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My poor Sally has had a hard time. Two weeks ago, after a camping trip, we noticed she yelped while eating a treat. The next day she ate her kibble, but again yelped whe eating her cookie (these are harder than her regular food). My husband & I checked inside her mouth, but couldn't find anything obvious. Our first thought was that she had picked up a foreign body that we couldn't locate - she has that wonderful Basset trait of trying to eat inedible things, like pine cones. We are always prying trash out of her mouth. We made a vet appopintment for the next day after work. When I came home, the whole right side of her face was swollen, including her eye, and she was in a lot of pain. I rushed her over to the vet immediately, he anaesthetized her, and found no foreign body or other problem on visual inspection. He diagnosed her with masticatory myositis, an acute inflammation of the muscles that open & close the jaw. She has been on prednisone ever since - within a day she was much improved, after two days she was behaving & eating normally. The side effects of the pred were hard to deal with - it made her insatiably thirsty and hungry (even more than normal for a Basset!). She drank so much that she lost her house breaking completely - not at all her fault. We are now tapering off the pred - in two more days she will be off completely, and I am terrified she is going to relapse. The vet said there is a chance it will, but as we caught it early she may not. Has anyone else experienced this? I have done some research on the internet, but the information is conflicting on quite a few points. Sally is allergic to bee stings - some of the articles say there is a correlation between this disease and high eosinophil levels in the blood. Betsy - do you have any insight? Sorrt this is so long - please keep paws crossed that this terrible thing won't come back........