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Sharlene:
Thank you as always for your help. Sometimes you just need a boost from a friend to lift you up. I will be watching her like a hawk. She seems to be a bit sleeping she keeps closing her eyes and blinking a lot. I hope to God this puts her where she needs to be. These poor babies go thru a lot with this disease. God Bless you and you babies.
Hello everyone:
I just got back form the Vets with Tipper. Not great news. She had her chest Xray and it showed some mild enlargement of the right side of her heart. The other thing it showed was that her trachea is narrowed and is being constricted by the redistribution of fat in her body the fat is collapsing her trachea etc. That is why she is wheezing and making throaty noises. It is hard for her to breathe, and exhale. I am just sick over this. I put her on a harness immediately. I guess there is no way of telling if this fat will get worse, as I am scared of this cutting off her air. I had a breakdown at the Vets and a man waiting with his dog came to me and gave me a hug, he said I know how you feel. Does anyone know anything about this problem, and can offer me some insight??? I sure would appreciate it as this is definetly got me way down there today. It is not collapsing and she is coughing, it is her wheezing to breathe, and making funny sounds when she is drinking, I guess from the constriction. This has to be very hard for her to keep breathing like this. I swear this is the worst disease in so much as all the collatereal damage it causes. If anyone has any ideas please let me know, I just want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head and forget the whole world. God bless all of you and your babies.
Hi Sweetie,
We will all climb in that bed and pull the covers up with you;) I know it is hard, one thing after another, it is hard to handle it all especially when you love a little one so very much.
We have members dealing with collapsing trachea and I am sure they will stop by. Actually my Koko, who is 5 years old, has a partially collapsing trachea. He never walks in a collar, I even took him off dry food as it made him gulp water. There are different grades of collasping trachea. Did the vet say if it was mild? Collapsing trachea is something we also see often in the small breed dogs that dont have Cushings. I believe there are medications to help the spasms.
I know Cushings is a very difficult disease and we often wait for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. It can be a roller coaster.
Hang in there. I know others will stop by to discuss collapsing trachea.
Tipper's mom-I hope you have a very large bed because Scoop and I will join you. I am so sorry to hear of Tipper's problem. I don't have any answers just a hug for you and Tipper. I agree with your feelngs on Cushing's. Hope you find some answers to the problem.
Addy:
Thanks for thinking of us. It seems from what the Vet said it is not a spasm as much as the fat restricting the windpipe or trachia. He has some old xrays of her windpipe and he said he would dig them up, and compare them. He never does anything in a timely fashion, so I will more than likely have to get in a fight with him again to give me the information. It just wears you down when you have a Vet like the one we have. He said for her to lose weight. She has never been overweight, just a powerhouse of muscle. He says the muscle was wasted away by the Cushings and some of that turns into fat. Because she was so lean and muscular I had a hard time envisioning where all this fat was coming form that he said redistributes itself. I guess it is all the wasting away, I don't know for sure. He is not that educated in Cushings. I need a way to see if I can help her lay in a way this won't constrict her windpipe. It is only while she lays down that she has a problem breathing, especially while on her sides. If she lays straight down on her sternum, it is not as bad. The operations for this are too dangerous, and many die. Anybody thats dog is wheezing from this condition please chime in I need your input desperately. Also I found out it then narrows the dogs nasal passages- which can probably be the reason for everyones dogs that snore. Any help is appreciated, thank you in advance. I did read dieting does help some of these dogs with this.
Vicky:
I appreciate your hug we sure need it, thank you and God Bless.
Hi Vicky,
Checking in to see how you and Tipper are this weekend.
Just wanted to say hi and give some hugs:):):):)
Well this probably answers my question about why molly snores so much these days and sometimes I think she is sniffing loudly. We know she has an enlarged liver, so that is most likely the culprit, pushing fat around.
So, while I don't have any answers. You aren't alone in this.
I'll be asking about this at Molly's next visit too.
hugs,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin
Sharlene:
I found out that the reason Tipper can no longer sneeze is because of the trachea problem. It inverts the sneeze. Tipper is on 30 mg Vetoryl in the morning. She has been very restless at night. She just had her dosage changed and is not due for a stim yet for a while. I am reading that the tremors are caused by uncontrolled cortisol?? I thought someone said they were a side affect of the Vetoryl?? I don't want to run and get her another stim test as she is not due yet, but I don't want any more fat moving around from cortisol not being controlled because of it pressing on her trachea. I don't know if she is restless because of her breathing difficulties or the 30 mg is not controlling her cortisol. She weighs 17 lbs and the next step up would be 40 mg Vetoryl. I don't know what to do here. Has anyone heard of a BNP test to see how the heart is functioning?? If so are they real expensive??- I believe it is a blood test. I need some guidance about the muscle contractions, Tipper only gets them at night when laying down. Sometimes it is like a ripple effect across her rib cage. If you have any thoughts I would appreciate it.
Hi Tipper's mom, I don't have a lot of experience to offer you, but I was wondering, is there any way you can find another vet? Are you seeing an internal medicine specialist? I had so many mistaken diagnosis from my "local" vet as opposed to the specialist, it wasn't even funny. I highly recommend any university vet clinic you can find. They are usually cheaper and they really seem to know what they are doing.
As far as the heart goes, my limited understanding is that an enlargement indicates that the heart is having to work harder for some reason. In my boxer's case, they monitored size because one of his ventricles wasn't constricting properly and enlargement would have indicated that the condition was getting worse and the heart was working harder to compensate. The tests that we got were EKGs and echocardiograms. I don't know if that helps you any, but blood tests weren't used to monitor the heart in our case. If I remember right I think they may have even done an ultrasound to take a look at the heart.
PS the echocardiogram was about $300.00 if I remember correctly. This was at our super fancy expensive specialist though.