having dogs going through or gone through similar problems as well as self educated experts and veterinarians who had a special interest in tick diseases. What I learned was that it was not unheard of for ehrlichia to present symptoms that mimic an autoimmune MMM issue. I had a tough decision on my hands and chose to not do the prednisone and to do both a higher dose of doxy and for a longer duration than what the merk manual called for. I made the right decision as Blaze is still with me at almost 12 years old. By luck as it just as easily could have been the wrong call and killed her.

Now that was my story and I am not saying your dog has a tick disease. But it might not hurt to have your vet to run a titer test for tick-borne diseases if not already.

My dog presented as a dog with MMM so caring for her was no different. Her head muscles you could tell where visibly wasting by comparing previous pictures of her. She could barely open her jaw and to touch her jaw was painful. It got to the point I was hydrating her subcutaneously twice a day with an IV between her shoulders. She would look like a camel until it was absorbed. We made up a liquid diet we called "Blaze Soup" that we could help her eat.

What I do know is if your dog's MMM was caught early enough and on prednisone at a sufficient dose long enough, she should recover and be back to normal. If there was any muscle wasting if probably will not come back, but for my dog it has not been a problem and no one notices it but my family. Use of her jaw soon was back to normal. Some teeth were slightly loose afterwords from some bone loss from the MMM symptoms. We did have to stop a vet who wanted to pull some teeth while doing a deep teeth cleaning on Blaze explaining to him it was due to a tick disease and not gum disease. She still has all her teeth, has retrieved magnum geese since, and still eats just fine.

Feel free to ask any questions public or pm. Our dog's situations are different, but alot of what you are going through may be the same.

http://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/2998284/

Thanks for sharing...

Sniper John, thanks for sharing. Like you, I too had started self-educating and came across several forums discussing tick related diseases that could be diagnosed as MMM. I spoke to my vet yesterday and we are set to have tick titers and lepto titers run tomorrow morning. We are going to wait on the prednisone until we get the results of those tests.

Good news is that I think we caught this early. Covey is still very keen on eating hard food and I don't see any signs of wasting. There does appear to be some swelling on the right side, but she still enjoys a good face scratch. Knowing that Blaze recovered, picked up birds, and has made it to age 12 gives me hope that Covey will do the same.

I have an 11 year old pointer that started showing signs of MMM four months ago. He never had any jaw pain, but I noticed his head sinking in and did some googling and was in with the vet the next day. My vet put him on 60mg of Prednisone a day for a month, then we decreased it slowly over the course of three weeks. It effected one side of his head only, and never got into his jaw. He looks bad but it seems to have stabilized and no jaw problems at this point (which seems to be the main concern from my research). Not sure if its because I caught it early or just luck of the draw.

Well here we are two weeks later, and my dog is now showing 0 signs of MMM... I'm calling it a minor miracle! The tick and lepto titers came back negative. A little over a week ago, her head had some major swelling over the right eye so I opted to take her into the vet. He said the swelling on the top of the head wasn't consistent with MMM, so he gave her a penicillin shot and sent me home with 5 days worth of amoxicillin instead of starting her on prednisone. 2 days later, she was back to opening her mouth fully, picking up toys, and even retrieving a dokken mallard bumper. Hope it lasts, but she hasn't had any setbacks yet.

Dove season can't get here fast enough.

That is wonderful news.

That's awesome!!