Flynn 11 y/o Foxie Cross - Right adrenalectomy- Good Bye Flynny We will miss you

Hi Trish,
I think mucousy poop is going around. All the way to New Zealand!:D
Flynny has the best mom EVER advocating for him. He is still the same sweet boy continuing on because of you! Thanks for being such a great inspiration to us all. I hope Flynny's tummy settles quickly. Poor guy.:o

I gave up trying to cover the silvers and let it go! 50's too!;) I also cut it all off and went short. It is so much easier!:D

I hope you had a pleasant weekend! Hugs to you my dear and a belly rub for the tough guy.:)

Well I went on the fish oil hunt! The Krill was just in capsule format with weird doses so did not get those, plus they cost an absolute fortune. Could not find salmon oil at all :mad: So I settled on Nordic Naturals Omega-3 purified fish oil. Had quite a chat in the store with a naturopath, she has me convinced I should take it as well! It is made from anchovies and sardines.

Haven't heard back from the vet yet about dosage, so I just gave him a wee tiny bit on his dinner. Unfortunately it is has a lemon flavour :p But it did not seem to put him off.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harley PoMMom

The dosage that's suggested for his weight of 13.5 pounds is DHA 200mg and EPA 300mg.

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Flynn is just over double Bear's weight, but I need to find out from my vet the dose he should be having as unsure whether I should double that for him or not, so best to be safe, hence I gave him only a few drops, not even an 1/8 tsp.

This oil has EPA 825mg and DHA 550mg in 5mls - so bit tricky to work out to get even close to the dose Lori's cardiologist has recommended.

I hope it helps Flynn. I know Leslie said you have to start out with a small dose and work your way up when it comes to oil. I remember reading a long, long time ago about feeding Zoe sardines, they were suppose to be so good for her but with her touchy system, I bought a can but never was able to give it to her.

I wonder if it accomplishes the same thing? Though we prorbably would not not how may sardines to give them. I dont remember where I read the article, it was probably four years ago.

Happy Sunday!!!!

Hi :D I have not seen any loose poops since yesterday morning which was still mucousy, but hard to tell really as we have stayed at Dads to keep an eye on him after minor surgery yesterday. They have a lot of native bush in their yard so Flynn has the perfect hidey holes to go where he likes where I cannot follow :D He has slept all night though and not wanted out so that is good and seems fine otherwise.

I have only been giving a tiny little dribble of the oil Addy, plus upped his probiotic to twice daily again. I only give him a 1/4 tsp of the powder at a time. I would think the sardines would do much the same, you wouldn't want to feed him those every day though... he does like them when I have given them on the odd occasion. They have bones in them though, teeny tiny ones but I know with renal dogs we have to be careful about phosphorous which is high in bones, Flynn does not get them anymore.

No snacks, he seems real hungry though. This morning Elle did not eat all her breakfast and it was red meat, I had it up on a bench so Flynn would not steal it but he knew it was there and was crying for it!

Hopefully by next week his tummy will have settled back down and with the increase in the benzapril we will see a decrease in proteinuria. I hope so anyway :D xx

Flynn knows where the good stuff is. :)
Hope your dad is making a full recovery too.
Hopefully Flynn's next test will be right where it should be.
Hopefully this will be a nice easy week at work.

hugs,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin

Hi Trish,
Thank you so much for posting on our thread and for all of your feedback and support. You are always so reassuring. I am not happy to see Flynn's latest UPC, and after getting fully caught up on your thread, I am hoping it is a fluke also. He has been doing so well, and the UPC had been going down, just like Jasper's. I am so hoping that it is falsely elevated since Flynn's tummy and poops have been off. Come on Flynny, lets get things settled and stop scaring your Mum. I guess we will have to see how Jasper's turns out since he and Flynn have been mirror images of each other the last two times. And Jasper has had other issues going on now too, go figure. :rolleyes:

As far as the fish oil, I agree with Addy, go very slow since his poops aren't normal right now. The fish oil that Jasper gets is Welactin. I am not sure if it is salmon oil for sure, the label says cold water fish, so that makes me suspicious that it isn't. The website doesn't say specifically, so I think I will call the drug company and ask when I get a chance. It is what my vet prescribes and she said she has had good results with this brand. The dose that Jasper gets for his weight of 25 lbs is EPA 750 mg and DHA 500 mg per day (which is one spoonful), split in half and given twice a day mixed with his food. This dose is a little bit more but very close to the dose that Lori mentioned for her dog by his weight. The Welactin bottle recommends this dose for dogs weighing 20-44 lbs, so this would be the dose for Flynn also.

How's your Dad feeling? I hope he is doing ok after his procedure. How nice that you are close so you can look after him.

I too think about everyone's pups on the forum. There are a couple of Boston's in my neighborhood and when I see them I always think of Boriss. So many times I see a pooch and I think "there's a Molly dog" or "that dog looks like Flynn". We saw a dog at the vet Saturday that I thought looked like Zoe. And my baby Shelby resembles Barbara's Trixie quite a bit. :)

How is Flynn doing with the increase in the Benzapril? After reading that article, I think Jasper is on a lower than recommended dose of Enalapril. He gets 5 mg daily, split in 2 doses. I will need to look at that more closely if his UPC comes back higher this time, and consider mentioning it to my vet. And even though his last result was much better than the previous one, it was still way above 0.5, which in and of itself would justify increasing the med according to that article. I just feel nervous about that since he has done ok on the current dose, and the med itself can cause the BUN and creatine to go up. I guess I will see what the result is this time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trish

He likened the glomeruli in the kidneys as acting like a sieve, which is where he thinks Flynn's renal problems are. The glomeruli are not meant to let protein through, but if they are damaged in the filtering area the protein molecules can escape through the "sieve" holes into the urine. They continue to deteriorate until they get to the stage where the protein is flowing through freely so much that the protein (albumin) levels in the blood start dropping hence the close monitoring of those levels. The kidneys can lose up to 75% or thereabouts function sometimes before it starts affecting blood results. So at this stage Flynn has not reached that level YAY!! :rolleyes::) We would only truly know what his exact renal problem is by doing a biopsy of the kidneys and treatment would be pretty much the same so we are not going there.

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This is pretty much exactly how my vet described it. She calls Jasper's diagnosis PLN - protein losing nephropathy. She mentioned that she has a couple of dogs that she is treating with this whose kidney blood values have continued to stay WNL, one dog for over 2 yrs. So I feel that is encouraging!!

Glad to read that the poops are improving, hope it continues.

Big hugs to you and Flynn xo

Hi Trish,
Glad to hear that Flynny's poops seem to be much better. To think I almost missed out on a poop discussion!:D

You are such a sweet daughter taking the day off to watch out for your dad. I hope he's up and around walking the beach with Flynny real soon.

Now that I am back to work, our late nights visits are over for now.:( By the time you connect on in the evening there, it's midnight here the day before. I have to start going to bed with the workings stiffs.;):D

Take care of yourself and my very special pal. Xxxxxxxx

Hey Trish,
It's 12:15 AM here, so it's about time for you to be emerging there! :D Such is my plan to sleep like normal working folk. A migraine hit, so I'm up anyway.:o Too many things rushing through my mind with a new school year starting tomorrow. New kids, new needs, no Buddy. I over think at times.:o The first few weeks back is always crazy busy. After that, we usually settle into a semi smooth working rhythm.

I just wanted to say hi and that I'm thinking of you and my pal Flynny boy. I love Flynny's energy and zest for life despite his health issues. Gotta love that boy! Take care my dear. Xxxxx

Ha, I just posted on your thread as I spotted you online! Ack not a headache tonight of all nights when you need a good sleep for tomorrow.. that sucks :mad:

Hi

Dad is doing good thanks, he had a colonoscopy and polypectomy. He had one about 2 months ago and they found a ton of polyps and were only able to take half of them as he had been under sedation for quite some time and they did not want to push it too much at his age. So he had to go back for Part 2 yesterday! They took out another 12! But he came through it with flying colours and we will wait for histology but they did not think any looked suspicious so that was good to hear.

Re his raised UPC, I received the formal report from the vet and he did have some sediment in his urine: "Small numbers of triple phosphate (struvite) crystals seen, No casts present, No bacteria seen, Moderate amount of amorphous debris", the rest of the analysis was normal though. Maybe that has contributed to the high result this time plus the tummy troubles.

He does seem a bit quiet, I took him up the beach today and he ran, but not as fast and by the end he was walking beside me and he hardly ever does that unless he is a bit under the weather. I guess he has reason to be, with getting used to increase in benzapril also have reintroduced Tramadol. So I will give him time to settle down before worrying too much :p Apart from a bit quiet Tina he seems to be tolerating the higher Benzapril dose. We are going to be more aggressive with the UPC, we will raise the dose higher depending on his next result. It certainly makes sense to me to try and get the UPC as close to normal as we can. When I spoke to our vet about it we were both initially so pleased to see the big drop that we just left it at that, so it was good to see him doing further research on proteinuria and now we can apply that new knowledge to Flynn and try and get it as low as we can. We are also keeping in mind the side effect of putting up the BUN/Cr with ace inhibitors, hopefully as it is only a small number we will not have that problem. I guess what your vet said about dogs with PLN and keeping blood levels WNL also applies to Flynn, his proteinuria has been present 18 months now. Only started ace treatment once it got >2.0 back in April.

Haven't seen a poop since yesterday morning, so not sure if they are better or not Kathy, but we have only got back home tonight so I can keep a better eye on that here.

Thanks for that info on fish oil Tina, that dose is close to a 5 ml dose of our brand, ours slightly more but then Flynn is 5 pound heavier than Jasper so think I will work up to that dose too. Will see what his bowel is like in the morning and go from there.

Nervous times again for our boys Tina, but keeping positive is the only way to go :D:D:D