Jasper (12 yr old Mini Schnauzer) is now at peace

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for the kind words. Jasper had a pretty good weekend overall. I gave my vet an update tonight, and the plan is to start tapering the prednisone on Wed 9/26 to half a tablet daily, which will be 2.5 mg daily. She said we will keep him on that dose for several days before taking him off it for a couple days to get another ACTH stim test. She will call next Monday to see how he is doing. She wanted to start the taper on Wed so that if there were any problems we would know before the weekend. She feels he will do fine on the lower dose, but I am scared of course.

My fear of course is that he is not producing any or very little cortisol on his own, and that we will get into trouble when the dose is decreased. I forgot to ask her, but if he started not feeling good on the lower dose, can I just give him another 1/2 tablet to make up the difference? And will that prevent the severe symptoms that he had before? She said that 5 mg is a high dose for him and we need to taper it down.

So that's the plan currently. I am just reluctant to do any changes because he seems to be feeling so much better now. :rolleyes:

Hugs to all,

Tina and Jasper

Today is day 4 on the reduced prednisone dose, Jasper has been getting 2.5 mg daily since 9/26 when we started the taper. So far so good, he seems to be feeling ok. He has been eating and hasn't had any of the scary signs of low cortisol. I am so relieved that he is tolerating the decreased dose, but I am still scared about stopping it for 48 hrs in order to do the next stim test. I am guessing my vet will be looking at that for some time next week. I will be checking in with her on Monday.

He is continuing to recover from the addisonian crisis, I have learned that this takes a while. It has been almost a month! He continues to drink and pee excessively, but other than that, seems to be getting back to his old self. I am so thankful. He has come a long way. :)

I hope you and your pups are all having a great weekend.

Hugs,

Tina and Jasper

I am so glad Tina. It is wonderful to hear Jasper is on the mend.

I am so glad that Jasper is getting better. It does seem to take a while to recover from these addisonian crisis incidents. So no hurry in that regard.
I know you are happy to see him doing so much better.

hugs,
Sharlene

Hi Everyone,

I talked to my vet a few hours ago and gave her an update on Jasper. We went over everything, and she is concerned that the Percorten injection that Jasper was given when he was in his crisis is coming due in the next day or two if he is still low and needs it. Apparently it is given every 26 days, and he had it on 9/6.

She doesn't feel that he has been on the lower dose of prednisone long enough to allow his adrenals to no longer be artificially suppressed from taking the higher pred dose, so doesn't think we can do the stim test this soon. (Not to mention if they haven't regrown from being over suppressed from the lysodren). She wants to recheck his baseline cortisol to get an idea of whether he is still real low or not. This way if he is still low, she will give the Percorten, and if not, I think she said we would look at when we should do another stim test. I will hold the prednisone tomorrow morning, and drop him off for the test on Wed morning 10/3.

The results of the baseline cortisol test are sent to a lab in town, so we should get the results late the same day. Plus it is much less expensive. ;)

After talking to my vet, this seems to make sense at the present time. I know she is concerned about the timing of the Percorten, if it turns out that it is needed. He was so incredibly sick, I am sure she doesn't want to take any chances.

So this is our plan for now. I know it probably is not usual, but nothing about Jasper's response to treatment so far has been usual. He definitely has not read the textbook, and has not been following the rules at all. I have had several talks with him about this, so I am hoping he has been listening. :rolleyes:

I am nervous about him being without ANY prednisone tomorrow. I was scared to decrease the dose, and he has tolerated that so far. If he is going to get sick from holding the prednisone, how quickly would that happen? The vet said that they would give him a dose at the hospital after the baseline cortisol is drawn, so he will be without it about 48 hrs, but really just missing one dose.

Any feedback would be appreciated!

Hugs,
Tina and Jasper

Hi Tina: If he has been doing ok as you wean him I bet he will be ok with none. We weaned my Jenny (also overdosed with Lysodren) very slowly off the prednisone and she kept her appetite and her fiestiness.

Her cortisol is very slowly coming back. I think her baseline was something like .8 up from .4 in April and she is doing ok with nothing for the last 6 weeks or so.

No lysodren, no prednisone. She got picky so I started putting some stinky food in with her normal food and she is eating it all (knock wood)

good luck with the test! I hope Jasper is starting to produce some cortisol also. Judi

Hi Judi,

Thanks for letting me know about Jenny. I have been following your thread but hadn't been able to read it all from the beginning, but I had gathered that Jenny had been over suppressed from Lysodren also. Right about the time I was getting ready to ask you about it, Jasper ended up in the hospital, and it has been pretty tough since. I feel like we have finally turned the corner, and I am hoping it continues!

I am glad to see that Jenny has been doing well and that her appetite has been good for the most part. So if her cortisol is slowly coming back, does your vet think that she won't stay addisonian?

Thanks again for posting.

Tina

Hi. Yes, the vet thinks eventually she may need medication again but the specialist we saw in April told me not to even consider it until she is over 2 for both the pre and the post test in the ACTH

My specialist recommended doing exactly what you are doing tomorrow. He said if the baseline is super low, no need to waste time or money doing the second half of the ACTH.

The specialist also told me that if Jenny were brand new to him, he'd go with Trilostane but since we know Lysodren definitely works on her, if we get to that point again, he'd use lysodren on her at a much reduced dose. But he did tell me I could switch if I want.

It has been a nice mental health break only giving her insulin these days.

Fingers crossed for you & Jasper! Judi

Thanks Judi! That is good to know about Jenny and that your specialists recommendations match what we are doing. It made a lot of sense after my vet and I discussed everything.

It has been a while since she has mentioned anything about how we would handle restarting the Lysodren, but I do remember she said it would need to be at a very reduced dose, if we got back to that point. She has concluded that Jasper is highly sensitive to it. I literally watched him like a hawk while he was taking it, and he still got into a crisis. She has not mentioned switching to Trilostane at this point.

I love your avatar pic, Jenny is so cute! I wish I had a better pic of Jasper, the one I have is kind of dark. He has become afraid of the sound that my camera and phone make when taking a picture, so that is the best one I could find that would fit.

Thanks for all the feedback Judi, I appreciate it.

Tina

Hi TIna,

I hope Jasper does just fine without the pred today and he can start weaning off. Some pups are just super sensitive to these meds but it sounds like your vet is handling this just right - taking her time to let Jasper's adrenal recover and aiding him meantime.

If you notice today that he is slipping without the pred on board, call her asap and make sure she knows how he is acting. He may tell you himself whether he can do without it right now or not - and don't take a chance if he needs it. ;)

I am so glad he is better than he was, tho, and continues to show signs of improving. You're a great mom, Tina!

Hugs,
Leslie and the gang