Masticatory Muscle Mysositis

[KwikIrish]

A few months ago, my 6 year old Doberman started doing some odd motions with his mouth, almost as though he was taking, chewing or yawning but he wasn't. I soon noticed that the right side of his it seemed to be showing signs of concaving. When I mentioned it to my mom, she realized that she had not noticed that before, as he lives with her and it was only a slight change to my eyes, whereas practically unnoticeable to someone who sees him daily.

She kept an eye on him, and about a week later, she took him into the vet. He was diagnosed almost immediately with a chronic case of Masticatory Muscle Mysositis.

They placed him on steriods almost immediately and his jaw function went completely back to normal. The problem is that the digression of his skull's structure isn't slowing. A few months later, I saw him again and he had lost a lot of shape. I told mom she needed to get him back in. When I came back this week, I noticed his left eye has really started to sink down, as she had noticed too. The vet has now put him on a type of drug cancer patients take. Mom has to wear gloves when she administers it yet our dog is eating it daily. Scares the crap out of me.

Our vet has never deal with this extreme of a case regarding this disease and neither have we. This dog was given to me because he had a spinal injury and couldn't be shown. The odd thing is how shortly this happened after we lost his best friend, sunny the golden, and the link they have started to draw between this disease and depression in dogs.
Here are some pics of him last month

And the one that shows it the best

When I get to mom's house this evening, I will take updated pictures and get name of medications he is on (other than beano, goodness that dog has gas!) and post them.
Anyone ever dealt with this condition? They say it's prominent is breeds with heads like this and the blocky headed breeds like goldens and labs. Any person expierence or good infor would be alpreciated. What a shame.

[Sharon]

That is very sad. Is there a vet college inyour State that might have had more experience with this illness?

https://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=n ... +Mysositis

[KwikIrish]

Thanks for the reply Sharon. I will have my mom contact Colorado State this week, perhaps they will have some guidance. The severity of this case is what is concerning, as most cases are generally successfully treated when caught as early as this case was.

Here are pictures I took of Magnum today. I've found there is a lot of digression and some change on the non effected side as well. Not good at all, and we are pretty disappointed. The difference between last month and this month is mostly in the ammount of change in his eye regarding how much it has sunk.




He is on the following medications:
Azathioprine (50mg)
Soloxine (.8 mg)
Prednisone (20 mg)
The Azathioprine is new to the mix, and with less than a week into it, I'm hopeful that we will start seeing results soon. Here's to crossing fingers and good fortune.

As I have begun to read more about this horrible disease, I have found it to be known to shows it's ugly head in Weims, Vizslas and most retrieving breeds as far as sporting breeds go. They also see it a lot in Dobes, rots, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, german sheps and belgain mals. I find it odd to see in some of these breeds (V's especially) where head is so low of the focus of features in the breed. Dobermans, Rots and Goldens I can understand.

Perhaps for my own interest, I will contuinue to document the hopeful progress and possible digression of Magnum's fight against MMM. Perhaps it can help someone at a later date, though I hope most are able to treat this more effectivly than we have been able to in this case.

[Cajun Casey]

Is there somewhere you can send DNA for future reference?

[KwikIrish]

I've already contacted his breeder, but I will look into databases recording MMM. Good idea.

[Cajun Casey]

Contact the Canine Health Foundation and check universities for studies being planned.

[wannabe]

My dog was cured in 3 or 4 acupuncture treatments by Dr Van at http://www.apvet.com

My vet put him on a heavy dose of steroids right away, but as soon as Dr Van saw him, we started weaning him off of them. The atrophied muscles in his head never fully redeveloped, but he ate well and retrieved birds just fine.