Hello reddit,

Hoping someone can advise, i am sorry if this is long, trying to keep it short. Happy to provide names of prescriptions or any other details i have left out. Thank you so much if you even read this.

• Species: dog
• Age: 4
• Sex/Neuter status: spayed
• Breed: mini poodle
• Body weight: 17 lbs
• History: healthy! So healthy! Literally never sick.
• Clinical signs: nystagmus, dry eye and ulcer, left side of the body losing some function, left back leg stays in that weird position briefly. Stumbles when walking. Currently on prednisone with no symptoms doing great.
• Duration: a month and a half about
• Your general location: Southern California

A few weeks ago our 4 year old mini poodle Shadow had a fever, so we took her to the vet. She prescribed antibiotics and they seemed to help. But the next day she yelped when i picked her up so we went back to the vet and they gave her fluids and pain medicine.

She seemed much better until a few weeks later. A few days after she stopped the antibiotics one of her eyes became weirdly watery looking. The next day it looked like it had a film over it, we took her to emergency because it was Easter sunday and everything was closed. They diagnosed her eye to be dry and have an ulcer. They also diagnosed nystagmus in her eyes. She was leaning slightly to the left when she was walking, barely perceptible. They gave us eye drops and gel for her eye and a prescription to help with the dizziness she was surely feeling. They tell us to follow up with a neurologist.

The next day she was even worse. Could barely walk, falling over, cannot jump. We take her to our vet, who says we need a neurologist. We go to the neurologist and unfortunately they want to do an MRI which they estimated at $6-8,000, we cannot afford this. Hoping it is an inner ear infection they give us antibiotics, prednisone, and omeprazole. She gets 100% better! We are ecstatic. Unfortunately again it did not last. 3 days after her last dose of prednisone im getting ready to take them for a long walk and Shadow starts shaking weirdly. Walking weird too and not jumping on things. We take her back to the vet who says we wait to see if she gets worse. They were closed the next day and it was excruciating because she did get worse. We gave her cbd and she was a little better but still clearly suffering and could not walk.

Back at the vet she prescribed another round of prednisone. We are on day 7 of that and she is back to normal! We are tapering her dose, so scared of her coming off the prednisone. We are about to run out, two half doses left.

I don’t want her to suffer but i dont want to give up too soon either. Probably a long shot but had to see if anyone could possibly help here. My vet was very specific she has no diagnosis and clearly seems to think things are likely to get worse. I have been crying for days, but trying to enjoy her feeling good again, she seems so normal again! Can’t she just stay on prednisone forever if she gets worse again? Please help.