Ugga-7yr old french bulldog (calcinosis cutis)(Ugga crossed the bridge)

Just a quick update:: Ugga had his first dose of Vetoryl with dinner tonight. I was so preoccupied asking questions about the meds I forgot to ask for his labs when he was having his sutures removed this afternoon. We'll be going back for his ACTH stim test in a couple weeks so I'll get them then. We are starting with the Vetoryl because my vet feels it's the safest option for Ugga even with the calcinosis cutis. He is going to be taking 30mg once a day to start and we are slowly weaning him off the Phenobarbital (1 1/2 pills a day instead of 2 for a month then half and half, etc). He's been on the lower dose for 3 days now and so far so good (knocking on wood). I'm nervous about all of this but Ugga's a pretty tough little dude and I think he's going to do ok.

I posted some pics of Ugga and his calcinosis cutis on my profile page for anyone who wants to see what it looks like.

Oh, Ugga is such a beautiful boy and so are the rest of your furbabies.

Wishing you the best of luck with your treatment plan and hoping sweet Ugga is feeling better soon.

Love and hugs,
Lori

Hi Jackie and a belated welcome to you and Ugga! :)

What a unique name! I saw the pics and wanted to say what sweet looking babies you have Ugga is a doll!

Hang in there, sweetie!
Hugs,
Leslie and the gang

Jackie, good luck to you and Ugga!!!!!!! I'll be crossing all my fingers for you that the phenobarb weaning goes well. Will he be transferred totally to potassium bromide during this process? I definitely understand your concern about this. My non-Cushpup Lab started having seizures a year ago, but luckily has been seizure-free since starting on phenobarb. I would hate it if I had to change her medication at this point!

You may have already told us, but how much does Ugga weigh?

Continued best wishes to you and your sweet boy,
Marianne

Ugga thanks you all for the compliments =). Marianne, I'm sorry to hear you have an epi girl. I'm glad she's doing well on the Pheno! Ugga will be switched to Potassium Bromide exclusively provided we don't hit any roadblocks. We aren't loving that we have to mess with his meds but we think it's for the best. He's a pretty big frenchie and weighs about 31lbs.

Hi everyone. So it's been a week since Ugga has been on the Vetoryl and I am happy to report I'm already seeing a difference. He's not drinking as much and is sleeping through the night (yay)! His skin is not improving but we didn't expect to see any changes there for awhile. I'm a groomer but I'm very hesitant to wash him. Before he was diagnosed with Cushings, I thought he was having an allergic reaction to a food change. I washed him with a medicated shampoo (natural, lavender base) and it made the rash really angry. Poor Ugga was glowing bright red and he just kept rolling around. I felt so bad. That was the only time the calcinosis cutis seemed to bother him. I think he seems a little itchier now that he's on the meds. I do have an unscented oatmeal shampoo that should be ok but I'm so afraid it will make it worse. Has anyone had experience treating calcinosis cutis topically? Should I just leave it alone and let the meds do their thing?

Hi Jackie

I just have a moment to post but can comment on management of the calcinosis cutis. We tried medicated shampoos and they just made Sabre's skin more imflamed and reddened. We then tried oatmeal shampoos every three days for a while ... which seemed to work for him. The biggest thing is to let the meds work but in the interim (until this happens) to minimise any risk of infections. So we tried to keep all the spots as dry as possible using epiotic to scuff off any moistened areas (trying to avoid making it bleed) or the other thing we tried at one stage was betadine to try and dry areas out. We used t-shirts and jackets to stop him from trying to get at the reachable areas. If areas looked at starting to get infected we jumped on the antibiotics as fast as possible. It will take a while and it may get worse before it gets better, but eventually with Sabre it got to the stage where we never had to worry about it anymore ... even though he still had large plates of calcinosis cutis on his body.

Trust this helps
Angela and Flynn

Thank you for the info, Angela. We had a rough night last night. He was scratching, rolling, biting, panting like crazy...just a mess. He keeps stretching and scrunching, I can tell he's terribly uncomfortable :(. I got in touch with the vet and she said an oatmeal bath in semi-cool water would be ok. We're also going to give him Benedryl and put some topical cream on it. Nothing is open and bleeding so that's a good thing. He's been on Cephalexin for almost 3 weeks and has another week to go. We may have to keep that going if we see anything that looks like infection. As far as shirts and jackets go, they seem to make it worse. He goes nuts. I feel so bad for this boy. I even called off work today to keep an eye on him. My boss was less than thrilled but oh well.

Oh dear poor Ugga! You will probably find that with the sudden drop of his cortisol levels, with the vetoryl treatment, will be the reason for any increase in itchiness for Ugga. Thinking about things more (it was four years ago that we were dealing with this) I do recall sometimes we used an antihistamine when he became itchy. It is hit and miss with antihistamines and dogs but sometimes it works.

All the best ... Angela and Flynn