My 2.5 year old Dobermann was diagnosed as having this a few weeks back (diagnosed through endoscopy, and barium xrays). He had been regurgitating on and off for a few weeks. All blood tests have come back negative (tested for thyroid problems, Myasthenia Gravis, Addisons Disease, etc). The only thing we can link it to is surgery which he had on his paw shortly before the regurgitation started (gastric reflux causing acid to pool in the esophagus when under general anaesthetic can also apparently cause Megaesophagus). Our vets have been brilliant, but I don't think we'll ever know for sure whether or not it was caused during the surgery. We just seem to be very unlucky

Just wondering if anyone else here has a dog with megaesophagus..?

I don't know of any adult dog that developed megaesophagus and I've never heard of it developing after a GA. I do know an IW puppy who first showed signs of it at 10 weeks. The pup was managed with supportive treatment (elvated feeding, liquid diet) and after 4 months was able to cope with solids. IT is now a perfectly normal adult. Fingers crossed that your dobermann also recovers.

Thanks for the reply :)

I've joined a Megaesophagus group, and it seems that a fair few cases occur in adult dogs - 25% of those cases are caused by Myasthenia Gravis, which was one of the conditions my Dobe was tested for.

Fingers (and paws!) crossed for my boy, although it seems that if a pup is born with MegaE then prognosis is often better than if it occurs in an adult dog with an untreatable cause, as esophagal function can improve as they mature.

The link between general anaesthetics and megaesophagus is in esophagitis (which can cause muscular weakness) caused by gastric acid refluxing into the esophagus.

A little while after the regurgitation started it was actually treated with medication as a case of esophagitis. If an endoscopy had been done early on before medication and time had passed (which wouldn't have happened as it makes sense to try to treat it before resorting to another GA!) there may have been obvious signs of esophagitis still remaining from the surgery. We'll never know, and what's happened has happened - it's just frustrating to not know why! Our vets have been really good, and were even open to talking about the surgery link which I was pleasantly suprised about!

Some good general links I found anyway, just incase anyone is interested or is searching the board in the future :)

http://www.michvet.com/library/medicine_megaesophagus.asp

http://www.gcvs.com/internists/megaesophagus.htm

http://www.caninemegaesophagus.org/What_is_MegaEsophagus.html

http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/megaoesophagus.htm

http://www.vetsoftware.com/acvc2002-willard5.htm

Thanks for all those links - very interesting. :)