Betsy Broughton Shafer:



Natural approaches

I lost my beautiful border collie, Blue, one year ago to Nexgard. We live in the woods in the state where Lyme Disease originally was discovered, and we have every reason to take the disease seriously, because of personal experience. We've also experienced Anaplasmosis and Erlichiosis. However, I've always used natural approaches when possible, since the 1980's, and have used holistic vets and natural feeding.



 All those diseases pale in comparison to what Nexgard did to her. She was a beautifully healthy a vibrant girl, a well bred and driven working collie, and was MDR1 n/n. During a "tick bloom", something that happens here, she'd been covered with ticks coming in from her duties in the field, and I decided to use the one Nexgard I had saved in case, in late November 2018.



Within 24 hours

Within 24 hours, Blue developed ataxia, and her back legs kept going out from under her. She had trouble swallowing, and started having a strange phenomenon I only identified later as a focal seizure. My vet was out of town and we saw another vet I use and had an acupuncture treatment and a liver detox formula and we continued her whole raw diet. I thought the worst was behind us but also saw our regular vet when she returned.



Six grand mal seizures

When I told her it began right after Nexgard, she said, "we will never use it again". I thought Blue was recovering. But, the beginning of March we were awakened to a banging sound under the bed (where she slept) and found her having a grand mal seizure. She had 6 grand mal seizures that night and we brought her to an emergency vet (it was a late Saturday night) where she went under neurologic care.



She was started on Phenobarbitol and Prednisone, and some other meds and spent 5 days hospitalized. The next five months were a roller coaster of seizures, progressive ataxia, collapsing, and losing the use of her back legs.

She had lost her hearing and the vision in one eye with the first seizures. I was so happy to have 5 more months with her, but when she was unable to walk one day, we had to make the heartbreaking decision to let her go.



Nightmare

There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of her with a broken heart. I did report to Merial (I think a different company now manufactures Nexgard) and we have a "case number" for the "adverse event", which colors it as a much smaller experience than the nightmare of losing my beautiful girl.

Betsy Broughton Shafer: