Hi. I'm new and my fur baby Molly might have Cushing's.
Hi. My name is Ami and I have 5 dogs. I've rescued a few and I love my babies. My oldest is fur baby is Molly. She is a mini schnauzer and is 12 years old. Molly has some symptoms of Cushing's. She has the round pot belly. She drinks and urinates a lot. She started having accidents in the house, but I just thought it was due to aging. She is always hungry and food aggressive with the other dogs. She has bad teeth. She had to have 11 extracted last January. She has been getting a lot of fatty tumors. I took her to the vet because I was afraid she had cancer. He said they were fatty tumors and drew senior blood work just to see if anything was off. They drew a Total Health Plus Chem 27 with SDMA, a CBC, and a T4 on 6/19. She also had these labs drawn before the teeth surgery and everything was normal except for she was low on the thyroid T4. It was 0.9. The vet called to tell me that her labs looked OK in June except for the SDMA which is a lab that can predict kidney disease in the future. Hers is 15. 0-14 is normal. It was 7 back on 1/31/17. He said to put her on Hills science Diet kidney diet and to redraw the labs in 6-8 weeks. I asked for a copy of her labs. The June labs showed a high ALP 390, high cholesterol 491, low T4 0.7, and low lymphocyte 813. I google these values and her symptoms and Cushing's kept appearing in the search results. I called my vet and asked him if she could have that. I'm not questioning my vet. He's been my vet for years and in all fairness I had not mentioned the peeing, food aggression, and frequent urination. Those symptoms came on slowly and I just thought it was part of aging. She has dark spots on her skin, but she doesn't have sores or thin skin. My vet had me collect her urine and he did a cortisol creatinine ratio on her. The results were positive. I think he said it was in the 300s. I don't have a copy of it. They are doing the low dexamethasone test on her tomorrow. She also had an x ray done in January and she has an enlarged liver. Here's my questions. I'm wondering if I should change her diet. From what I'm reading, it sounds like she should have a grain free, high quality protein, low purine and low fat diet with some veggies. What are you feeding your Cushing's babies? Is there a good commercial diet for them? Right now she's eating the Taste of the Wild prairie grain free canned and some of their kibble. I didn't do the kidney diet because I'm not sure that is the right diet for her. I think its more for dogs in late kidney disease from my research. I keep reading that i should cook for her or do a raw diet. What do you think? Also has anyone used natural treatments? I've seen melatonin, lignans, ginkgo and Si Maio San mentioned on the web for Cushing's. I'm not opposed to using Vetoryl. I believe in using Western and alternative therapies. I'm just wondering if anyone has had success with these other therapies and if you can use them with the Vetoryl. I will check with my vet before I give her anything because I do not want to hurt her kidneys. If she does end up having Cushing's, I'm also going to make sure my vet is aware of the new low dosage recommendations on Vetoryl that you have posted on this forum. I had been feeding all of my dogs Purina One Lamb and Rice kibble, but I've switched to Taste of the Wild Prairie dry and canned. From what I've read, it sounds like the Purina One was not that great for them. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.
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Bless you for being an adoptive parent, I have a 11 pom., Marvin, who I rescued 2 years ago, he sure has been a wonderful addition to my family.
