Zoe By My Side- Our Journey with Cushings

[apollo6]

Go with your gut feeling. The pepcid(not sure of spelling), I use Bismuth, is just over the counter medication for upset stomach, I sometimes try to get the children's , another one is Pepsto for children( in pink bottle I think) any regular drug store would have - like CVS, walmart, etc. I use less then a quarter of a tablet in Apollo's food occasionally. See what other members do. I keep hoping I'll wake up and the cushing will go away.
I do see the effects of the skin lesions, and I feel the lump on Apollo's tail is from ingrown hairs, that are inflamed. I just want to cut that awful thing out.

[addy]

Hi All,


It has been a week since the "bun" incident and finally yesterday, Zoe was able to again jump on the bed and this morning, bless her heart, she jumped up on the bed and woke us up with her normal antics.

I was about to order pet stairs for her and schedule appointment with vet for next week, worrying how was I going to take off work for that, I am down to being a one girl office for a month! Big sigh of relief.

That Cushing's panic is hard to overcome, I thought we had a new symptom. I see Cushings everywhere sometimes.

So back to the melatonin and lignans!!!

My current problems seem so small compared to what others here are going through lately.

You all are in my thoughts and prayers and I hope things get better!

Addy

P.S. link for paper on Trilostane- Zurich Conference 2010. Thanks Harly's Mom!!!


http://www.vin.com/proceedings/Proce...6127&O=Generic

[apollo6]

Dear Andy,
Hope you are doing fine, I am so obsessed with Cushing, that my vet ordered me to take a brake from it. My family says I am looking for something on Apollo everyday, for another sign. Well I go in about 3 weeks for Apollo's check up, new blood panel, and new ACHT STIM
TEST. Like so many I am overwhelmed with a lot on top of this.
My husband and I are ready to close our store and sell our building. We are no spring chickens. Been in business 36 years. Problem is it is in Reno, Nev and the economy is real bad there. We are struggling week to week in our flooring business. My mother is 78 and I am doing more and more. It just never seems to end.
Thank you for the link.

[addy]

Oh Sonja,

I am so sorry to hear about your business. That is so very hard. We had to close a family business a few years ago, it really is heartbreaking to go through.

this weekend we were trying to trim branches on a tall evergreen and my husbanf got stung by hornets. His arm swelled up so badly, his doctor put him on prednisone for five days.

It is always something. My daughter thinks we are jinxed lately!!!! Oh, I was just glad I did not get stung because I had a swarm of them flying around my head. I was swatting at them. I thought they were flies because they were black and buzzing

I think we need a condo but you can't sell a house in Milwaukee right now

Hope Apollo is doing well and his next batch of tests are good. I need to figure out the lignans for Zoe and I don't think well with that side of my brain.

Addy

[apollo6]

I know what you mean. My husband and I feel the same way sometimes, like there is a dark cloud over us. I tried to blow it away over the weekend. We are in the same place, would like to sell our house and building in Reno, NV. But the economy is so bad and every month the values go down. It has just got to get better for all of us.
I pray every night for the the members and their cushing babies. On the brighter side, my brother, the professor, just had his third daughter , July 3rd in Columbus, Ohio. He said he plans on going for long bicycle rides when all the women are all on their period. He doesn't want to try for a boy, but you never know.

[apollo6]

Dear Andy,
So wrapped up in myself, forgot to ask how your husband is doing. Hope he is doing well. How are you and Zoe doing.

[StarDeb55]

Addy, on the general labs that were done on 6/18, Zoe has the typical elevations in cholesterol & alk phos that all of our pups seem to have. The one good thing is neither of the 3 liver specific enzymes, ALT, AST, or GGT were elevated which should mean that her liver is still in pretty good shape, & probably has not suffered a whole lot of damage from trying to process the excess adrenal steroids. I would double check with your vet about this. The one thing that I didn't see posted was the urine specific gravity on the UA results. Cushpups can't concentrate their urine so that result should be low. Since you told me in the PM that these labs were done in the middle of a colitis flare, that would probably explain the elevated platelet count. I think the general labwork is just another confirmation of the results from the UTK panel. I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but I hope my explanation helps.

I don't remember what treatment plan you & your vet have discussed, but from all of Zoe's results including the abdominal ultrasound, IMO, she needs to be treated.

Debbie

[addy]

Thanks Deb for checking the labs. I was just confused because I thought a dog with "Significant" hormone levels would have more things wrong on the other labs so I was worried that her flare up and stress maybe bumped her adrenal numbers from maybe moderate to significant which would perhaps change the treatment recomendation. She doe not have panting, frequent thirst, potty accidents, frequent infections, etc. We just have the thin skin and hair thinning, rat's tail and licking everything.

IMS wants to load with lysodren and I wanted to wait until I could be home for a week and not have to worry if I have to take off work, which means mid August.

Until then I wanted to try melatonin and lignans for her estorel (not sure I spelled that right) and try to get the flare up under control.

I was hoping the melatonin would help her anxiety as I took her off her Shen Calmer. We are starting with 1 mg and I have not yet figued out the lignan dose.

Everyone wanted me to check with Dr. Oliver about loading with lysodren and her chronic diahrrea. He was away and I finally heard back and he said lysodren and that he was not aware of it causing diahrrea so should not be a problem. Another vet said no problem administering metronidazole with lysodren. She also said no problem with loading.

So, just wanted to cover my bases before next month.

Thanks again,
Addy

[apollo6]

Dear Andy,
Just do what you think is right . How are you and Zoe doing, how is your husband recovering from the bee strings. Saw a wasp in our patio today, took Apollo, inside right away.

[addy]

Hi Sonja,

My husband's arm is so much better, thank you for asking. The prednisone kicked in the second day.He is almost good as new

I am trying to figure out these lignans for Zoe. If I undestand it (and I probably don't) if the flax is a 40 mg capsule with 20% lignans and Zoe needs 1 mg per pound that would be 18 mg's of lignans so I would need 2 capsules I guess which is 16 not 18 but I hope that is close enough.

Do I have it right? Yikes, I can't think with that side of my brain.

How is Apollo today and how are you? I hope you both had a good day. We all need them, don't we? I will go on your thread. We had horrible storms last night and our power was out at work so when it finally came on at noon I did not have much time to get my Cushing's forum fix I missed you all today.

Love you,
Addy