Emergency Vet Care/Fatal Snake Bite

[Bonnie]

John and Susan:

For those of us who have lived here many years, this has always been what seems to be an intractable problem. Essentially, vets customarily work during normal working hours, and they are reluctant to change and have no real incentive to change. For the most part, animals are a low priority despite the fact that the vets' profession revolves around them. It's not possible to entice an American vet, perhaps retired, to move down because they are not licensed to practice and, due to opposition by Panama vets, probably never would be. Even an American vet who volunteered a chunk of his time in Panama was harassed by both the local vets and the government. Believe me, if anything could be done, Amigos de Animales would have accomplished it. They have recognized the problem for years. I think the best we can do is try to establish a personal relationship with a vet, obtain their cell phone number, and hope they answer when we call after hours.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Bonnie
omitted information

[Marcelyn]

On May 12, 2016 at 0:29 AM, Boquete Community Players said:

These are great ideas about videotaping and selling the right to access the download but you guys forget we are a volunteer group and we are greatly over-extended as it is. If someone wants to volunteer to videotape and then program the website to collect money for a download, we would welcome your volunteer effort.

We have offered to do a podcast working with these information providers (plus a local vet(s) and distribute this program to CL members. This would be similar to the CL podcast done by Mark Heyer for Rodny Direct.

[Dottie Atwater]

10 hours ago, Bonnie said:

Even an American vet who volunteered a chunk of his time in Panama was harassed by both the local vets and the government. 

It's not just American vets that have problems. Some years back Dr. Crespo spearheaded a group of vets who tried to shut down our spay/neuter clinics in Volcan. (A complete, incompetent jerk!) He couldn't succeed because spaypanama-chiriqui is under the umbrella of Spay Panama and we are authorized by them to operate. Plus, Dr. Tello is licensed in Panama as well as Costa Rica. (He is Panamanian but lives and has his clinic in Costa Rica.)

The fact that Dr. Crespo tried to do this is a huge black mark against him in my opinion. (Added to the fact that many people say he has killed their dog.)

Edited May 12, 2016 by Dottie Atwater
correction

[Admin_01]

A personal but public message for TwoSailors,

We (Marcelyn and myself) were so saddened by your loss. The morning that we read your posting, we talked about it at breakfast. And then again the next day. And the third day. We kept asking ourselves what could be done to help.

The result was that CL started a new project to compile a list of pet care resources. That project was a direct result of your loss.

The resource listing resulting from what we have come to call the "pet/vet project" is posted here on CL. That topic is also highlighted as one of three important documents on the landing page on CL. We considered naming that listing in honor of your dog, but decided against doing that because it might confuse newcomers at some point in the future.

The pet/vet project grew much bigger than what we had initially envisioned. But that was okay. And then the community pitched in to make that resource listing much more comprehensive and accurate. And so pet/vet grew even bigger. Not complaining here; in fact it made us more committed. We have a special, caring community here.

Here is the link to the pet care resource listing: http://www.chiriqui.life/topic/2354-pet-care-resources-of-the-chiriqui-province-and-pet-abuse/

Just know that your loss was the reason we took on that project. In your hearts you can know that your dog may be helping other pet owners and their pets for a long time to come.

As a matter of interest, the pet/vet resource listing here on CL actually has overtaken the healthcare resource listing in terms of the number of views. It is at 944 views as of this morning. We have also learned that the URL is being shared as hotlinks on other websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo groups, personal blogs, and even a few commercial websites in Panama City mention the listing.

With condolences, but also hope.

[Penny]

Folks

This posting also inspired next week's "Tuesday Talks" 10:30 in the BCP theater. Description below:

Tuesday, June 21 – Pet Care in the Best of Times and the Worst of Times. A panel of local experts will talk about routine care of your pets and what to do in case of an emergency. They will offer up their advice based on years of working with domestic animals in Panama. The panel will consist of Alicia McGuigan and Dottie Thompson co-presidents of Amigos de Animales, Beth Abraham. co-chairman of ARF (Adopt, Rescue, Foster), Kris Berg, owner of Howling Success K9 Services, and Dottie Atwater, founder of Spay Panama-Chiriqui,  the spay/neuter clinic in Volcan.

[TwoSailors]

Dear Bud and Marcelyn,

Thank you so much for your latest note. When we lost Maggie, we resolved that something positive would come out of her death to benefit the pets of Boquete - and now, through your leadership, it's happened. We have no doubt that many pets will be helped by the new directory. It's a wonderful and hopeful legacy of our sweet girl.

And Penny, many thanks for spearheading the BCP talk and for your other words of encouragement. Every day we get reminders of just how special the Boquete community is, and here's just the latest. We look forward to the meeting next Tuesday, and our hope is that it can become a yearly event to benefit future new arrivals and their pets.

Typing through tears of gratitude,
Susan and John

[Pederhaney]

Two Sailors:  Because of your unfortunate event (and the same for Cajun Eric's weimaraner last year) and Dottie A's article, I now have injectable Vitamin C powder and syringes at the ready...just in case.  So thank you both.  

[Dottie Atwater]

6 minutes ago, Pederhaney said:

 I now have injectable Vitamin C powder and syringes at the ready...just in case.  So thank you both.  

Where did you get the powder and how do you prepare it for injection? The bottle of injectable Vitamin C I have is only 250 mg per mL and I'd prefer some that's much more concentrated.

[Pederhaney]

3 hours ago, Dottie Atwater said:

Where did you get the powder and how do you prepare it for injection? The bottle of injectable Vitamin C I have is only 250 mg per mL and I'd prefer some that's much more concentrated.

On eBay (there are a number of packaging/weight options) (http://www.ebay.com/itm/260978052880).  20 ml syringes purchased locally.  Can be used intravenously or orally.  

Here's a site I found on Google (using Vitamin C in dogs with snakebites):  http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11125    There are a number of sites.  I couldn't find a solution construction recipe on the Australian site, but I mean to write to them to see what they've used.

It will work or it won't --- but I'd much rather try it than the hideous alternative.  Living in an area of deadly snakes where the closest antivenin for humans is David and there is no, what I consider qualified, veterinarian within a reasonable distance to handle a poisonous snake bite, I'd rather take the Vitamin C approach myself.  I just hope the hell it works.

[Penny]

Dottie Atwater (honcho dog person from Volcan) will discuss the vitamin C treatment for snakebites at this coming Tuesday Talk.

[Admin_01]

On 5/10/2016 at 8:55 PM, Dottie Atwater said:

So sorry to hear about your loss, TwoSailors. Injectable Vitamin C is reported to do wonders for snake bite, pavo, and many other things. I'm attaching a file that explains a lot about it. I have the injectable vitamin C on hand that I got from Dr. Tello. The people at Amigos de Animales can get it from the Costa Rica vets. (There is none available in Panama.) The article mentions using 18ga. needles but I've found the regular needles work just fine. Our Vit.C may be less viscous than what's mentioned in the article. I've personally used it to cure very sick dogs at two different times. Each time I thought they were going to die but the next morning they were completely normal. I also have some very fine Vitamin C powder (from Amazon) that I can mix with a little water and give orally. The Vitamin C injection stings. When the dog is very sick, they don't complain a bit. When they're feeling better, they do, and that's when I switch to the oral method.

The injectable Vitamin C solution has no taste. (I tried it.) So I think it could also be used orally if the injection is too painful. I believe it is impossible to overdose on Vitamin C.

I hope this helps. We need all the information about self-administered care for our animals we can get.

Dottie

 

Vitamin C Injectable.odt

 

Be advised that this referenced posting was updated as of today with a new Vitamin C Injectable document. Contact the originator of this posting for additional details.

[Dottie Atwater]

On 6/16/2016 at 2:44 PM, Pederhaney said:

On eBay (there are a number of packaging/weight options) (http://www.ebay.com/itm/260978052880).  20 ml syringes purchased locally.  Can be used intravenously or orally.  

Here's a site I found on Google (using Vitamin C in dogs with snakebites):  http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11125    There are a number of sites.  I couldn't find a solution construction recipe on the Australian site, but I mean to write to them to see what they've used.

 

I have a big supply of the very finely powdered vitamin C as well (like you mention from ebay), but no way would I prepare this as a solution to inject. The powdered vitamin C is easily mixed with a small amount of water to give orally, though.

[Dottie Atwater]

16 hours ago, Admin_01 said:

Be advised that this referenced posting was updated as of today with a new Vitamin C Injectable document. Contact the originator of this posting for additional details.

In the updated article, I added some commentary plus another link to Dr. Klenner's work using large doses of vitamin C (and other vitamins). A quote from that article: "We've used massive doses of vita­mins on over 10,000 people over a period of 30 years,” said Dr. Klenner, “and we’ve never seen any ill effects from them. The only ef­fects we've seen have been beneficial.”

Dr. Klenner’s immensely valuable work is his legacy. Linus Pauling said, “The early papers by Dr. Fred R. Klenner provide much information about the use of large doses of vitamin C in preventing and treating many diseases. These papers are still important.” (32) Klenner is justly remembered as the doctor who was first to boldly assert that “Ascorbic acid is the safest and most valuable substance available to the physician” and that patients should be given “large doses of vitamin C in all pathological conditions while the physician ponders the diagnosis.” Whether overshadowed by scandal or stubbornly ignored by the medical profession, high-dose ascorbate therapy is here to stay. “I have used Dr. Klenner’s methods on hundreds of patients,” said Lendon H. Smith. “He is right.”