Anaplasmosis
What is Anaplasmosis?
Anaplasmosis is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria. Animals can become infected when they are bitten by a dear tick carrying the disease.
What are the symptoms of Anaplasmosis?
Infected pets can show signs of illness within 2 weeks of being infected, BUT they can also be asymptomatic carriers. The most common signs can appear suddenly and include: fever, vomiting, lethargy, joint swelling / pain, lameness, anorexia, and sometimes neurological signs and bleeding problems.
Some pets can be carriers of the disease but not show signs of being ill. These pets may clear the infection on their own or become ill later in life if left untreated. If we find an infected pet that is not showing signs of being sick we always treat them for them disease.
How is Anaplasmosis diagnosed?
We usually diagnose Anaplasmosis with our 4DX heartworm test that is run in our clinic. We have been using this test for several years and it tests for heartworm, lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichia.
If the 4DX test is positive we may also run some other bloodwork, a urinalysis, and possibly send blood to an outside lab for furthur testing.
How is the disease treated?
Infected pets will be put on a long coarse of antibiotics. Depending on other clinical signs and test results we may need to keep a pet in the hospital for other treatments.
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