Some of you may remember I posted a while ago about my girl and her false pregnancies. Well I decided (after trying raspberry leaf which didn't ease things) to have her spayed as soon as this current false pregnancy has ended - but, ironically, it refuses to end!
My poor girl has been suffering with it now for over three months (her season ended on September 5th and she seemed to swell up almost straight away) in spite of 3 courses of Galastop and efforts to reduce food/increase exercise etc. (She is rather thin to start with and gets a lot of exercise normally so there has been a limit to what I could do on that front.) She hasn't nursed any toys but has been very anxious and exciteable - and the milk has just kept coming back ...
How long can a false pregnancy go on? And should I take her back to the vets - who will give her yet more Galastop which seems to subdue things for a week or so then it just comes back - or just wait it out?
I had rebooked the spaying for January 9th but I'm not sure she will be back to normal even then (Four months after her season) and don't want to spay her at the wrong time ...I'm worried about trying to judge (will the vet be able to?) whether the whole thing is actually over as the odd behaviour and swelling of boobs seems to 'come and go'. Help! Have any of you been in the same boat and how did you manage?
Thanks in advance for any replies. :)

Hi Grommet :)  I think you should take advice from your vet.  I have just had my bitch spayed due to her phantom pregnancies.  I did pester the experts many months in advance as they wanted to spay 3 months after the end of her season.  She had her usual phantom 2 months after which lasted about 2-3 weeks and was spayed a couple of weeks after that.  My vet did explain that the last thing he wanted to do was spay while she was showing any signs of a phantom - as spaying at this time could induce phantom symptoms on a permanent basis (quite horrific really) - Get in touch with your surgery and ask to speak with a vet directly - If they wont do that I would suggest finding one that will!
Best of Luck
Sarah
PS In the meantime I would deny her any toys or anything she can mother/nest with.  :)

Thanks Sarah :)
That's exactly what I'm worried about - ending up with permanent symptoms due to spaying at the wrong time. I will go back to the surgery and ask to speak to the vet we saw before - think I'm just having a bit of a panic because it seems to have gone on for so many weeks now in spite of the treatment the vet has given us. You say your bitch had a phantom for 2-3 weeks but this one has been going on now for nearly fourteen weeks, on and off .

Poor you - its such a worry.  Just be sure to speak directly to the vet and make sure that you are happy that you have covered everything.
14 weeks is a long time isn't it - it was bad enough watching mine for a few weeks.
Sending lots of hugs and wishes your way and hope it all works out for the better soon :)
Sarah x

A  phantom will last for 9 weeks, then another 5-6 weeks. Think of a bitch in whelp, she'll carry her litter for 9 weeks, then lactate for another 6-7 weeks. Galastop given early on in the phantom, will only help temporarily. More often than not the sympthoms will reappear.
The best way is to wait until the bitch is 9+4 weeks into the phantom, then give her one treatment (4-5 days)with Galastop, and that will hopefully suffice.
Thus you treat her when the lactation is at it's peak,  when her litter would have been about four weeks old. Usually this works well.

If you give Galastop early on the hormones will increase again, and a new treatment will be needed. Bitches often feel quite ill from the Galastop, so it's not a good thing to give more than needed.
Anyway, if you count from the end of your girl's season, the phantom which should normally last the lenght of 9+5-7 weeks, should be over soon, anyway.
Good luck, you'll have a much happier girl soon! :-)
Karen

Thanks so much Sarah and Karen for your advice and support.:) I will be going into the vet's tomorrow to have a word when I pay my bill. Karen, what you have described definitely fits with what has happened to us - not sure why we were given Galastop so early in the proceedings, although I suppose it did reduce the mammary and abdominal swelling for a while ...
I will let you know how we get on. Going to be soooo glad when this is all over!

Just thought I'd post an update ...
The vet said he would have a look at my bitch a few days before her spaying date and we would decide what to do. Unfortunately, in the meantime her behaviour became much more intense with her digging furiously at the furniture, barking anxiously at strange dogs as soon as they appeared on the horizon, and quite upsettingly also barking madly at some of the people who used to always stop and make a fuss of her in the street. :(
It's as if she's going mad.
We saw the vet yesterday and he won't spay her while she is behaving so oddly. Even though no milk was found he wants to try her on Galastop (again!) for 5-10 days in the hope that it will make the behaviour go away. He then wants to spay her, just over a week later than we originally planned.
Trouble is, after all this I can't believe it will work! I can't understand what is going on with my girl's hormones. Ah well - fingers crossed ...

Just adding another update to this in case anyone else goes through this - although I hope they don't. :)
Finally had my girl spayed after a 10 day course of Galastop which helped to decrease her odd behaviour a little. The vet found that one of her ovaries looked abnormal - some lesion that wasn't exactly a cyst but was odd-looking. He thinks that this, whatever it is, could well have been the cause of all her hormonal problems.
Now we are just waiting the six weeks or so post-spay until her hormones settle down to see if my bitch returns to her normal self. Just thought I would post this in case it helps anyone else - I had tried researching on the internet but hadn't come across this as a reason for extreme false pregnancies.

Hope everything settles back down to normal.