Advice for a newly diagnosed pooch in the UK

[clairebear]

Hi all, hope everyone’s well? I’ve got a bit of a Louis update and I want to ask for some opinions if that’s ok?
First off Lou’s had a water infection. It started around 3 or 4 weeks ago when he wee’d in the house, that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. It was just a hunch but I took a water sample in to a routine check up and it came back with white blood cells in. He was given a week’s worth of amoxicillin and seemed to be doing ok until around a week later when he had about a half an hour of wanting to go out a lot. This set my alarm bells ringing again so I gave his gentleman’s bits a wipe and there was blood on the tissue. So back to the vets, a dip test came back negative but we decided to send the sample off to see if the lab could grow and bugs from it. This came back positive to a bug that is slightly resistant to penicillin so we’re now on another antibiotic. He’s only had his second dose today so we’ll see how that goes.
So, on to the Cushings. We’re trying him back on a 30mg dose, the idea being that he might do better on them now that he’s also on painkillers for his arthritis. The problem is it still doesn’t seem to be suiting him. The first two days he carried on eating as he was, then his appetite has started to drop again, just like it did the first time we tried 30mg. I think even on 20mg his appetite was suppressed a little too much for my liking.
It feels like no matter what dose we try him on it just doesn’t do anything. If anything I think he’s better either on a very low dose or none at all. I’m getting to the stage where I’m thinking of asking the vet if we can stop the Cushings treatment altogether, maybe for a month or two to see how he is just on painkillers. I know there can be some complications from not treating Cushings, water infections being one! But as this is the only infection he’s had we can’t draw a conclusion that it’s related to the Cushings.
When he was first diagnosed the vet gave me the choice of wether or not to treat it. At the time it was a no brainier as I thought it would help him but it’s doing nothing. The vet has spoken about more tests, like the adrenal tumour one I’ve mentioned before but I’m so tired of going to the vets with him and I think Lou is too. I just want a bit of a break from it all, it feels like we’re tying ourselves in knots with all the what ifs and tests.
What are everyone’s thoughts on not treating Cushings? The vet had told me of dogs that he didn’t treat for various reasons so it can be done. I’m very mindful of the complications from not treating it, like infections and liver problems but if I decide to go ahead and stop treatment what can I give to maybe lessen the chances of complications? I’ve been told about milk thistle for the liver and cranberry tablets for the urinary tract.
I’d really appreciate your honest opinion in all this, am I doing the right thing in asking the vet to stop, even for a short while?

[labblab]

Welcome back to you and Louis! To cut to the chase, I don’t think there’d be anything wrong with discontinuing the Cushing’s treatment for a month or so, or at least lowering the dose significantly, in order to see what happens. Yes, you’re right that elevated cortisol can leave dogs more vulnerable to urinary tract infections and other types of internal damage. But usually the systemic damage progresses slowly over time, and I shouldn’t think that experimentally taking him off the Vetoryl for a while should really be a big issue. At his age, his comfort and overall quality of life is paramount. So if he seems to feel better off the Vetoryl, then that’s the direction I would go, too.

As for helpful supplements, I’ve heard that both milk thistle and cranberry can be recommended, but I don’t have any direct knowledge or experience with them myself. Hopefully one of our members with more knowledge about them will also stop by. In the meantime, no matter what you decide, we greatly appreciate this update and will be anxious to hear more about things are going.

Marianne

[clairebear]

Thanks for that Marianne! I think we may be going to the vets a bit sooner rather than later as his appetites dropped off quite a bit today. He’s having treats and bits of my food that I’m offering but he’s not touched his normal food as yet (it’s nearly 7pm here). He’s usually quite a late eater though so I need to just try and be patient. The vet said that the antibiotic he’s on could cause an allergic reaction which means he’ll stop eating. It’s quite rare for this to happen and he ate pretty ok yesterday (by his current standards) after he’d had his first dose. I’m guessing if he was going to have a reaction it would have been yesterday? He’s on co-trimoxazole which is a human antibiotic that can be used in dogs. It’s bad timing that he’s on these antibiotics and I’m questioning the higher Vetoryl dose at the same time, now I don’t know which one to blame, although I’m convinced his appetite was starting to drop a couple of days before he started the antibiotics.
I think part of the problem is I’m watching him like a hawk, every little thing he does or doesn’t do I’m over analysing! It’s sooo draining! xx

[labblab]

I surely understand how worrisome this is for you — I’d be watching Louis like a hawk, too! That’s just what we moms do...

I know that antibiotics can cause upset stomachs, but since the Vetoryl has oversuppressed his appetite in the past, I’d also be worried that it’s the culprit once again. I do think it’s reasonable to put a hold on the Vetoryl for the time being, and I hope your vet will agree. Please let us know how sweet Louis continues to do.

Marianne

[Squirt's Mom]

I agree...especially since you think the appetite was falling off before the antibiotic was started. If it were me I would leave the Vetoryl off completely until the AB course is finished and he's had time to recover from any ill effects it may have presented.

How is Louie now?

[clairebear]

Thanks for the replies everyone!
We’ve been back to the vets this afternoon but the vet we’ve been seeing from the beginning was off today. The vet I saw was lovely but she was understandably reluctant to make a big decision like stopping the Vetoryl altogether when she’s not seen Louis before and isn’t as familiar with him as our usual vet. So she’s suggested dropping back down to 20mg over the weekend but splitting the dose into 10mg morning and evening. My usual vet is back in on Monday and I’m down for a quick telephone consultation with him so we can chat a bit more about this. I’m very keen to go down even further to 10mg or even none at all for a while as we’ve talked about on here.
Another interesting thought occurred to me last night. In fact it stopped me sleeping properly as I kept waking thinking about it! Louis is fed on dry food and since he was a puppy I’ve just filled the bowl and let him graze. This wasn’t a problem until he started overeating (probably the Cushings). Since he’s been diagnosed I’ve been weighing his food out, except last night I realised I’ve been under weighing it for months! The feeding guide says around 330g for a 25kg dog, Lou weighs around 22 so it should be high 200’s, maybe 300g. For some reason I had 220g in my head so that’s what I’ve been measuring out for him. Even on the 20mg Vetoryl dose he was leaving a small amount of this, so he was probably eating around 180g per day. I’d been telling the vet that he was eating ok, leaving a little bit, when actually he’s been under eating by quite a bit. I think that this shows that even the 20mg dose wasn’t suiting him either. On 10mg he was emptying his bowl, and sometimes I’d put another handful in. That seems to be the only dose he’ll tolerate reasonably well.
I mentioned on here a little while ago that the vet was concerned about weight loss, no wonder he’s been losing weight! I don’t think we can look too closely at the weight loss until I’ve got him eating a proper amount, or close to it. I can’t believe I’ve been doing that all this time, talk about tying myself up in knots!
Once again thanks for all your help! :-) xx

[clairebear]

Hi everyone! I spoke to our usual vet on Monday and he’s agreed to drop Lou down to 10mg a day, he was reluctant to stop treatment altogether. I would have possibly preferred a complete stop but I guess that’s a good compromise but his appetite and water intake hasn’t increased as quickly as I thought it would. He’s been back on 10mg since Monday morning, it’s now Wednesday afternoon here, am I just being impatient? When we stopped meds altogether a while ago the change was almost instant. He’s possibly eating slightly more but still leaving quite a sizeable amount.
If I should have seen a change sooner does that point to the antibiotics affecting his appetite as well? I really don’t want to stop them, though, as that will mean starting a whole new course from scratch and he’s nearly halfway through them. My idea, after talking to a few people, is to make him some home made food to try and encourage him to eat a bit more, just until the antibiotics are finished.