gale

It's called Symmetrical Lupoid Onychodystrophy and our dog has it. There's no 100% diagnosis without removing a toe but she has been diagnosed by symptoms and she has it all right. A couple of months ago we noticed a toenail loose. We figured she caught it on something and took her to the vet. He removed it but by the end of the same day she was limping and had another one coming up. I did some research and everything pointed to this autoimmune disease. There is no cure-only management. She has since been put on fish oil, vitamin e, tetracycline (switched to doxycyline for ease) and niacinamide (vit B3). She has lost all but one nail but the last few have appeared to have been painless and the therapy should help as they grow back. For a while she just lied about and never played (she is a lab mix so this was totally out of character for her) and seemed depressed but now she his back to her old self. Here is what her feet looked like a couple of weeks ago:
Her front feet-at this time she had one nail left which had been clipped short because it was twisted and hurting her:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...daisyfront.jpg[/img]

Her back foot (only was able to take pics of one)
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...daisyrear2.jpg[/img] The center two nails are lifting-they come straight up like the hood of a car.

Same foot, different angle:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...daisyrear1.jpg[/img]
The nail at the bottom of the pic was, at the time, the most normal nail she had. You can see how the others are lifting up compared to the "normal" one.

Since I took these, like I said, all of her nails except one have fallen off. The remaining nail is just barely hanging on. Here is a link with pics of a different dog, but his nails look just like our dog's did.
http://blackschutzhundshepherds.blog...al-lupoid.html

Grinster

Oh.........bless her heart.

bjnicholson

Poor baby! My nails are hurting in sympathy. How awful. I hope she gets her nails back and everything will be alright. Will this be an ongoing thing or will this be the only time?

gale

Some dogs go into remission and some continue the cycle of nail loss and regrowth. With the meds and supplements, subsequent cycles are much less painful.

We are also altering her vaccination schedule for this. She will only get the absolute necessary vaccines, and she will never get more than one at a time. They will probably be at least a month or ideally, about 6 months apart. We do not believe it was vaccine related though, as she hasn't had any vaccines since last August and even then, she only got Lepto and Kennel Cough vaccine. She was due for her rabies shot in August and she just got it this week. The vet wanted to hold off a little but we live in the country with lots of critters, and I wasn't comfortable with her not having it. She has done fine since she had the shot though.

craftybear

Hugs Hugs, never heard of that before

blueangel

That's strange.

gale

The other weird thing is that there is no common denominator in the dogs that have it. I'm on a yahoo support group and there are people from different countries and the dogs are all different breeds, some purebred, some mutts, big, small, different diets, different environments, etc. Nothing ties these dogs together except the fact that their nails fall off. Some have more pain, some less, some respond to different therapies. There are new people on the list every day. Scary.

amyjo

oh poor baby hope she gets better soon. when our pets hurt we do too. I only have 1 puppy left of the 10 that my Puggle had back in June. 1 went to New York and has been entered in a Canine Contest, 1 went to Wyoming, 1 went to Nebraska, 1 went to rural Kenmare, 1 went to the city of Kenmare, 1 went to Williston, 1 is going to Stanley, 1 to New Town, 1 is for my grandaughter who has to wait til they get back in their flooded home, and 1 girl left that someone just called about.

Cybrarian

So glad you found out what it was and found a therapy that is working. Did your vet say this is a newer disease? Could it be environmental?

gale

It's not newer nor environmental. There doesn't seem to be a common trigger. It's not common at all and many vets have never seen it, but judging by the support group, it isn't exactly super rare either.