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Old September 17th, 2011, 05:45 PM
vheringer vheringer is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 1
Masticular Muscle Myositis - What else should I be doing?

Hello all,

Last month, our English Bulldog Ipanema started showing signs of an auto-immune desease called Masticular Muscle Myositis (MMM). We ran a full blood test and the results were spotless. She has always been a very healthy dog, and despite the swollen jaw muscles and the right side of her face looking like she had a stoke, she was very healthy at the time.

We started treating the symptoms with 20mg of prednisone twice a day for a month (starting on August 9th). Since she was able to open her mouth fully again after four weeks of treatment, we decreased the daily dosage to 15mg (three pills) twice a day.

Yesterday, she started showing the symptoms again, this time a bit stronger than when it started. We took her to the vet and he gave her a shoot of flucort. Almost 24 hours later, she hasn't improved much, but seems to be in less pain.

I've always treated my dogs with traditional medicine and I really don't know where I should go from here. My online research has shown that I am doing everything by the book and there is nothing else I can do to improve her condition with the traditional approach. I was hoping the community could help me answer the following questions:

1) Is there another desease more common in Bulldogs that looks like MMM? Apparently, MMM is very common in larger breeds like Shepards and Labradors, but I haven't found information regarding Bulldogs.

2) Can it be an allergic reaction? Am I missing anything?

3) Should I pursue a biopsy of her masticular tissue? Would the results help me to find a better treatment?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Veronica and Ipanema
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