Nervous System Disease Treated as an Infection

 Perhaps you have owned a dog or known of one with a disease of the nervous system called granulomatous meningoencephalitis (GMC).   Affected dogs may be un-coordinated, stagger, have neck stiffness, seem confused or have other signs indicating brain and/or spinal cord involvement.  Veterinary medical texts claim it is an autoimmune disease in which the body is destroying the nervous system and recommend sick dogs be treated with prednisolone or some other immune depressing drug to depress the immune response.  But this is only effective during treatment once that stops symptoms resume or the dog dies.

     Here in the Imperial Valley I encounter a case about once a month.  And true to the medical books’ prophecy therapy with immune depressing drugs has been unsatisfactory.  Could it be that the nervous system degeneration is the body’s aberrant response to some unknown virus infection?  To test this conjecture sick dogs are given an injection of a corticosteroid along with a human drug that inhibits virus infections.  Also, they receive a synthetic antibiotic to limit inflammation and a couple of vitamin-like compounds to facilitate metabolism of disease-damaged nerve cells.  With 30 days of treatment patients return to normal suggesting that virus infection may be the underlying cause of GMC and that the virus-inhibiting drug is effective.