How long did it take for your dog with distemper to recover?

Hello all.



I recently adopted a dog from a shelter and at first he was showing signs of flu symptoms on and off. But then he started having eye and nasal discharges so I took him to the vet. The vet put him on antibiotics and took some tests. Then later he started with the 'chewing gum fits' that are still going on today. He was diagnosed with distemper and that's been a very emotionally draining experience, but I'm still filled with hope that he will recover.



My question goes out to all of those out there that have had to personally care for a dog with this disease. My dog had cold like symptoms (that I mistook for a common cold) for about 3 weeks, then he has been in the neurological stage of distemper for about 3 weeks. So he's a 1 year old terrier that's been going through this for at least 6 weeks. My question is, for those of you who had dogs that survived, how long did it take for symptoms to clear up and what kind of treatment did you provide. He just finished 20 days on antibiotics to treat secondary infections, but now that I went through them, I think I'm going to give him a break from those unless I start to notice symptoms intensifying.



My dog was really bad and suffered from labored breathing, lack of apetite and sometimes even wouldn't take a bite at all, lack of coordination, weakness, trembling, etc. He has made some improvement. He does eat on his own (though I still hand feed him more food) and his breathing has gone down. No more trembling. The chewing gum fits are still going on and he still wobbles when he walks and he sleeps about 90% of the day. Great signs of improvement are that he does on occasion come over to me for affection and he does want to play from time to time. Though these moments are brief, they are still signs of life.



Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. But please tell me about your experience. I hate these answers that it varies with every case and most cases don't make it. I want to hear about people's personal experience with the disease and most importantly how long it took for them to recover.



Thanks,

DrewBuddyHow long did it take for your dog with distemper to recover?
The normal coarse of where the disease is communicable can be up to 4 months total including mucosal stage, apparent remission and neurologic, the disease has an over 80% death rate from primary and secondary infections. Everything: signs, symptoms, stages and time-line varies by the dog and degree of infection. There is no treatment for the actual canine distemper virus as it sounds like you know, only supportive treatment for the signs/ symptoms and secondary infections that arise from the loss of their immune system; do not discontinue antibiotic treatments unless your DVM advises you to. Prognosis for distemper and it's neurological signs/ symptoms depends on where the virus moves and how extensive the damage was. Dogs can live their entire life with mobility problems and seizures if those were the areas affected or they can make a full recovery in a couple months. Good luck with your pup and I hope everything turns out OK, this is a nasty disease and it pisses me off when people are against or too lazy to provide vaccination/ titers against this horrible disease.