pipe
06-10-2009, 05:57 PM
After 8-1/2 years of incredible companionship and loyalty Mia is gone. Even though I never posted on caininecushings I did frequent the site pretty often for information and personal accounts with dealing with the disease. For that reason I want to share Mia's story.
I would say that she started to show cushing-like symptoms at age 3 but we thought she was just fat (distended belly). We did take her to a couple different vets which failed to properly diagnose her- diagnosis was always normal. It wasn't until a year later that she starting drinking water like a fish, and making mistakes in the house, that a vet was able to properly diagnose her. We started with Lysodren and after a proper loading phase and testing she was doing much better. It was amazing! She was eating and drinking properly, even her distended belly was gone. She had more energy and didn't shy away when we took the leash out. We noticed some side effect especially right after taking the medicine, it almost seemed like she was dizzy so we always did our best to make her comfortable and tried to give the meds to her at night so she could sleep through the side effects. Throughout the years we started to see some hair loss which we understood was a symptom of cushings but her tests continued to come back at the correct levels and she seemed to being doing well so we continued on course.
About a year ago Mia started showing her original symptoms again. Drinking lots of water, dramatic increase in urination, she acted lethargic, and her hair loss increased (she actually lost most of the hair on her tail.) We had a falling out with our vet because we felt she never properly took the time to answer our questions, we always had to relay information through the nurses. We finally found a wonderful vet that introduced us to Vetoryl (if anybody is looking for a recommendation for a vet in Orange County, CA please let me know). Even better than the first introduction to Lysodren, Vetoryl seemed like a miracle drug - we literally had our old dog back. She was doing even better than she had before- we felt like there were noticeably less side effects.
I want to bring up the vet again. Wow, what a difference it makes to find a vet that will take the time to explain and understands the disease. Instead of making decisions based off our own personal research on the internet, we were able to talk to a professional who gave us her thoughtful opinion and we were able to ask questions and discuss things that pertained to our current situation. It made a huge difference for us and our vet's opinion was especially important and valued in the end.
About 1-1/2 months ago, Mia started yelping/crying in the middle of the night. I immediately jumped out of bed and found her completely limp and her eyes almost seemed glazed over. I was still trying to understand what was happening when she regain consciousness and looked up at me - exhausted. I originally thought she was having a bad dream, but the same thing happened again two days later. In retrospect, my wife realized that she had been hearing Mia 'having nightmares' for the past couple of months, though nothing like what was experienced in those last few weeks. After doing a little research and talking to the vet we concluded that she was having seizures (which was indicative of her type of Cushings, related to the pituitary gland). Mia continued to have "little" seizures the following two nights and then she finally had a really big one. She lost all control of her bladder from that point forward (to the point we had to keep her in diapers), wouldn't eat or even take her favorite treats, and laid in her kennel all day- we knew we had the hardest decision we could make.
I hope you all the best success with your treatments. I really think that this forum is a great asset for people having to deal with cushings.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3622/3386541856_482279c28a.jpg
I would say that she started to show cushing-like symptoms at age 3 but we thought she was just fat (distended belly). We did take her to a couple different vets which failed to properly diagnose her- diagnosis was always normal. It wasn't until a year later that she starting drinking water like a fish, and making mistakes in the house, that a vet was able to properly diagnose her. We started with Lysodren and after a proper loading phase and testing she was doing much better. It was amazing! She was eating and drinking properly, even her distended belly was gone. She had more energy and didn't shy away when we took the leash out. We noticed some side effect especially right after taking the medicine, it almost seemed like she was dizzy so we always did our best to make her comfortable and tried to give the meds to her at night so she could sleep through the side effects. Throughout the years we started to see some hair loss which we understood was a symptom of cushings but her tests continued to come back at the correct levels and she seemed to being doing well so we continued on course.
About a year ago Mia started showing her original symptoms again. Drinking lots of water, dramatic increase in urination, she acted lethargic, and her hair loss increased (she actually lost most of the hair on her tail.) We had a falling out with our vet because we felt she never properly took the time to answer our questions, we always had to relay information through the nurses. We finally found a wonderful vet that introduced us to Vetoryl (if anybody is looking for a recommendation for a vet in Orange County, CA please let me know). Even better than the first introduction to Lysodren, Vetoryl seemed like a miracle drug - we literally had our old dog back. She was doing even better than she had before- we felt like there were noticeably less side effects.
I want to bring up the vet again. Wow, what a difference it makes to find a vet that will take the time to explain and understands the disease. Instead of making decisions based off our own personal research on the internet, we were able to talk to a professional who gave us her thoughtful opinion and we were able to ask questions and discuss things that pertained to our current situation. It made a huge difference for us and our vet's opinion was especially important and valued in the end.
About 1-1/2 months ago, Mia started yelping/crying in the middle of the night. I immediately jumped out of bed and found her completely limp and her eyes almost seemed glazed over. I was still trying to understand what was happening when she regain consciousness and looked up at me - exhausted. I originally thought she was having a bad dream, but the same thing happened again two days later. In retrospect, my wife realized that she had been hearing Mia 'having nightmares' for the past couple of months, though nothing like what was experienced in those last few weeks. After doing a little research and talking to the vet we concluded that she was having seizures (which was indicative of her type of Cushings, related to the pituitary gland). Mia continued to have "little" seizures the following two nights and then she finally had a really big one. She lost all control of her bladder from that point forward (to the point we had to keep her in diapers), wouldn't eat or even take her favorite treats, and laid in her kennel all day- we knew we had the hardest decision we could make.
I hope you all the best success with your treatments. I really think that this forum is a great asset for people having to deal with cushings.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3622/3386541856_482279c28a.jpg