Friday dog blogging, peripheral vestibular syndrome edition

When you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of your dog crashing to the floor because she's suddenly suffering from this, it's scary for everybody.

This disorder is more common in older dogs and thus the name geriatric vestibular syndrome -- but it can occur in middle aged dogs, too, so the name was changed. Idiopathic just means "happens for no known cause" -- so it is a good name but not the preferred one. It does sum up the situation well, though. For some reason dogs can suddenly develop vestibular disease. The problem seems to be due to inflammation in the nerves connecting the inner ear to the cerebellum (which controls balance and spatial orientation). It usually lasts between a couple of days and three weeks. A few dogs have residual signs beyond this time, such as a head tilt. This disease normally affects dogs that seem normal up until the signs appear. Then there is sudden loss of balance with many dogs unable to even stand up. Rythmic eye motion known as nystagmus is usually present. Dogs may be nauseous from the "sea sickness" effect of vestibular disease. Most dogs will not eat or drink unless hand fed or given water by hand because they have a hard time with the fine motor movements necessary to eat or drink from a bowl. As long as they are nursed through this condition almost all dogs will recover. There is no known treatment. Some dogs do have relapses but most do not.

Djuna did just that early Tuesday morning. Fortunately, modern vets are used to seeing this because otherwise we were pretty certain later that morning that we'd be putting down one of the sweetest, most delightful dogs we've ever known. But either she is recovering or she's just adjusting to the world spinning wildly around, and she can almost walk in a straight line again. In the meantime, we're getting used to the head tilt.