Bronchitis, Prednisolone

    • Puppy

    Bronchitis, Prednisolone

    My 25 pound shih tzu mix was diagnosed with bronchitis.  Vet prescribed 5mg prednisolone and an antibiotic.  Seemed to eliminate most but not all of the coughing.  Vet then prescribed 5mg predisolone for another 3 weeks (with declining dosage again).  Still occasional coughing.  Only side effect is occassional heavy breathing. Otherwise dog eats normal and is pretty normal. Cough occurs mostly after sleeping.  Any suggestions on how to proceed?  Warm weather should be coming to the Austin area soon, maybe that will help.  Xray was done and they said it only showed a light problem.  No heart or heartworm problem.

    • Gold Top Dog

    You won't know if there IS a heart problem unless the vet does a heart workup (they can send that over the phone lines to Tex A&M to be read).  Try keeping a kids t-shirt on the dog to keep the chest warm.  

    HOnestly pursue this -- it's too easy for stuff like that to have triggered a heart problem and it is darned near impossible to tell a heart cough from a lung cough (and I've seen good vets miss this time after time).