Dr. Claire Weigand

06/05/2024

Veterinary friends, let me know if you are in Minneapolis for the ACVIM Forum this year!

05/17/2024

When it comes to respiratory health, every breath counts – and that's where bronchoscopy comes in. We're proud to offer this advanced procedure for our furry friends.🐾💙

What's bronchoscopy, you ask? It's a minimally invasive technique that allows us to take a closer look inside your pet's airways. From detecting foreign objects to diagnosing complex respiratory conditions, bronchoscopy helps us uncover hidden issues and tailor treatment plans for optimal results.

Ready to breathe easier? Schedule a consultation with us today and give your pet the gift of clear, healthy lungs!

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04/26/2024

🌟 Meet Dr. Claire Weigand, our Internal Medicine Specialist! 🌟👩⚕️ With over 25 years of experience, Dr. Weigand is dedicated to long-term patient relationships.

🎓 Board-certified and Chief of Staff at IVC, she's here to provide compassionate care. When not in the clinic, Dr. Weigand enjoys kayaking and spending time with her furry friends.

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03/02/2024

The struggle is real! 😂

01/19/2024

Peanut came to see our Urgent Care service today because he was squinting and rubbing at his eyes. His owners knew this could be a sign of corneal ulcers and got him right into our urgent care service for evaluation. Dr. Mueller quickly diagnosed a corneal ulcer.

The cornea is the transparent, shiny membrane that makes up the front of the eyeball. Think of it as a clear windowpane. A corneal ulcer is a wound in the upper surface of the cornea. If the ulcer goes deep through the cornea, the liquid inside the eyeball leaks out, the eye collapses and irreparable damage occurs.

Corneal ulcers are detected with the use of special stains such as fluorescein. We also evaluate tear production and the pressure in the eye to look for underlying causes.

Treatment depends on the severity of the ulcer. Superficial ulcers generally heal within three to five days. Medication is used to prevent bacterial infections (ophthalmic antibiotic drops or ointment) and to relieve spasm and pain (ophthalmic atropine drops or ointment).

If a deep ulcer is present, steps must be taken to protect the eye and to promote healing. Since dogs do not wear eye patches well, surgery may be required to protect the injury and allow for normal healing.

In all cases, the patient should wear an e-collar to prevent them from rubbing at the eye and causing more trauma!

Seek veterinary care immediately if your dog or cat is squinting, rubbing at the eye, has mucoid discharge, or a change in the color of the eye (white, blue, yellow/green).

Because Peanut's owners reacted quickly, his ulcer is superficial. He is being treated with antibiotic drops and a solution that helps heal the cornea. Ulcers should be rechecked in 5 days to make sure everything is healing well and no secondary problems arise.

Our Urgent Care service is available Monday-Thursday. Other common illnesses seen through our urgent care service include hot spots, skin rash, ear or skin infection, lameness (limping), vomiting and/or diarrhea, decreased appetite, decreased energy, and blood in the stool or urine.

01/17/2024

Lovely Luna came to visit Dr. Weigand today. As you can tell, she was very happy to be here! Luna has infiltrative bowel disease.

The first cause of infiltrative bowel disease is inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This is often a food hypersensitivity, an inappropriate reaction to the bacteria in the intestine, an autoimmune disease, or due to an unknown cause. On biopsy, there is a mixture of white blood cells in the lining of the intestine. They release their inflammatory substances and damage the intestinal lining. IBD is often treated with prednisolone, diet change, and sometimes other medications.

The other possibility is small cell (also called well differentiated) lymphoma. This form of lymphoma is a chronic, slowly progressive form of cancer. Do not confuse this with lymphoblastic lymphoma, which is very aggressive, progresses rapidly, and does not respond well to treatment! The prognosis with small cell lymphoma is much better. Most cats respond well to treatment and 50% of cats are still alive in 2 years.

Luna is responding very well to treatment, and we look forward to seeing again in a few months!

01/12/2024

A local veterinary hospital is under a social media attack due to the surrender of a puppy that needed emergency surgery. Surrendering pets that need emergency medical care to a hospital or a rescue is a controversial option, and arguments can be made for both sides.

Let us say this, and say it loud: regardless of your position on surrendering pets, the social media attack on VESH West Springfield is unacceptable. Attacks like this have previously led to physical violence against veterinarians and veterinary staff, and we as a community cannot allow this to happen here. Social media campaigns exactly like this one have previously caused veterinary professionals to leave the field, and sometimes to take their own lives.

You are financially responsible for the care of your pet. Veterinary care (especially emergency or specialized veterinary care) can be expensive- we know that, and many of us have been in that situation ourselves. As a way to help with this, all emergency hospitals offer options for third party financing (often multiple options).

So what can you do to be ready for an emergency?
--Have an established relationship with your primary care veterinarian. Make sure that your vet knows you and your pet BEFORE there is an emergency! In these busy times, almost no vet can fit a sick pet into their packed schedules unless you are already an established client.
--Get pet insurance- and get it as soon as you adopt that adorable puppy or kitten, so that the rates are lower. Please make sure you have coverage for catastrophic events, such as trauma and cancer care.
--Get a Care Credit account. This is a credit card that you can use in cases of emergency. In some cases, you will have a few months or up to a year interest-free to pay it back. This lets you pay for care while you wait for pet insurance reimbursement, or spread out payments over several months.
--If you don’t qualify for Care Credit, check out VetBilling and ScratchPay.
--If you cannot afford care, be honest with your veterinarian. Ask if there is a patient assistance fund at the hospital. Also, they may know of funded hospitals that serve the community such as Second Chance Animal Services or rescues that can assist you. As hard as this is, you may have to consider euthanasia in order to prevent your pet from suffering. If that is the choice you must make, please know that the veterinary staff, doctors, nurses, and support staff all share your grief.

Pictured is Justice, who is Dr. Weigand’s cat. He needed emergency abdominal surgery last year due to an intestinal obstruction. She used Care Credit to pay for the surgery and then filed a claim with her pet insurance. Justice survived and continues to cause trouble around her house!

12/15/2023

Five Facts about Urinary Obstruction in Cats.

Urinary obstruction is a medical emergency!

1. ) Causes
stress
lack of access to water, diet, infectious agents
indoor lifestyle
These factors play a part in forming bladder stones or a mucus plug

2.) Symptoms
Straining repeatedly in the litter box (often mistaken for constipation) with no production of urine
Crying or howling
Licking at the genitals/below the base of the tail
Hiding

3.) Treatment options/Medical
Opening the urethra, the tube that allows urine to flow from the bladder by passing a catheter
Getting rid of the build up of toxins with intravenous fluids
Treating the pain: the kidneys continue to produce urine resulting in the bladder to be distended and painful
Balancing electrolytes: There can be severe electrolyte imbalances that affect the heart and can cause death

4.) Home Care after an obstruction
It is crucial to realize that the cat is at risk for re-blocking for a good week or two from the time of discharge. This is because the irritation syndrome that led to blocking in the first place is still continuing, and as long as the episode continues, blocking is a possibility.
Monitoring to make sure your cat is producing urine in a 6-12 hours period. If not seek emergency care to check that the obstruction has not reoccurred.

5) Treatment options/Surgery
When urinary blockage becomes recurrent in a male cat, it becomes time to consider surgical options
A surgery known as perineal urethrostomy can be performed.. Reconstruction will be done to make the urethra wider and shorter to allow crystals, mucus or small stones to pass.
This surgery will prevent an obstruction in the future.
The surgery will not prevent future episodes of feline lower urinary tract disease. These symptoms would include blood in the urine, frequent urinations and straining to urinate.

12/09/2023

5 FACTS about gall bladder disease in dogs

1.) The gallbladder plays an important role in digestive health and function, including storing and concentrating bile. Bile is necessary for digestion and absorption of nutrients and it enhances the absorption of digested fats. The gallbladder contracts, causing bile to enter the small intestine (duodenum) after the ingestion of a fatty meal.

2.) A gallbladder mucocele is an abnormally distended gallbladder containing thickened or solidified bile. The exact cause of the bile thickening is unknown, but may be due to excessive mucin production in the gallbladder. Certain breeds (Shetland Sheepdogs, Schnauzers) have a predisposition to forming mucoceles, but it can occur in any breed. Most patients with mucoceles are older (average age 9 years), with small and medium sized dogs most often reported.

3.) Some patients show no clinical signs, while others show only a decrease in appetite. Dogs can become very ill if the gallbladder becomes very inflamed or ruptured. Clinical signs include vomiting, diarrhea, painful abdomen, and jaundice (yellow coloring to sclera, skin and mucous membranes).

4.) Surgery is the recommended treatment for gallbladder mucoceles. This surgery carries high risk if the patient is ill from the gall bladder disease. That is why we recommend removing the abnormal gall bladder before the dog shows any signs.

5.) If the situation is not severe enough to require surgery, medical management is a good option. Medical management uses ursodiol to increase bile flow. The response to Ursodiol is monitored using ultrasound and blood work.

12/01/2023

Reports of an "outbreak" of some as yet unidentified canine respiratory illness are scaring dog owners. But veterinarians and researchers aren't panicking.

11/28/2023

There’s been a lot of discussion about the state of infectious respiratory disease in dogs in the US. I’ve covered aspects such as what’s maybe going on,

11/24/2023

Five Things to Know About Pancreatitis:

1.)What is the pancreas?
The pancreas is a vital organ on the right side of the abdomen adjacent to the stomach. The pancreas produces enzymes to assist in food digestion and hormones such as insulin, which regulates blood sugar or glucose metabolism. The digestive enzymes are secreted into the small intestine, and the hormones enter the bloodstream.

2.) What is pancreatitis?
Digestive enzymes are normally stored safely as inactive forms within pancreatic granules so that they are harmless but in pancreatitis, they are prematurely activated and released internally, digesting the body itself. The results of this self digestion is a severe amount of inflammation to the small intestine and stomach adjacent to the pancreas. This results in vomiting and a painful abdomen. The inflammation can be so severe that it affects the entire body causing abnormalities in the lungs, kidneys and blood clotting system.

3.) What causes pancreatitis?
In most cases, we never find out what causes pancreatitis, but we do know some events that can cause pancreatitis. It may be triggered in some cases by a fatty meal or corticosteroid administration. Concurrent hormonal imbalance predisposes a dog to pancreatitis. Such conditions include Diabetes mellitus or hypothyroidism. The conditions are associated with altered fat metabolism, which predisposes to pancreatitis. However, in many cases, it appears to occur spontaneously.

4.) Diagnosis
Amylase and lipase, pancreatic enzymes, used to be used for the diagnosis of pancreatitis. These tests are not sensitive or specific for pancreatitis. Other conditions such as kidney disease or steroid use can cause elevations in these enzymes. A newer test called the PLI, or pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity, test has come to be important. As mentioned, lipase is one of the pancreatic digestive enzymes and only small traces are normally in the circulation. These levels jump dramatically in pancreatitis, which allows for the diagnosis to be confirmed with a non-invasive and relatively inexpensive test. The problem is that this test is not available in the hospital setting. An in house test called a Spec CPL has recently been used and has been shown to detect 83% of pancreatitis patients. Ultrasound is used to image the pancreas and adjacent organs. With ultrasound the severity of the inflammation at or around the pancreas as well as any structural problems can be detected.

5.) Treatment
Historically treatment involved supportive care with intravenous fluids, pain medication, antivomiting medication and nutritional support. Panoquell-CA1® (fuzapladib sodium) is a new product released in 2023 for the treatment of acute pancreatitis. It is given by IV injection for the first 3 days of hospitalization.This new medication represents actual treatment in that it prevents harmful white blood cells from entering the pancreas where they would release their own inflammatory biochemicals. This treatment is meant to actually stop the inflammation in the pancreas. It is used for acute/sudden severe cases and not for ongoing milder cases.

11/11/2023

Find out more about pet diabetes, including diagnosis, treatment and management.

11/05/2023

11/02/2023

5 FACTS about canine lymphoma.

1.) Lymphoma is a family of immune system cancers that mainly arise in middle-aged to older dogs. There are many subtypes of lymphoma, and knowing which subtype a patient has helps us to tailor their treatments as precisely as possible.
2.) One of the most common early signs of lymphoma in dogs is enlarged lymph nodes- often noticeable as lumps under the chin, in front of the shoulders, or behind the knees.
3.) Lymphoma is generally diagnosed by taking a cytology sample with a small needle from one of the lymph nodes. This process is quick, and does not require anesthesia!
4.) The mainstay of treatment for lymphoma in dogs is a combination of chemotherapy and steroids. Most dogs tolerate chemotherapy extremely well, and (unlike in humans) serious side effects are fairly uncommon.
5.) In dogs, lymphoma is a treatable (but not curable) type of cancer. When treated with the most effective chemotherapy protocols, most dogs with lymphoma will live about a year with a great quality of life (although there are some subtypes of lymphoma that have a shorter or longer prognosis).