heart murmurs

leema

New Member
Heart murmurs often go away in young puppies. However, by 4 months, any heart murmur is there for good though some can be fixed by surgery.
 

tango61

New Member
My dog is eight years old and we found out she had a heart murmur last year....
She is on Prednizone to help it, but i really want to put her in agility
 

leema

New Member
I looked up Prednizone, and I could not find any reference to it being a drug for heart murmurs...
 

cppugs

New Member
It really depends on the age of the dog. Often times a mild heart murmur in puppies will go away. When they are older, depending on the severity of the murmur it may or may not impact their quality of life. Many dogs and people live full healthy lives with a mild murmur. The more severe it is, of course the more impact there will be.

Neither I, nor my vet tech sister have ever heard of pred for a heart murmur. You should talk to your vet to see how severe the murmur is and why they have your dog on pred. Pred is not a nice medication and could cause more severe health problems if it is not needed for your dog.

There is no way to make a murmur go away, it is a defect and if it is a severe murmur surgery is required to repair it.

Good luck and talk to your vet before you do anything,
Charleen
 

tango61

New Member
I am not sure if it is for a heart murmur. I acutally talked to my mom and its for builing up her heart and immune system. Its not for her heart murmur! Sorry to confuse you!
 
Prednisone suppresses the immune system, not strengthen it. Maybe your dog has another problem that causes the immune system to be too active?

Regardless, I would recommend that you ask for a referral to a cardiologist, who would be able to find out what the cause of the heart murmur is, and prescribe medications (if necessary) that would help with the heart murmur. I doubt the heart murmur would ever go away, but perhaps there can be a therapeutic plan to prevent it from getting worse too quickly.
 

tango61

New Member
yeah like this all happened in sept. last year. and she is back to her normal self running around and she seems to be okay.... i heard somewhere that she is okay as long as her tounge stays pink. is that true?
 
tango61;9034 said:
i heard somewhere that she is okay as long as her tounge stays pink. is that true?
Not necessarily. By the time you see her tongue turning blue, she's already in a life threatening situation. There are also situations where she may be unable to breathe, yet her tongue could stay pink.

If anything, it is more important count her breaths when she is asleep. Normal would be <30/minute. If she's breathing rapidly even when she is relaxed, she's not doing so well.

Again, here you are just trying to find out WHEN she's not doing well, but until you can get a diagnosis, you don't really have any way of preventing her from getting worse. Although, even without a diagnosis, you should discuss with your veterinarian about the severity of her murmur, and what symptoms you should watch out for, and what you can do in the mean time. If you don't trust your veterinarian's opinion, ask for a second opinion. It is unlikely for any of us to be able to be of any help when we've never seen your dog.
 

tango61

New Member
i took my dog to the vet.
He said that her heart is almost back to normal again.
and i also counted her breaths for a minute and she got 30 on the dot... is that okay?
 
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