I'll try to answer as much as I see here:
Aspirin -- NO WAY! aspirin is a "non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug". That IS what it is for. Cloppy is on **BOTH** pred and cyclosporine -- BOTH are anti-inflammatory drugs -- either pure steroid or a steroid-like drug.
It's an over-doseage you **don't** need. And the **Huge** risk to it is the gastric bleeding. Because pred **and** cyclosporine can ALSO cause gastric bleeding -- particularly the prednisone -- and frankly anywhere you have bleeding you have the potential for clot formation!! That's exactly what you don't want. Further thinning the blood is not what you want to do.
Stomach protecting you really have to **protect** the stomach, not annoy it. All these drugs are sooo hard on the stomach and you can quickly wind up with a dog with ulcers and that's another whole treatment. We wound up having to use Prilosec with Billy (another pricey drug because we had to give him TWO a day and not one). Tagament, Zantac, Pepsid -- they're all used to help the stomach.
General stroke/embolism risk -- I addressed this in the email I sent you too but I'll put it here as well.
It's NOT just the risk of the clot. It's a more complicated problem than that. Cyclosporine (and to a greater or lesser degree ALL the steroids and steroid-like drugs) causes disturbances in the flow of blood in the veins/arteries. It's almost like little whirlpools or eddys where the blood stops moving straight thru a blood vessel but rather dances around a bit.
That can be where the clot forms -- but the problem is really the disturbance in the blood flow.
THAT is probably the biggest reason I keep harping on the TCVM. **SO MANY** of these things are all prevented and dealt with BY the TCVM. That's why I keep saying that it **augments** the other drugs. It makes them work better and safer.
One of the Chinese herbs Dr. Baker will use is a 'blood mover' -- it will help regulate the flow of blood rather than letting it slow down or speed up in places. That's a Chinese medicine thing. Blood flow is a BIG deal in Chinese medicine -- it's part of their whole theory of health.
Activity level -- I know you're concerned that she isn't getting enough exercise -- but you gotta keep her super sedentary right now. It's not like she's not getting up and down -- very very very VERY gentle sedate slow walks are ok. but you don't want her getting excited. Literally -- you want to avoid the walk where she'll get over-excited over a squirrel or tresspassers. You don't want to *stir up* the blood.
Literally you don't want to increase blood pressure to force any potential or small clots to move fast. You just want things to move slow and easy.
Food -- you may want to re-evaluate what you feed her right now. I would not feed a high-protein kibble. AT the very least, cut down the protein ratio with veggies -- cooked mashed-to-a-pulp veggies. Things like kale, broccoli, sweet potato, squashes, white potato -- I can give you guys some easy instructions on food (you'll want to add beef heart and whitefish to her diet ANYWAY and veggies are an awesome way to build the blood). You can add some of this to the other dog's food and avoid jealousy -- both will benefit.
But if you reduce the overall protein intake she won't be so antsy. It should help take the edge off things.
Prednisone -- I understand both ways of looking at it. There comes a point in this when you are just plain terrified of **EVERYTHING**. But the cyclosporine is SUCH a major major immune-suppressant that they are banking on that "catching" any bobble in the immune system because of the reduction in pred being so fast.
Remember the *purpose* of these drugs is to **suppress immunity**. That's the whole reason for giving them. The azathiaprine and cyclosporine are "bigger" than prednisone. But the pred was 'first' so the body is dependant on it. However -- in the vast realm of all of this, Cloppy has *not* been on pred that long. So the body's dependance isn't as great as say Billy's was (he was on it 7 months) and Willow's (she's been on it that long as well).
But Willow isn't on other immune-suppressors -- so her wean-off **HAS** to be slow to re-train the body. Billy's *had* to be slow because we had such a hard time getting his body to stop killing the blood (it took SIX WEEKS for Billy ... 6 weeks on cyclosporine at a max dose ... before the body stopped killing blood. He'd been on pred for weeks prior to that.
They can't reduce the cyclosporine until she's off the pred. That's another reason for wanting her off the prednisone.
Mike - you haven't even BEGUN to deal with side-effects YET. That's such a major part of this -- that's one of the reasons why I keep harping on the TCVM and it's one of the reasons why the vets are trying to get her off the pred. Just because it increases all the potential side-effects that you'll have to deal with.
Get into Dr. Baker a.s.a.p. He'll be back tomorrow and he should have some GOOD ideas (because he's known he may be treating her since he's been up in Reddick).
There IS a lot of differing medical opinion here and it's not the difference between "regular" and "holistic" medicine. I think every single vet/doctor I've ever known have EACH had their own particular wean-off protocol for prednisone and many times SEVERAL to use in case of the million different reasons for using pred.
I think you'll see what I mean once you talk to Dr. Baker.
Good luck!