Whippet Heart Murmur

[dottyandduke]

Hi, I've not been here for a while, I have been a member since about 2008 When we had Duke' our whippet from GAP and now 'Dash' as of 3 years ago, he is doing great BTW improving still even now, and BTW is also cat friendly as of last year when myself and my partner split up and he had to move in with myself plus 2 very confident cats!

I have a question Dotty our 12 Year old whippet has been deteriorating over the past few weeks but more so over the last 4 days, she has cataracts but recently has not been queuing up with the others for food, showing little interest in exercise and yelped the other night when she moved, although not done it since, we went away last week and left her at home, she was fine with my friend who is whippet savvy but 3 days after we got back she changed she doesn't want to go upstairs or step over anything making me think she is in pain.
I took her to the vet and he pointed out the obvious her cataracts he gave her a thorough physical examination, to the point she went for him, which she has never done, to me this suggests pain? Anyway he came back with she has mild arthritis and a heart murmur plus a slightly elevated temperature.
I let him know that my main concern is her potential pain issues and he reluctantly prescribed pain relief and did some bloods, I also told him she is quite 'precious', by this I mean she could have a scratch and think her leg is hanging off.
Does anybody else have any experience or advice in relation to an older whippet?
If it is both heart murmur and pain what should I do? To my mind the pain is the first priority but he is reluctant to prescribe pain relief because of the heart murmur.
So sorry if this is long winded.
Thanks in anticipation of your help.
Sue

[alfiemoon]

I'm not a vet so I guess if I were in your postion, I'd be looking at the following:

Is the heart murmur new, or previously mentioned in any previous examinations? The reason I ask is because sighthounds are often misdiagnosed with murmurs (I did a bit of research and found this is called an 'ejection' murmur'), but that's down to being skinny dogs with big hearts and not heart disease.

Do you know what grade the heart murmur is (if it definitely is one)? Lower grades are less concern.

I think I'd be asking for a referral - only a cardiologist would really be able to confirm whether it's a valve deficiency or not and therefore safe to give the pain medication.

I would want some kind pain relief to see whether it helped in the meantime though.

You could also consider something like Golden Paste for pain relief but would need to understand whether there are any interactions with medication (the Facebook Group www.facebook.com/groups/OriginalTurmericUserGroup run by vet Doug English is excellent for this).

[dottyandduke]

Thanks Alfiemoon. Its said to be a grade 2 murmur. I did say at the time when I was there that whippets and other sighthounds have a different heart rate he seemed to take this on board. I have since spoken to another vet who noticed her thyroid bloods were a little on the low side, I have looked this up and again sight hounds have a lower thyroid hormone so we are going for another test tomorrow and I will ask them to make sure they monitor all thyroid related tests eg TSH and T4. Thanks for your reply.

[Sarah from kennels]

What was the reason for the elevated temperature? I would say getting her out of pain should be a priority, we have dogs at the kennels that have heart murmurs but they still have pain relief. Sounds like you need a second opinion maybe one more experienced with sighthounds.