Hey everyone,
Some of you may be familiar with me from my previous posts, while others may not, so for those who do not my name is Jason and I am a 4th year veterinary student anticipating graduation this June 2010. I have been speaking with "Polasian" about starting some herp health forums on here and I recently received an email from him concerning this thread, which I find extremely interesting and yet troubling for a number of reasons.
I have a lot of information to provide to Kathy and I also have questions of my own, some of which may be redundant for the sake of clarification, so I would like to apologize ahead of time to all of you for any redundancy that I may cause in pursuing some the answers I seek and more importantly I would like Kathy that I would be more than happy to offer my consult and advise (with the understanding that I am not a currently licensed veterinarian) with the intent of offering you friendly council from the perspective of a veterinarian. Please understand that I WILL NOT be offended you prefer I not get involved given my status as a student, but I want you to know that if you have any questions I would be more than happy to assist you during this difficult time.
I would also like to state that although you are in question of your doctor’s advice (and for good reason) it is critical that you comply with your physician as a priority over the advice of others at this time, until major breakthroughs suggesting otherwise have been made. Right now no one knows what’s wrong and your doctor is the only legal advocate you have who can help you and for this reason, please do not interpret my suggestions as an alternative to the care provided by your doctor, or family physician. This could be disastrous. I merely wish to offer my advice in addition to what you have already been told to help protect the prospective interests of your pets and the relationship that you have established with them.
As a veterinarians, it is our Job to consult with MD’s concerning cases that involve human disease resulting from the presence of pets at home. It would be wise for you to have ALL of your animals examined by a licensed veterinarian for respiratory and infectious diseases and to ask that veterinarian to communicate with your physician as a team to determine the best possible course of action for your health and the interests of your pets. If your clinician refuses to comply, find another clinician. Clinicians are people and medical opinions are still opionions and every clincian has a different opinion. Your job is to find one you think is right. Also please understand that your health is the number one top priority to your physician and your pets are expendable to ensure the quality of your health when faced with a disease to which a cause cannot be identified. This is a bit different from the standpoint of a veterinarian, because we are here to preserve public health (first and foremost) but in addition we are also here to protect animal welfare. MD’s are not shy about telling their patients to abandon their pets, but they do so feeling it is in your best interest without considering the bond between you and your pets, or the possibility of what might happen to your pets if they are released, or what those pets might transfer to people following their release. This is not part of an MD’s training and it is no secret that they lack in their ability to councel in this fashion. There is no right or wrong ansere here, they are merely interested in your health and have not been trained to take the health of animals into account. That is why veterinarians receive calls in the face of disease outbreaks in addition to MD’s.
From what I understand to the best of my ability, the cause of your current condition has not been identified. If the cause is the result of keeping reptiles, from the perspective of your health the best thing to do would be get rid of them. But at the moment we do not have confirmation of this and from the public perspective, we don’t know if your symptoms are being caused by an infectious agent that may spread the second you release those animals to someone else. ANIMALS DO TRANSMIT DISEASES TO HUMANS and I feel this avenue has not been investigated thoroughly enough to recommend abandonment safely. Though keeping the animals you have might be bad for your personal health, you have clearly already been affected by something and releasing animals from your environment to someone else (who would be unaware of these events) without knowing if they asymptomatic disease carriers would be a disaster from the standpoint of public health, unless we know FOR SURE how these animals are impacting your current condition.
Given that we don’t know what going on, suggesting that you abandon all of your pets is extremely premature and is most likely a desperate attempt on behalf of your clinician to identify the cause of your symptoms based on modification of your at home environment and elimination trials. To be fair, that is how we approach this problem clinically. However, there may be an easier way to accomplish this task that will be far more effective for you without suggesting animal abandonment, or threatening public safety until we know it is absolutely necessary. Has your physician placed you into a clean room for an extended period of time? You Should consider this. If your problem is reptiles, your symptoms should resolve, unless the damage is so severe that scaring and fibrosis (permanent lung changes) occur have occured, but at such a time the progression of your symptoms would stop and the clinical signs you have would remain static. We do have ways to assess the extent of damage that has occurred and can this can be determine scientifically. Your condition has been caused by something and we need to find that something. This could be the result of reptiles and I will work on locating some publications for you, but this could also be the result of many other things. Placing you in a clean room for 2 to 4 weeks time with medical management would remove you from your at home environment (simply ridding animals and cleaning is not enough given the severity of your condition). You need to leave your home all together, assuming it is financially Feasible because it could be cleaners used in your home that are causing it, could be mold, could be the brand new carpet you got last year, who knows. First let’s identify the problem as something in your home before we suggest abandonment, because the problem could very well be a pathological process within your body, negligent of your environment. If this is the case, we expect no changes, or possibly expect you to get worse in the confinement of a clean room. Before we suggest drastic changes at home, lets be sure it is something at home that we are dealing with.
I will leave you with this for now, but I will be monitoring this thread and would like to converse with you in private as I have many questions for you (4-5 pages worth) that will help me to become familiar with your current physical status, the health of your animals and your current environment. If you would be interested in my assistance, please send me an email at (
[email protected]) with a copy of your email address and I will send you these materials ASAP. Meanwhile, keep your head up! Remember Idiopathic means “we have no clue” and as long as we don’t know there is still hope! Don’t give up!
