Just signed in after months and saw this. So sad. She sounds as if she is anxious? Its a month later so I don't know what happened. My first thought was an anxiety med. Hugs
Welp, she seems to have stumped the vets. Recovery started to improve, finally, and we're slowly getting her off the post-op meds. But in the meantime:
Vet did a blood panel shortly after that post. Liver numbers were slightly higher than they should be, so they put her on a supplement along with the anti-biotics. The wretching/gagging/licking at air got worse.
Vet (running though checkboxes) gave a pro-biotic to give her off hours of the anti-biotic to try and get her stomach calm.
Raspy cough, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, gets worse as well. Once she was done with the first set of antibiotics, vet prescribed a stronger dose to try and shake whatever she might have. Two weeks of that. To help kick start the immune system in shutting down whatever it is, also prescribes a steroid with a stepped reduction to taper her off it. Also prescribes PepcidAC (OTC) to help ease the stomach from the steroid.
Day after the first reduction, Cookie goes into a big gagging/coughing/licking at air fit where she's fighting to inhale air.
Finally get her calmed down and breathing okay. Talk to the vet, they recommend (and write the script to fill the pills) keeping her on the high dose for a couple more weeks. Then taper down. Pepcid can be stopped as it didn't really do much (other than help calm the stomach from the first few days of steroids).
Since then, she's had a couple coughing fits but nothing as severe as she had after the steroid reduction. Sounds like a steam engine some times. And gets tires easily (but has lots of burts of energy banked up from all the napping the last two months).
Vet is stumped. We're also stumped. Meanwhile, we also have a foster dog that is 'mama-hen'-ing Cookie making sure shes okay after her fits. So she has someone around the house again.
The vet thinks she may have Cushings Disease, and asked if we wanted to pursue further testing. At this point, from everything we read, she has zero (maybe one) sign of symptoms from Cushings.
Dr. Google says that there could be a breakdown of the trachea causing her to suck air like she has, but that's generally seen in small breed dogs, not ones her size.
I have a weird feeling she somehow contracted Heart Worm again, 10 years after being treated for it originally. Most of her latest symptoms match.