Intro
Hi, my name is Mary and I am Coco Joey's mom. While I am new to any type of forums, I have been reading your site for a few weeks ...( in between freaking out) trying to make sense of everything. Rather than ramble, I thought I would try to break this out into 3 parts History, Overview and Current to help get you up to speed. I do have copies of all of our test results, because I know you will ask ... I am just trying to figure out how to read them .
SIDE NOTES:
The vet we use is a DVM DACVIM.
Unfortunately, I did not keep a log in the beginning, have started 9/1 ... so some dates /days are estimates.
HISTORY:
Coco Joey is an 8 year old 68 lb. female boxer, spayed . She is one of four Boxers in our household and acts as the "ears" for our other 3 deaf ones. Has really had an uneventful medical history over the last 8 years, until recently. A mild case of pancreatitis 5 or 6 years ago and a cancerous tumor removed from her back hip 3 years ago were it. Last October we noticed the right side of her face was drooping. Our vet said it was Bell's Palsy and to watch for any other neurological signs ... there were none. He said the drooping may never go away, but actually that side "shrunk" up and is now higher and tighter than her normal side. Other than
not being able to close her eye completely and having to take smaller bites, no other issues.
OVERVIEW
In March of this year Coco Joey started drinking and urinating a ton and then starting having accidents in the house. I thought it could be a urinary infection , so I did the cranberry and yogurt thing for a week with no success and than got her into the vet. They did tons of testing to rule things out, such as kidneys, diabetes and diabetes insipidus. They finally came back with a diagnosis of Cushings and prescribed 60mg of Vetoryl a day, which we started the first week in May. We did all the checks & rechecks. which were good. We had her on that dosage for 2 months and a few days. We actually had a couple of days where we saw signs of our old dog coming back, then her appetite started to decline, (it was never the best to begin with for the past few months) and she got more and more lethargic. The vet had us stop the Vetoryl and did another recheck to find she had been suppressed too much. She was taken off the Vetoryl and we were to do rechecks until her levels got high again and we would start her back on Vetoryl at half the dose which would be 30 mg. In between all of this she was found to have hip dysplasia and had pancreatitis.
CURRENT
• Her levels were high enough where we were able to start her back on Vetoryl as of Saturday 9/7/2013.
• We stopped the Rimadyl as of Monday9/2/2013
• She has had head tremors off and on for the last week or so. They are tremors and not seizures, but this leads our vet to believe it could be a brain tumor and wants us to go to a neurologist for a cat scan. I do know that head tremors can be common to boxers as we had one before that was prone to them and we had him for 7 years. For me, the neurologist is last call. If they don't find anything I am back to square one, if they do ..... I can't see putting her through surgery or chemo if those were even options.
• She has lost 10 lbs and is unbelievably lethargic.
• The vet is at a loss, says he has tested for everything but the brain scan. Suggests a second opinion with another internist or the neurologist .
So in a nutshell that's where we are at .... here a just a few of my questions.
The vet felt that she is way too lethargic for what normal Cushings would be, plus her lack of appetite and losing weight.
On 7/20 her SPECcPL was 842 ug/L. On her 8/26 retest her SPECcPL was 443 ug/L. I know under 200 is normal. So obviously she has pancreatitis, but she was not treated for anything. Could this be why she is barely eating and lethargic?
The vet did an ultrasound today and it came back normal, he was in surgery so I have not had a chance to speak with him, but I did leave him a voicemail. I want her on meds for pancreatitis to see if helps, but maybe I am in denial looking for a miracle?
How lethargic is TOO lethargic? If Cushings brings it on, and pancreatitis brings it on coupled with her lack of eating, couldn't that be the case?
I would really like to hold out hope for the lower dose of Vetoryl to kick in, I know it can take at least 2 weeks to see any slight improvement.
While I know we can not keep her forever, I would like to go out fighting and give her all the chances I can without making her suffer.
It has taken me a couple of days to write this, because I write it thru my tears. So if I ended up rambling anyway ... I apologize