A poorly named, but common, condition: old dog vestibular disease

There are a few conditions that veterinarians see with some regularity that really scare the pants off of pet owners, but most vets don’t see them as major problems. One of these goes by the slightly offensive moniker of Old Dog Vestibular Disease. (Can you imagine if you went to your family MD are were diagnosed with something like Old Fart Syndrome?)

Dogs afflicted with this disorder, abbreviated ODV, usually develop a sudden loss of balance accompanied by a head tilt. They can roll on the ground, and in some cases will become nauseous and vomit due to motion sickness. The rolling happens because they are literally trying to catch up with a world that they perceive as spinning.  The head tilt makes them look rather cute and quizzical, as if to say ‘Why is everything spinning all of a sudden?’ The signs are rapid and dramatic, and many a pet owner thinks this is the end. The good news is that, in the vast majority of cases, the signs will pass and normal life will resume within a few days (some dogs will have a bit of a head tilt for a while, but I still maintain that it makes them look a tad cuter).

To get a taste of what they are going through, it’s exactly like the old game that you played when you were a little kid when you have one of your friends spin you around and then stop suddenly. The world just keeps on spinning.  For kids, the spinning slows down and stops after a few minutes, but for the dogs the spinning can go on for days. And, just like with the spinning kids, if you look closely at the eyes of a dog suffering from ODV, they are rapidly darting back and forth (a condition called nystagmus) as if they are watching an unseen tennis match.

The real cause for this disease has eluded science. We have a few guesses, but no one really knows for sure what causes this condition. It may be a mini-stroke (sort of like a transient ischemic attack, or TIA, in people), or some random inflammation of the inner ear, or vestibular system, that controls our balance and lets us know which way is up. There are other diseases that can mimic ODV, like brain tumors and inner ear infections, so cases that don’t get better in the usual time-frame of two to five days, warrant further workup with imaging modalities like MRI or CT scan. Among dogs that don’t get better within a few days, about 25% were found to have a brain tumor when subjected to an MRI.

Some dogs can be treated at home, and will only need medication for motion sickness and maybe a little TLC and hand-feeding. For dogs who are vomiting, or for whom a couple of days of being off of food and water may be harmful (like dogs with kidney disease), treatment in the hospital with IV fluids and other medications may be warranted.

I have had many owners bring me their dog in the middle of the night, in tears because they are afraid I am going to tell them that something awful and life-threatening has happened to their beloved pet.  In most cases, I am able to let them know that their pet probably will return to almost full function within a few days, and with very little medical to-do. Every once in a while, we will get a pet who has been on a steady decline and an episode of ODV is the last straw in the gradual decline in quality of life, and owners will elect to euthanize, but most are very relieved to find out that things are not as bad as they at first seem.

What has been your experience? Have any of you had dogs that have had an episode of ODV? How did it go, and what kind of information did you veterinarian have for you? For more information on the condition, please visit VeterinaryPartner’s page on the topic.

Images courtesy of flickr.

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