Constantly Wheezing Senior Dog
Hello Everyone,
First time posting but I'm desperate at this point.
I have a male 14yo Jack Russell/Beagle mix. At the start of all of this, he weighed about 27lbs (slightly overweight) but is currently sitting at his target of 24lbs. In December of 2024, he was diagnosed with hypothyroidism (not Cushing's) and we began treatment for that. In May of 2025, he got several small lesions around the left side of his mouth that were raised and itchy. He would not leave them alone so we went to the vet and treated with antibiotics and medicated wipes.
In July, he got another lesion on the tip of his nose and between several of his toes on one foot. Again, we treated with antibiotics and Miconohex+triz wipes. And they disappeared.
In mid-August, he started struggling to keep water down. He has always been a water fiend, I have a one of those slow water bowls to help control intake and prevent him from drinking so fast that he pukes.
By the first week of September, he started having this wheezing cough before he would puke his water back up.
By mid-september, he started coughing and wheezing all the time. He couldn't hold his breath at all. Even when relaxed, he had shallow breaths that would basically force its way back out instantly, kind of like when you cough after getting the wind knocked out of you. I started joking that he was part goose because it was truly like a honk followed by a wheeze. It sounds extremely similar to everything I've ever seen on trachael collapse. If he had to stand, go up stairs, get on the couch, or exert himself in any way, he would cough so hard that he would gag over and over. We went to the vet, they checked his airway for a physical obstruction, and rechecked for Cushing's. No Cushing's, no airway obstruction, lungs look fine in x-ray. They decide to treat for bordatella. During this time, bordatella treatment is completely ineffective, but we notice that things like trazadone or gabapentin seemingly get rid of the high almost entirely for several hours.
Once the bordatella treatment ran its course, and having no real improvement, vet decided to try a more aggressive bordatella treatment, just in case it was a resistant strain. This whole time, my 6yo German Shepherd never gets any kind of infection or lesion.
After the more aggressive treatment was ineffective, the vet deferred us to an internal medicine clinic to see if it was collapsed trachea.
In November, internal medicine does an upper respiratory wash and finds a Mycoplasma infection. We begin treatment for that. The sedative used for the wash seemed to completely get rid of his cough for about 2 days. This was communicated to the vet and they gave me a butorphanol prescription to help him sleep at night and recover while trying to treat the infection, which was completely ineffective.
Beginning of January, we did a lower respiratory wash, as the cough had absolutely no improvement unless he was heavily medicated. The mycoplasma is gone, but he shows signs of eosiniphilic and neutrophilic inflammation. For this, they prescribed 10mg of Prednisone daily, shortly afterwards increasing to 20mg and we finally saw improvement for the first time.
At the end of January, he had a vertebral stroke. To treat this, we were told to increase Prednisone to 30mg daily. During this period, his cough was basically gone. He still couldn't get a deep breath, but he was finally able to sleep without coughing himself awake.
In mid-February, we brought him off prednisone and moved to 16mg of methylprednisolone daily, along with tramadol (to help him sleep), theophylline, and a flowvent inhaler. We also tried every possible allergy med. X-Rays show no sign of collapsed lung, weakened trachea, pneumonia, or anything else of physical concern.
He finally started sleeping through the night, though he still woke me up early in the mornings coughing and gagging from readjusting in the bed. I also started to notice that his cough would get bad when he was thirsty and would improve somewhat after drinking water.
We have slowly pulled him off of each drug above, and the only one that makes any kind of impact is this high-dose methylprednisolone, which can be really bad for his thyroid and kidneys over the long term, so I would love to get him back off.
The other strange thing I have observed (while medicated) is exercise outside, like running or sprinting, has normal panting and breathing, granted it is still slightly shallow. Almost all exertion inside would cause him to cough and/or gag until he's able to relax again. I've also noticed that stairs and hills, inside or outside, cause an extreme shortness of breath and/or gagging as well.
The internal medicine vet referred us to another internal medicine vet and after reviewing everything, and doing another infection panel, no one has any idea what the issue is.
All 3 vets are confident that it is not trachael collapse, he shows no signs of a current infection, and it does not appear to be allergies. The only thing left to do would be an MRI of his chest (which I can't afford) and none of them are confident that it would show anything of value.
I'm tired of my boy struggling with this cough and I need some kind of answers. Has anyone had a similar experience? I may be able to get some videos that I sent to the vet of the coughs/wheezing if it's beneficial.