Tonight is the full moon. Give your monthly preventatives!
(NOTE: If you have another way to remember to give your preventatives, that’s okay too! Do what works for you. I thought it might be fun for us to all give it together.)
This past weekend was Father’s Day. And today, when we are giving our heartworm / flea / tick prevention together, I will arrive in eastern NC to visit my parents. Dr. Janet Mack has graciously agreed to see my patients while I am away.
Last Spring I went home to see my father as many weekends as I could. Due to his health concerns I thought last Spring would be his last. He was in and out of the hospital so many times with a respiratory illness that was later diagnosed as a methicillin resistant staphylococcal infection (MRSA). He Is now completely recovered and I am so very grateful.
I plan to eat fried seafood and look for sand dollars and visit with both of my parents. I joke with my Dad that I cured him last year with fried seafood and strawberry milkshakes! One weekend last Spring when I was in NC someone backed into my rental car, causing me to miss my flight. I was rebooked but had to check my carry-on. The clinic keys wound up outside Chicago with my lost luggage.
There’s a favorite poem that references both forgiveness and lost luggage at:
https://onbeing.org/programs/dilruba-ahmed-phase-one/
Resistant bacterial infections, such as the one my dad had, are becoming more and more common for both pets and people. They are dangerous because the antibiotics that we typically reach for don’t work. Figuring out which antibiotic will work requires a culture. This means that they grow the bacteria in the laboratory and then use discs containing the antibiotic dropped onto the bacterial growth to see if they work to control bacterial growth. It takes several days to grow the bacteria and then see which drugs work to inhibit bacterial growth. Hopefully the person or animal is well enough to wait for culture results. I order cultures for my patients if they are very ill or if there is a chronic/ongoing issue that we have not been able to solve or if I don’t get the positive response that I expect from the first antibiotic that I prescribe.
Lately I have had several patients with severe skin or ear infections that only have sensitivity to a couple of expensive and often injectable antibiotics. We can help avoid resistant antibiotics by reserving their use for when they are really truly needed and by doing cultures so we make sure the antibiotic we reach for works the first time around. Animals with allergies, which tend to cause chronic ear and skin infections, often have a history of many different antibiotics being used, which tends to increase antibiotic resistance. If we can treat the allergies before a secondary infection sets in, then both pets and people are better off because we create less bacterial resistance.
Happy Summer Everyone!
Give your preventitives!
Come see us, here at Southern Rhode Island Animal Hospital!
Here’s a picture of my Dad and I last Spring:
