03/05/2025
Rescue pit parents, please be aware of babesia
TL;DR: if there’s any possibility your pit was involved in dog fighting, be watchful for sudden fatigue, and if blood tests ever show signs of low red blood cells and/or platelets, ask them to test for babesia. Not a general tick borne disease panel, SPECIFICALLY babesia. And make sure your baby is insured if you can, because the treatment is EXPENSIVE.
I’m worried sick for our poor boy.
We adopted Eli a little over a year ago. He’d been dumped on someone’s driveway in horrible condition shortly after a nearby dog fighting ring was busted. He was emaciated, absolutely covered in fresh bite marks, and had broken bones that had long since mended improperly. Given the timing, it’s assumed that, after the first bust, another ring dumped all their dogs to get rid of the evidence.
Eli was fortunate enough to be found by a surgical vet who nursed him back to health. She had to rehome him however as she already had quite a few dogs, and he was initially dog reactive. We found out about him from a flyer at a bagel shop next to the practice, and we fell in love with the sweet boy after meeting him. While I had some severe rescue blues at first, I can’t imagine life without him now. He’s grown so much and I’m so proud of him. He’s always been an absolute sweetheart, but he was so timid at first, and it’s been so rewarding to watch his confidence grow. While he’s still learning how to interact politely with other dogs, he’s now excited to see them, not scared. We’ve tried so hard to give him the love he deserves.
In January, shortly after his one year mark being a part of our home, he suddenly developed intense fatigue. He wasn’t himself at all. He’s normally full of energy and harassing me for attention, but all he wanted to do was sleep, and he lost all interest in his food. Additionally, his inguinal lymph nodes were huge. We took him to the emergency vet, where they found his red blood cell count was low, his platelet count was extremely low, and his bilirubin was elevated. Eventually, he was diagnosed with immune mediated thrombocytopenia, meaning his immune system was attacking his platelets.
He was put on a high dose of prednisone, alongside doxycycline while they waited for tick borne disease test results, and he began recovering quickly. The disease panel came back negative, and within a week his platelets were back to the low end of normal, his lymph nodes decreased in size, and he was back to his usual self. His RBC was still a bit low, but had improved. They continued to stay at a slightly low level while his platelets grew, and it was assumed that he just trends slightly low. We began tapering off his prednisone dose at his vet’s direction, and for a while, he continued to improve… then suddenly, his platelets began to drop again.
We assumed we just lowered his medication too quickly. His vet determined he needed to be bumped back up to his initial “rescue” dose, and his platelets did increase, but much more slowly this time. His lymph nodes were swollen again, this time his prescapular nodes, and now they weren’t decreasing in size at all. They were massive. A few days ago we noticed he was shaking and seemed to be in pain, so we took him to the emergency vet again.
As an aside, I actually thought he was dealing with a GI perforation. He’d grabbed a chicken bone someone had tossed in the bushes and chomped down on it. I’d managed to get all the shards out of his mouth before he swallowed any—x-rays at the vet confirmed this—but I’d worried I’d missed some. When I took him in I really thought it’d be the chicken bones. So… funnily enough, Eli nabbing garbage may have actually saved his life. Without the fear I had of perforation, I would have assumed his pain and fatigue were his thrombocytopenia hanging on, possibly until it was too late.
While his platelets are fine, his RBC is steadily dropping. He was evaluated by their internal medicine specialist, and the primary hypothesis now is that he picked up babesia gibsoni in his presumed time as a bait dog. This is apparently a common parasite in fighting and bait dogs compared to the general dog population, because it spreads initially via tick and then via infected blood. There is obviously a lot of contact with blood in dog fighting. The internist thinks it’s been living in his system at a low level until now. He’s been on a lot of antibiotics on and off for various other conditions which may have had a partial effect and kept the full blown infection at bay without actually eliminating it—babesia can be partially sensitive to some antibiotics, but as a protozoan, it requires a specific antibiotic/antiprotozoal to be truly treated.
I can’t help but wish they’d checked for it during his episode in January. Apparently, it’s easily missed in general tick borne disease panels, and as I understand it, some panels don’t even check for it. While it’s relatively common among pits, it’s still ultimately uncommon, so I understand why it wasn’t on the emergency vet’s radar… but I wish it had been. I hope it becomes standard to consider babesia in pits presenting with symptoms and CBC results like his.
He’s been hospitalized since his visit to the ER in case he needs a transfusion. I’m so scared for him. The internist is optimistic that he’ll recover once he gets the medication he needs, but he’s declined a bit this morning, and it’s terrifying to hear that news. They were going to wait for the results of the test to start him on the specific antibiotic required, because it costs at least $1000, but with his condition declining, they’ve decided to go ahead and start him on it in the assumption that he does indeed have babesia.
I’ve been crying on and off since hearing the news this morning. I’m worried sick that we’ll get a call any moment that he’s gone. We can’t even visit him because, after we visited him last night, he got stressed and anxious. It was after that that his RBC count dropped further, so I can’t help but worry that we made him worse by stressing him out. I’m scared for his life, I’m scared he might die there alone and afraid, and in the case he pulls through—which the vet is thankfully still optimistic about—I’m scared he’ll be traumatized. It just hurts to think he’s been saved from his old life and it’s still haunting him. He’s only about 3 years old. We’ve only had him in our lives for a little over a year. He doesn’t deserve this.
Part of this is to get this all off my chest. But I also wanted to spread awareness of babesia for fellow rescue pit parents. I wish I’d known about it so I could have requested a test for it during his first episode. And I also wanted to hammer home how important pet insurance is. This is looking to cost nearly $10,000 so far at least. If we didn’t have Eli insured this would have been financially devastating.
I’m so scared. I just want my boy back home. I hope we get to continue spoiling him and giving him the life he deserves.
