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

i dont know if this will be helpful or not, but this is some info my IMS gave to me during one of discussions over my girls lab results. On the Alk Phos 2 basic areas to look at, slowing of bile flow or cortisal levels to high, thing is, Alk Phos elevations can come from many places, including bone and liver. It is common in seniors to see this. Often will not develop into anything, and can be seen 3 times higher than what is considered normal. And the Amalayse is an notorious unreliable for pancreas disease. Dont know if any of this will help at all but thought i would toss this in too.

Hi Tina,
I am so sorry that you and Jasper are still having such a tough go of it.:o You must be exhausted!

Grinding kibble up to a fine powder and mixing it in, did fool some picky eaters that I was fostering at one time. They would only eat soft canned food. I even soaked the kibble and mixed it with a little canned. They carefully licked around every morsel of the canned food, leaving the soaked kibble. I finally grounded up the kibble and added water to the consistency of canned food and stopped the canned food altogether. They gobbled it right up. It wasn't the taste of the kibble that bothered them, it was the consistency. It is worth a try.

Big hugs to you my dear and belly rubs for Jasper and Shelby. Xxxx

Hi Tina
Popping in to send lots of love to you guys, hope the test results even out next time and Jasper gets back to where he was. Your boy is such a fighter and I hope we see him back to his spunky self soon xxxxxx

Hi Tina,
Checking on you and our boy Jasper. Is he eating any better? Thinking of you. Belly rubs for Jasper and Shelby and big hugs for you.xxxxx

Hope your and Jasper's week has gone OK Tina and the wee man is turning the corner! Looking forward to an update when you have time, but want you to know I am thinking of you all xxxx

Thank you everyone for all the love and support. We have had another tough week here, but I am hoping that things are finally going to turn the corner now. To add to it all, my work has been just horrid. I can't imagine how things can get any busier, and then they always seem to. I hate being away from Jasper for such long hours, but haven't had a choice. Thankfully he has been holding his own a bit more, although he is not up to par just yet. And to further add to my stress, I have been without internet for part of Saturday and all day Sunday until just a few hours ago! :eek: :mad: Ugh!!!! Some widespread outage they said. So I wasn't able to get most of the work that I brought home with me done, or get caught up on the forum like I wanted to. :(

I took Jasper in for another chem profile on 9/25 as he just wasn't doing well, and so much trouble getting him to eat. His sodium and potassium were finally in the normal range, so the Addison's is finally stabilizing again. It sure seems to be taking him a long time to bounce back this time. Liver values are still way elevated, but ALT is slowly coming down, hopefully that will continue. I will post all the abnormal values from this lab draw and the last when I get a chance. I just wanted to pop in real quick to let you know why I have been scarce around here, and that Jasper is trying to hang tough. As always, thank you guys so much for checking in on us and for all your kind words and support. I'm sorry I haven't been able to keep up with posting on everyone, but I have been reading along when I can. :o

Much love and hugs,
Tina and Jasper xo

Sending you much love Tina and hope Jasper gets back on the right path soon. I totally understand about work and that just adds more stress, I know it so hard.
Love and hugs to you and Jasper. Jasper- Zoe says woof, woof, she is cheering you on to get better soon.

Hi Tina,
Isn't it always the case that everything happens together...Jasper not feeling well, busy at work, no internet!! :eek: Hoping that this streak is over for you and that Jasper starts to feel more himself and starts to be tempted by his food again!! Hoping that liver number continues to head in the right direction...we have that same issue, seems like that takes awhile to get back down towards the normal range.
Sending positive thoughts to you and Jasper and Shelby for a nice calm October! :)

Barbara

I hope the coming days see Jasper gaining his strength back and he is soon ripping around again.

Hugs,
Leslie and the gang

Hi Tina,

Hope this is better one for you and for Jasper. I'm sure you are ready for things to turn around too. :)

Thinking of you!
hugs,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin

Hi Tina,
I think it's about time you and sweet Jasper caught a break. :p. I am glad to hear that he's holding his own a bit more. Do not worry about posting on the rest of our threads. We understand completely. Just continue to concentrate on that sweet boy of yours and we'll continue to send you tons of healing energy, strength, thoughts and prayers. xxxx

Right Jasper, September is over young man!! So time to tuck into your tasty dinners and perk right up!!! Looking forward to your next report Tina and hope he is feeling much better and your work has settled down a bit :):)

Hi Tina,
I've missed hearing from you. I hope Jasper is feeling much better and that you've been able to get some much needed rest. Please update us when you can. Xxxx

Hi Tina
Hope all well with you guys! Hugs for Jasper and Shelby! xx

Hi Tina, checking in on you and Jasper and gang! Hope that all is going okay.

hugs,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin

Hi Everyone,
Thank you all so much for your kind words and checking in on me and Jasper. I think he has finally turned the corner and is showing some stability again. He seems to be feeling considerably better. Yay!! It has been a long recovery. It took him over a month to bounce back from the crisis this time. I'm so proud of my little trooper, it has been a long rocky road. I hope he continues on the right track now.

I haven't meant to be absent from the forum. My grandmother who is in assisted living has been declining over the past couple of months. My Mom had visited in August, and she has further declined since then. My brother flew in from Texas at the end of September for a visit and to spend some time with her. It was a short notice visit and I couldn't get any time off from work while he was here :mad:, so things were a bit hectic. Then about a week ago she fell and was briefly hospitalized, fortunately nothing was broken. She has been doing somewhat ok since that time.

During all of this, work has been brutal, and I have had severe pain in my left foot. I haven't done anything to injure the foot. I think it is a flare up of plantar fasciitis, but not sure because I have never had it this bad. A couple weeks ago I could hardly bear any weight on it and was worried that I would need crutches. :eek: It will improve for a few days and then get worse again. It has been better over the past few days thank goodness, but seems to flare very easily for no reason. So things have been a bit difficult lately, and it's been a bit of a struggle to manage Jasper through everything. Thank God he kept going in the right direction, however slowly.

Currently, he seems to be feeling pretty well. His eating has improved, and he has more of a spring to his step. I am so grateful for that. I still need to post his lab results from the last couple of blood draws, mostly for my own records. They have shown gradual improvement, which seems to correlate with how he is feeling.

Sorry for not posting an update for so long. Thanks again for all the support. :)

Love and hugs,
Tina and Jasper xo

It's great to read the update on Jasper. So glad he's feeling better.

I wanted to let you know what I did about my foot. Same thing happened to me around the time of my daughter's wedding. I of course am in the wedding industry, so this whole decor, flowers etc. that goes with weddings was in my lap not to mention mother of the bride duties. I couldn't take the foot pain anymore so bit the bullet, headed to the dr.'s and got a steroid shot. I thought I was going to hit the roof when they did it. The shot went into the bottom of the foot near the arch. There was freezing in the actual shot too, so it was instant relief ( after I got off the ceiling) and could walk on it immediately. The doc said it was only a temporary fix and wouldn't last long. 10 yrs. later and my foot has been fine. It was horrible when I used to get out of bed first thing prior to the shot but so far, so good. Maybe worth looking into to get some relief. Guess that's what I get for wearing stiletto shoes for years and years.

Sorry to hear about your grandmother. It is so hard to watch our aging family deteriorate. My thoughts are with you.

Tina,
Jasper is feeling better :-)
You're not allowed to break. That sounds so painful!

Prayers for your grandmother!

Hi Tina,

So sorry to read that things have been hectic and then health problems with your grandmother too. Family and hectic does seem to go hand in hand sometimes doesn't it.

So glad to read that Jasper is doing well though and finally turned the corner to recovery. Just what we all wanted to hear. :)

You hang in there and take care of yourself too. :)

hugs,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin

So glad to hear that your Jasper is doing much better. Hope you are too. Blessings
Patti

Hi Tina
So pleased to hear Jasper has turned the corner, YAY!

Not good news about your grandmother though, hard on you when work has been so wickedly busy for you as well. There are just not enough hours in the day sometimes.

Your foot sounds super painful, last week on a warm day I wore summer shoes for the first time and I could hardly walk the rest of the week too!! I just put it down to the different shoes, but wonder if it is similar to yours, it still slightly sore but can walk easy enough now. That injection sounds really painful Judi :eek::eek: but sounds like it did the trick! Hope your foot has eased up even more Tina. :) xx

Hi Tina,
I am so relieved to hear that Jasper is finally doing better.:) What a trooper he is.

I am sorry to hear about your grandmother and what's up with your foot? That has to hurt!:eek: How are you managing to work? I know it's hard with so much going on, but please take care of yourself. Xxxx

Glad to see your Jasper is doing better, keep up the good work. Blessings
Patti

Thinking of you and Jasper, Tina.

Hi Tina

Doing my weekend catchup with everyone, hope your still not hobbling about and Jasper and Shelby are doing good. Has work quietened down? Hope your Grandmother is in good form this week too so you also can have a relaxed and stress free weekend! xxxx

Hi Everyone,
I had to go to page 4 to find our thread, guess I'm way overdue for an update!

First and foremost, I want to get Jasper's last few sets of labwork posted. Mainly for my own records at this point, since most are from a while back. And a lot has happened in the meantime. I think where I left off was with the chem profile on 8/3/13. I will list just the abnormals.

Chem Profile 8/3/13
Serum Creatinine L 8 (10-28) mg/dL
ALP H 1719 (<95) IU/L
LD H 304 (<175) IU/L
Cholesterol H 322 (125-260) mg/dL
Triglycerides H 263 (41-115) mg/dL


The sodium and potassium were WNL, (this was the third set of electrolytes drawn, 10 days apart per the protocol), so the decision was made that he didn't need the Percorten, so it was discontinued. (Big mistake we later discovered, but it looked correct at the time).

On 8/12 I brought him to the vet for a general check and to have some lumps checked and it was discovered the big molars on each side of his mouth on the top had slab fractures. We are monitoring this, but she has said that they need to come out sooner rather than later. He had the Addison's crisis in the meantime, so this is on the back burner. Hopefully there will not be any complications with the teeth before we are ready to deal with them.

On 8/14 he was back at the vet urgently due to suddenly having accidents in the house. He was started on antibiotics for a UTI. The urine culture came back positive, so antibiotics were continued. About 10 days or so on the antibiotics his appetite decreased and by 8/28 he was refusing to eat his kibble, so back to the vet we went. She felt it was nausea related to the antibiotics, and sent him home on Cerenia x 4 days. He had a previously scheduled appt for 8/31 to get a repeat urine culture. She decided to get a repeat UPC at that time, since the urine looked good in the office and he and just finished a round of antibiotics. (For reference, there are detailed posts about these 4 vet visits posted on 8/31 and 9/1)

The follow up urine culture was negative. That brings us to the UPC results from 8/31/13

Protein, Random Urine 15.6 mg/dL (no reference range given)
Creatinine, Random Urine 26 (no reference range given)
Protein/Creat, Urine 0.60 (<0.5)
:D :) :D :) :D :) :D :)

My vet was very happy with this result and so was I, it was better than both of us expected. Not quite in the normal range but we will take it! My vet said she was pleased that the treatment was working, she indicated that it doesn't always. That was scary to hear.

So we had a few days of joyfulness over the UPC results, then the crash on the night of 9/6, and hospitalization 9/7-9/8 with an Addison's crisis. :eek: :( His electrolytes were way off, the sodium was critically low and potassium a bit high. In hindsight both my vet and I think that when the appetite and eating problems started at the end of August while he was being treated for the UTI, that he was starting to have problems then, but we thought it was the antibiotics.

I found an article by Dr Peterson about prolonged Percorten response, and I think this is what happened with Jasper. Even though all his electrolytes stayed normal for 30 days after his last injection was due and all the Percorten was expected to be way out of his system, apparently in 2-5% of dogs, a prolonged response to the medication can happen where it can actually be 90 days or more before the Percorten is out of their system. I feel sure that this is what happened with Jasper, and my vet seems like she is in agreement after I talked to her about it. You know, I remember feeling nervous in my gut about stopping the Percorten back then even though his electrolytes indicated that it was ok. Who would have thought? Another example where Jasper has followed his own path, and has ignored the textbooks. You would think I would be getting used to this pattern, but I keep telling him enough already with being a trailblazer!

Well, I need to get Jasper and Shelby fed and get a few more things done around here, so I will post the labs while he was hospitalized and going forward in another post. Again, this is mostly for my records, and so I can have everything in one place. The longer I have neglected to post all this stuff, the harder it has become to get it all together. But comments are always welcome and appreciated!

I hope everyone is having a good weekend with their pups and - for those of us in North America - are making the most of our extra hour of the weekend! :)

Hugs,
Tina and Jasper

Love the new picture of Jasper. :)

Good idea keeping everything on one place. I do the same with Molly's lab results.

Good to hear from you!

hugs,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin

Crikey Jasper is in the 2-5% of dogs, typical!! Trust our dogs to defy the odds eh Tina!!

That UPC is just amazing, it just defies belief to get such a good result then the crash a week later. Interesting how much the ALP alters too when other things are happening in their little bodies. How are his teeth, hope those molars are not giving him too much grief as I can imagine you are not keen for him to have an anaesthetic right now.

I have to wonder if the UTI and stopping the Percoten at same time were enough to set off the Addisons, wondering what would have happened if he did not have the UTI to upset the apple cart. Does staying on the Percoten long term have any possible side effects? So is the plan to keep him on the Percoten for like forever??

I am so pleased to hear he is doing good now though, cute little man in his new avatar pic!! xx

Hoping everything works out for you and Jasper. Blessings
Patti

Of course our pups are always in the 2-5%;);) That is how they make sure we have to pay attention:):)

LOVE THE UPC:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Yeah, I think the trail blazer doggies really like it here because we have several! Glynda's little Jojo had text books, lecture notes, and taped conferences stashed which he would consult then do his best to go in the opposite direction! :p So many times I could picture him sitting in a corner watching his mom and her friends scratching their head while he snickered softly, "neener neener neener...gotcha!" :p:D:p Most pups with hydrocephalus require surgically implanted shunts to drain the excess fluid from the brain - not my little Brick! He said, "No thanks, I'll do it myself!" And he does! The vets that have seen him are amazed by this while Brick is very proud of himself. :p So, yeah, Jasper being in a 2-5% group is normal for our family here!

I am very glad he seems to be doing so well and hope the trend continues!
Hugs,
Leslie and the gang

PS. I have been wondering something - it is said by some that treating and living with Addison's is easier than Cushing's. Have you found this to be true for you and Jasper?

So happy to hear Jasper is doing well! I love his new picture..he's a cutie! :D:D

Barbara

That figures. Nothing is ever "the usual" here is it?

Hi Tina,
What a handsome little dude you have there! I love his new avatar photo. :p I'm glad he's doing so well. Keep it up Jasper! Xxxx

Tina:
So glad to hear that Jasper is doing well. I hope you continue to see improvement in him every day. Blessings
Patti

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for all the comments on the new avatar! Jasper does not like his picture taken, so I really didn't have anything recent or up close. Thankfully you can silence the shutter sound on my iPad (he is afraid of the sound), and I have been gaining his trust so with the help of some treats I was able to get a few new pics!

Well, it seems we take one step forward and two steps back. Jasper had been doing pretty well (thank goodness because work has been wicked). Then Tuesday at 4:30 in the morning he jumped down off the bed and started vomiting. I was hoping it would be just once, but he vomited 3 times. :eek: No interest in food at all. Seemed like he felt pretty bad. So weird because he was doing great the night before and had been eating well.

Vomiting can become an emergency very quickly with Addison's, so I ran him in to the vet first thing. We ended up being there all morning, I didn't get back go work until noon. :eek: My vet does not work on Tuesdays so we had to see another vet at the clinic who isn't very familiar with Jasper. A chem profile was checked and his electrolytes were great (yay!), however his liver values are sky high again. :mad:

ALP > 2400 (20-150 U/L)
ALT 1130 (10-118 U/L)
TBIL 0.8 (0.1-0.6 mg/dL)

The ALP is off the charts again, their machine doesn't register any higher than 2400. The ALT which had gotten back to normal is now severely elevated again, and the bilirubin is high for the first time.

The Dr mentioned that pancreatitis can cause the elevations. Jasper did not seem to be in pain when she checked his abdomen, and he did not have a fever. She did not check the spec cPL because she said he should be completely fasted for that. He was given an injection of Cerenia. Back on a bland hamburger and rice diet, and sent home with Cerenia pills to be given daily x 4 days. The plan was for my vet to call on Wednesday to follow up.

So I talked to my Dr yesterday and we discussed everything that had happened. She is quite concerned with the elevations in the liver values, especially the ALT, and especially since this had all just happened in September too. She is recommending an abdominal ultrasound for Jasper to get a closer look at his liver and pancreas, and of course gall bladder, spleen, kidneys, adrenals, etc. He is scheduled for tomorrow 11/15 at 1 pm.

Now I realize that Jasper is probably the only dog on the forum who hasn't had an ultrasound. But I am very nervous. I guess I am scared of what they might find, but I also feel a bit relieved that we are getting it done. Of course if they see anything questionable they will get a biopsy. I am concerned about anesthesia with his Addison's and kidney issues if they need to get a biopsy.

Thanks to what I have learned from everyone here, I verified that the U/S machine is high resolution. The vet that will be doing the procedure has had special training with ultrasounds, so hopefully it will be ok.

I took the day off from work because I didn't want Jasper waiting in a cage for 6 hours before the test. And plus, I will probably be a basket case and I know I wouldn't be able to manage my work.

So please keep my Little Man in your prayers tomorrow. I am staying positive but I won't lie. I am scared.

Hugs,
Tina and Jasper xo

PS Leslie, I will need to come back to your question about whether Addison's is easier to manage than Cushings. I need to give that some thought once things settle down again.

We will be right there with you Tina holding your hand. I hope the waiting room is big!

Big hugs,
Kathy

Me too, I am up at stupid o'clock so am all ready to go.

I hate that feeling of anticipation so we know exactly what you mean.

Hi Kathy - so nice to see you realtime, been ages :)

Mel
Xxxxxx

Hi Tina

Ahhhh they copying each other again!! Little beggars! Flynny's ALP/ALT have shot up too so he is having a review next Tuesday with a new specialist vet in Auckland. We are driving the 6hrs up there tomorrow and stay with friends a few days. I just got home from work at 7.30pm and starting to get us packed up. Flynny is suspicious the bag is out and I only got home from conference earlier in week and he thinks I am off again, I keep telling him he is coming too but he still doubting :D Be looking out for the results and it goes without saying we will be fluttering about making sure Jasper is well looked after for this appointment. Hopefully he won't need a general if they go for a biopsy, Flynn has had x3 liver biopsies and only once did he need a little sedation. Hopefully you get some sleep tonight so you are not looking like your eyes are on toothpicks tomorrow xxxxx

Tina, awwww he was doing so well. The US will give a clearer picture and help to form the best treatment plan.

When Daisy had hers, they didn't have to sedate her because she fell asleep :-) She must've thought it was the best belly rub ever!

We'll be waiting with you.