Help Otto Recover from IMHA

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read this. We appreciate anything you can kindly give. Please find out about Otto’s story below. ❤️

 

This is Otto, our lovely miniature Dachshund. He's seven years old, very special to us, and is an enormous part of our family.

 

He has always been a very healthy and happy dog, until last week when he was urgently taken to the vet and diagnosed as having Immune-Mediated Haemolytic Anaemia.

 

IMHA is an auto-immune disease where Otto's immune system has suddenly started attacking his own body. His white blood cells are killing his red blood cells, which is starving his body of oxygen. In some cases, it can be a side-effect of another disease. Otto has primary IMHA, which means the disease has not been caused by anything else, but its origin is a total mystery.

 

IMHA is very rare. As you can imagine, it's something that we knew nothing about until a few days ago, when Otto became very ill. Initially, we assumed he had a stomach bug. We took him to our local vet, who noticed that his red blood cell count was low and suggested that it could be an issue with his liver. His condition rapidly worsened over the next day until he appeared to be struggling to breathe. As we rushed him to the emergency 24-hour vet, we noticed that his eyes had turned yellow, too.

 

He was diagnosed with life-threatening IMHA that night and had his first blood transfusion within a couple of hours. We were unsure if he was going to survive that night and were told that transfusions would only "buy us time" - his body would attack the new blood too. On top of this, each transfusion comes with its own risk - his body might reject the new blood, and there is a risk of blood clotting.

 

 

The vet is now working on gradually removing Otto's immune system. This will also come with considerable risk to his life - Otto will be highly vulnerable at this stage. But this will allow his red blood cell count to return to normal levels gradually.

 

The vets will then allow his immune system to return. Assuming Otto survives this whole process, this is something we'll now need to manage for the rest of his life - keeping his immune system low so that it doesn't attack his body again, but not too low! This will be a balancing act that will require a lot of monitoring.

 

As responsible dog owners, Otto is obviously insured, but we didn't quite anticipate something as life-threatening as this happening to such a healthy dog. He's got a long way to go to recovery, so the costs are mounting up. The vet has given us an estimate for how much the process will cost us in total, which is currently at a minimum of £5,000 (edit: this has now bumped to an estimated £10,000 now that we've moved Otto to a specialist vet - see update #2).

 

We're reaching out for support from anyone who is willing to help, as this is a very financially challenging time - and if we're being honest, we have committed to something that we can't afford. There's no pressure or expectation from us at all - we'd do absolutely anything to make sure Otto gets all the care he can receive. Any donation would be very much appreciated.

 

Thank you for reading Otto's story. Go and give your pets a big squeeze - you never know when something like this will come along.

 

Sam and Tif