Update: Ace has cushings disease

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Update: Ace has cushings disease

Posted : 6/15/2006 8:12:02 AM

Hi everyone. I haven't beens able to post for a long time because I'd forgotten my login info, and never was able to get it sent to me. Finally I created a new email address so I could re-register. I have written in the past about my now 11 yr old white german shep, Ace. He was having a lot of problems with hind quarter weakness and also heavy panting since last summer, and I was first told he had degenerative myleopathy which thankfully isn't the case.
He does however have sever disc degeneration of all thorac (sp?) and lumbar disks, and recently was confirmed to have cushing's disease.
Poor dear, he has been deterioriating greatly this past year, is very thin at only 44 pounds, still panting, and hair thinning dramatically on his tail. At first the holistic vet was treating him with a chinese herb, hind quarter weakness, ligplex 2, melaton-3, and cholodin flex. Also network chiropractor and accupuncture. The last time I took him there, she attempted ozone treatments at $85 a pop, and that was a bad experience for both of us, as Ace pooped all over the place! It also didn't help.
I kept asking her about conventional treatment and she kept saying that would be even more expensive. In desperation I turned to my long time conventional vet who did the bloodwork for cushings and confirmed the diagnosis. We did the loading lysodren, but had to cut the dosage in half since Ace was not well on the full dose after the first day. After a week on half-dose lysodren, we did the bloodwork which showed normal cortisol.
Now the vet said don't give any more lysodren for now, to see how he does and re-test in a month or two.
Meanwhile, as I have run out of the holistic vet's supplements, I've stopped giving them because it's very hard to see a difference when he's on them, and the expense is just too much for me, being on disability and my husband is retired also.
($7,000 in vet bills and pet care this past year).
The hind quarter weakness has improved somewhat, but Ace is still very low energy and panting like crazy. I'm only giving him gycoflex and synflex for now. I have to cut down on things as much as possible, as it had gotten to the point that we were considering selling our house due to our financial situation.
It breaks my heart to have him panting as he is all the time. The vet said his thyroid was normal 6 months ago, but we could test it again if I want. I suggested we do that when we re-test the cortisol levels again, which I plan to do at the end of this month.
I guess I'm primarily looking for support here. I have to try and be satisfied with things as they are I'm afraid, and hope I'm doing the right thing. He wasn't doing much better if at all when he was taking all the supplements......
He has also had bowel incontinence for the past year, and that continues, though it's less frequent after the lysodren.
This has also complicated our lives in that we have family members who are sick with cancer but we can't visit them because they don't want our dogs in their house, and we have no one to say here with them anymore [&o].
If anyone has similar experiences to share I would appreciate hearing them.
Glad to be back online,
Diane

cakana

Posted : 6/15/2006 10:47:18 AM

Gosh Diane, it sounds like you've been through a rough time, both emotionally and financially. I don't have any experience with the medical problems you're facing but I certainly can relate to the huge vet bills (with my allergy lab) and the frustration when you're spending so much, trying to do the right thing, and your dog is still not well. It's something only a true dog lover would understand. I've spent so much with my derm vet, but keep thinking maybe I should pursue the holistic route. Then I think "but what if it doesn't work or makes things worse AND I've spent so much more money?" I know you probably feel like I do in that you'd do or spend whatever it took if the Dr's could just give you some hope that it would make them better. It seems that so often they don't know either though and so it's a matter of "well, let's try this and see what happens". Which would be fine if it weren't for the high cost and pet still being miserable. Anyway..sorry I'm not able to offer any suggestions, but I wanted you to know I completely understand how you're feeling.

Martin Joaquin

Posted : 6/15/2006 12:03:47 PM

Hi Diane

Our dog Ursa has had Cushings disease for about 8 years now , she used to be a jet black dog . Ursa's mom was a white shepherd and her dad was a black Mcnab [ a border collie type bred out of Ukiah Calivornia since the late 1800's ] she shed her winter coat and in one season went to mostly white and every winter she goes to a kind of brindly black on white with every year being more white , she is now 14 and just in the last week started to have very bad diaharea and we have put her on emodium . She also has Lymes disease and Lupus, she is blind in one eye from a detached retina that happened when she was put on steroids for the lymes that flared up the underlying Lupus that we did not know about . White shepherds are prone to Lupus which can cause the nose skin to slough off and can cause eye problems also . Dogs with Lupus are super sensative to sunlight and can burn easy . Maybe your vet should check for Lupus too because it also causes skin problems . I am hoping for the best for your dog friend . Go to your library and check out a book from the U.C. Davis veterinary hospital in California . No body could tell me what was wrong with Ursa , so I checked that book out and I checked up her symptoms and it led me to Cushings disease .

Martin