Doxie and new diagnosis

[Cavaor]

I have a 13yo Doxie who has been healthy his whole life. Had noticed recent increase in water intake, urination, slight pot belly and hair loss. We Had a stim test done and
He was pretty textbook Cushing. We started vetoryl bid for a 20mg/d dosing. He was 12.4 lbs. A couple of days after starting, he began having diarrhea and decreased appetite progessing to no appetite. Lethargic etc. Stopped the vetoryl immediately. At that point he had probably 4 days of the med bid. We took him in the following Monday (now having no meds x 3d), he had signs of early dehydration, received subcutaneous fluids and given prednisone just in case while we waited for cortisol level to come back. He seemed a little better but still diarrhea and water but no food. We now have the results and random cortisol still high. He now has not taken the medication for 1 week. He is still having diarrhea and doesn't want to eat or decreased water intake, tho he is drinking some . have tried the tricks of rice and plain chicken, cheese and peanut butter with limited success. We are able to force a probiotic from the vet. Over the last 24h he has drank water and is still urinating including accidents but no real food intake. We are out of town with him and have a vet avail on Monday again for an update. All symptoms started with the med starting. As long as I can keep him hydrated I'm not in a panic. When should the symptoms start to improve?

[labblab]

Hello and welcome to you and your little Doxie, although I’m sorry he’s still doing poorly. In addition to checking his resting cortisol, do you know whether other blood chemistries were also checked at that time? In addition to suppressing cortisol production, trilostane can also lower the adrenal hormone that controls the balance of sodium and potassium in the body. If that balance gets out of whack, serious problems can result.

I will say that his Vetoryl dose was higher than we would have liked. Initial dosing recommendations have lowered significantly since Vetoryl was first introduced, and most experts now caution against starting with a daily total that exceeds 1 mg. per pound. So it seems possible that it was more medication than he could safely, or at least comfortably, handle. But if so and after such a short time on the med, I’m surprised that it’s taking him so long to rebound. Can you tell us what his cortisol level actually was? Are you still giving him some prednisone?

If he remains ill through the weekend, I’m afraid you may need to bite the bullet and ask the vet to perform a full ACTH stimulation test. That test gives you more complete information about his adrenal function than just the resting cortisol alone. Again, I’m sorry he’s having these problems, but I’m really glad you’ve found us.

Marianne

[Harley PoMMom]

Hi and welcome from me as well!

I have only a moment to post but I wanted to let you know that I went ahead and manually approved your membership so please just disregard the validation email that was sent to you from k9cushings.

Lori

[molly muffin]

How is your Doxie doing now? I too am inclined to think it might have been too high of a dose to start and electrolytes might have become imbalanced or could be a bout of pancreatis too. So the vet should check all those things.