For lots of families, their favorite pets ARE members of their family. The smaller breeds remarkably so because they are called lap dogs for a reason and the bonds can be so close.
It can be hard for pets losing owners too.
Posted on 10/20/2017 11:24:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
Joanie Simpson woke early one morning with a terrible backache. Her chest started hurting when she turned over.
Within 20 minutes, she was at a local emergency room. Soon she was being airlifted to a hospital in Houston, where physicians were preparing to receive a patient exhibiting the classic signs of a heart attack.
But tests at Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute -Texas Medical Center revealed something very different. Doctors instead diagnosed Simpson with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a condition with symptoms that mimic heart attacks. It usually occurs following an emotional event such as the loss of a spouse or child. That link has given the illness its more colloquial name: broken-heart syndrome.
In Simpson’s case, the event that she says tipped her over the edge was the recent death of her beloved Yorkshire terrier, Meha.
“I was close to inconsolable,” she said. “I really took it really, really hard.”
Simpson’s 2016 experience is described this week in the New England Journal of Medicine — not because of the dog’s role, according to one of her doctors, Abhishek Maiti, but because hers was a “very concise, elegant case” of a fascinating condition that research has established as quite real and sometimes fatal. Although not the first published case linking broken-heart syndrome to stress over a pet’s death, it underscores something many animal owners take as a given: that grieving for sick or deceased pets can be as gutting as grieving for humans.
A growing body of research supports this notion, which was echoed in a recent study that found pet owners with chronically ill animals have higher levels of “caregiver burden,” stress and anxiety. It’s the flip side of evidence that links pets to health and happiness, which gets more attention. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
LOL!
Got that right. I love my dogs.
Not silly at all. Dogs are great. One of God’s biggest gifts on earth to humans.
My dog will be six in a few months. I’m constantly afraid of losing her, as she is indeed my best friend in the world. At 50, perhaps my life changed, but so many friends and relatives are gone from my life from arguments/fights/disagreements/whatever....
For lots of families, their favorite pets ARE members of their family. The smaller breeds remarkably so because they are called lap dogs for a reason and the bonds can be so close.
It can be hard for pets losing owners too.
My best friend is a Basset Hound too! What an awesome breed!!
She talks too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhWiP2A51MI
What was this woman’s position on abortion?
Did she willingly kill her own family but so loved her pet, as so many millions have done?
“Beloved pet or not, it is just a dog/cat/etc.” ....
What kind of dogs do you have? The kind that are left outside or left in cages? I don’t think you understand at all the affection between human and canine. You’re missing a huge part of life. Maybe I feel sorry for any dogs you might actually have.
Or just a grouch?
As someone who has a family member that has suffered Takotsubo I will tell you that linking this to the death of a pet is merely one example. People that are stressed due to their emotional or physical health who become stressed by a loss of a loved one, a big life change or other situations where their body dumps a surge of stress hormones, such as adrenaline can end up dead or with permanent damage or progressive loss of ejection fracture if not properly diagnosed.
90% of the cases are women due to hormonal ties that are not yet fully understood. This has been around for a long time and was referred to as someone dying of broken heart in the centuries prior to the clear understanding of the process.
This condition can also be caused by a burst of happiness at a wedding or birthday or the stress of chemo.
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Literally gibberish!
.
Actually, show me a golden lab puppy and I am a goner.
I have had 7 golden labs in my life, three of which were injured in accidents. I put each of those dogs down myself because the distance from medical care.
And yes, it hurt like hell!
I’m glad we have someone as smart as you here on FR.
I understand you entirely. When my father was 72 he lost his beloved beagle, who had been with us for about 12 years. Previously he’d lost all of his siblings over a,period of years. Losing Buddy hurt him far more and it took him over six months to recover. Right now I have two dogs, one an American Staffordshire Terrier and retriever mix who’s twelve and a half years old and the other a six and a half year old Great Dane. I know how horribly it will hurt once they pass.
I'm in the same boat. My golden is 10, has epilepsy and needs 2 doses of phenobarb a day to keep seizures at bay. He has been around the raising of 2 infant grandsons and stories of their gentleness are very true. At 130lbs its remarkable the gentle affection of this fine breed.
I totally understand this. I have had a very rough year. Now, whenever I have chest pains (that are really anxiety), I fear this is it. The Big One. I figure the further I get (monthswise) away from my heartbreaking incidents, the better I will feel. And I AM better than I was. Prayers for all going through years where everything just seems to collide.
I favorite are the short-haired labs. beautiful dog.
Literally. Is never literally.
I hit post before the word ‘lab’ took hold lol. Retrievers both Golden and Labs have that same lovable face that’s very hard to resist.
tell me about it. :^P
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