Hi all, I figured I would post here in case someone else had seen this before. My Cocker has generally been pretty healthy, but has been on anxiety medication for several years (the vet doesn't think this is the cause but we've talked about weaning him off anyway) and had CCL surgery in 2020.
Last year I took him to the vet as he does struggle with arthritis and he had a moment where he was screaming in pain. They couldn't find anything physically wrong - he often masks pain at the vet - but he had a fever of 104 (40C) so they did bloodwork. Some of his levels were high, but the most concerning was his ALP was around 500.
We did a month of Denamarin to see if it would come down, it just went up. He still had a fever, so they did a few weeks of doxycycline in case it was an infection, it still went up.
From there we were referred to the vet school. They did joint taps in case it was IMPA (negative), they aspirated lymph nodes (negative), then they did an abdominal ultrasound with aspirates of his liver and spleen. They said the liver was a bit opaque and the spleen was "textured" but didn't find any masses and the aspirates all came back fine. They told me that maybe we had caught something too early, so essentially sent me home unless he got worse.
The past month he's had a few nights where he starts of fine, then has a panic attack and needs me to hold him. If I can't hold him, he will hide. He's always had anxiety and been reactive, but this behavior is very, very strange. I wondered if it was related to his ears, as the first time it happened I had to clean his ears and give him some ointment for an infection (that day he refused to come back in the house as well), and the last time his ear was also irritated - but it's happened when his ears looked fine, so I'm not sure.
I took him back to the vet because I wasn't sure what else do to; he once again had a fever of 104 (40C) and they ran bloods again - his ALP was up to 1200, but every other metric was perfectly fine. This was a different vet and she said that with high ALP she suspects Cushings, so this week I took him back for an 8 hour Cushings test which was also negative.
She is currently reviewing the paperwork from last year's visits, and I'm going to call today and ask again about his anxiety meds and if she thinks that could be a problem. She mentioned his arthritis meds could cause liver issues, but he only takes them as-needed, and not nearly frequently enough for them to be a problem.
I should also note that previously I thought he had a fever constantly, but he has been to the vet two other times this year (once for pain and another for the first ear infection) and both times he was fever-free.
She said since he is eating, drinking, and not vomiting those are all good signs, but I just feel totally lost about what to do. It feels like it's just going to get worse until it eventually comes to a head, but no one seems to know why. And I'm not sure if the panic attacks are related - I've wondered if something inside his body feels off and it's scaring him - but they are really hard for both of us to cope with.
