My dog, Max, has been pretty sick for quite some time.  For the last many months, when I'm googling things, this site keeps coming up.  I finally looked at little closer, not just at the thread that came up, and I see a lot of similarities, so maybe I will learn some things here that will help me save my dog.

This is more of an introduction, wasn't sure where to put it....but I need to change his treatment plan, and am not sure what my next step is, from the quick read, maybe adding NACⁱ, but I need to research some more.  I have a vet that I'm consulting with, but I'm doing most of the research.

Max has been on abxⁱ off and on most of his life, he's 10 1/2 now, a German Shepherd Dog.  I'll try to make this short-ish.....

Since late 2009, he's been on doxycycline, and for much of that time, also on amoxicillinⁱ and tylan (a macrolide for digestive stuff).  He had a condition that usually responds to immuno-suppressants, but didn't, so I put together that protocol for him, thinking he had tick diseasesⁱ.  I have access to doxy, amoxi, azithromycin, tylan, cipro, flagylⁱ - I think that's it.

I thought this would be as simple as supporting his system and slowly weaning him off the abxⁱ, but I was wrong.  Btw, he tests negative for anything, and weird reactions to lots of things, including meds.

He has a lot breathing issues, getting winded when he moves from one room to another, or even just sitting and getting excited. Testing also shows that he does not have enough blood moving through his body.

After many vet visits, finally, the internal medicine guy believes that this is infection and not autoimmune.  He thinks it might be a pathogenic strain of e.coli, dilating his blood vessels, making it harder to circulate blood, and, at the same time, believes that he has lung inflammationⁱ that is probably immune mediated.  I have noticed that the breathing is worse off of the amoxicillin, so I think there might be something more.

He is currently on doxycycline, amoxicillin, and cipro.  I was just looking up different ways to maybe pulse the cipro, or wondering if the azithro would be better after prolonged cipro (which really scares me long term!), when I ran across this site again.  It's possible that I brought something home when my mom was in the ICU and subsequently a rehab facility, so who knows what he actually has

You all seem to be the experts here, so I thought I'd throw all that out, in case you see anything useful to comment on. 

Great site that you have here, never had an idea that this was a disease, and such a terrible and chronic one.  I know quite a bit about tick diseases....very scary this world of infection :(