Antibiotics for stuffed up nose.

Dr. Marie replied:

Ah, I am sorry to hear that Sparky still isn't feeling well. Here is your previous question so that we have a reference.

The main problem here is that we don't know what is causing the stuffiness. And, it can be very difficult to get a diagnosis, even if there are no cost concerns.

I think that if your vet wants to try another round of antibiotics then there is good reason for it. It sounds like they are leaning towards a bacterial infection of some sort (whether it's in the nose or perhaps with a tooth root) and some bacterial infections respond differently to different antibiotics.

You certainly can ask the vet if prednisone is a possibility. There are potential drawbacks to using this drug though. Prednisone can cause issues with the liver or kidneys or other organs depending on what dose it is used in and for how long. In most cases, the benefit outweighs the risk and prednisone use is safe though. The other concern is that this would not be a lifelong fix. If there is inflammation in the nose from, say, a tumor then prednisone may give some temporary relief but eventually things will start to get bad again. Still, it's possible that your vet would be willing to give this a try. The third risk with prednisone is that it can in some cases make it harder for the body to fight infection. So, if there is an infection there, you could possibly be doing more harm than good.

I think it's not a bad idea to give another round of antibiotics a try seeing as that is the direction that your vet is taking and then you can ask them if perhaps some steroids would help.

As mentioned previously, another idea would be to have Sparky sedated so that the vet can have a thorough look in his nose to see if there are any obvious problems like a tooth root infection or something else. On a related note, my in-laws' elderly dog recently started having awful sneezing fits. I prepared them for the worse (i.e. tumor, bad tooth root infection) and lo and behold the dog eventually sneezed out a massive string of grass that he had inhaled. I'm not saying that it's likely that Sparky has inhaled grass, but it certainly is possible that there is a foreign object there.



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