BAILEY (Valley Fever Case Study Group I)

6 Year old, Male, Golden Retriever
Study start 1:32 at end 1:32 active infection

Bailey is a big strapping golden that “marches to the beat of his own drummer” and is a prime candidate for Valley Fever because of his love of digging. A rescue golden, his dedicated owner has been dealing with an active Valley Fever infection since December 2006 when his titer was 1:256. Bailey was placed on itraconazole and has been on it for years as they got the titer down.

In January 2008, his titer was 1:8 with the Prototek Lab. When retested through Idexx, it was 1:32. The vet thought this was because of the difference in labs. Bailey had been at 1:8 for 8 months and seemed very stable and asymptomatic. He was still on this drug when he began the study in March 2008 and remained on this drug for the first 3 months of the study.

His most notable issues when he started were a very low thyroid, high cholesterol, WBC suppression from long-term drug use, and robbing of neutrophils from bone marrow to deal with a chronic disease and chronic use of an “azole” antifungal compound.

After three months off the drug, there have been some slight changes. His WBC lines have normalized and his cholesterol has improved. There is no longer the robbing of neutrophils but his thyroid is still extremely low and now needs to be impacted.

The most notable change throughout the study has been the increase in Bailey’s energy and activity levels. His appetite is ravenous. He is completely asymptomatic and has lots of stamina. Bailey’s owner and vet are practicing extreme caution and monitoring him every 3 months to ensure that he remains stable and asymptomatic off the drug. We will work with Bailey now for another 3 months but with some changes. We will add some glandular thyroid and transition him to a natural diet. Several supplements have been added to enhance his ability to oxygenate.

Bailey, like our dogs, has plenty of land to roam and play and loves to dig. That makes him the highest exposure risk. We are in extreme gratitude to Dr. Lieb and the owner of Bailey for their absolute dedication and trust in working with us as we navigate Bailey’s iron will and dedication to digging!