New Here (10 y/o JR)

[sunnie's mom]

Hello, I found this site last night. My 10 yr old Jack Rat has Cushings. For over a year I made the rounds to several vets in my area.She was stiff in all four limbs.No one knew what was wrong with her.She got worse each month. Finelly, I made an appontment at Auburn Univ. Vet School. They found the Cushings. We are now on Vetoryl. Sunnie is on a 10 mg tablet once a day.It's only been two weeks.She does seem to be drinking less, also not peeing as much.Other than that I see no change.Does anyone else have the hind leg weakness? .After a year of not know what was wrong and being given Prednisone everywhere we went it was almost a releif to be told it was Cushings.At least we know what is wrong.Anyway, I'm glad I found the site.

[Nikki]

Welcome!!!
There are so many helpful and informative people on this site, I'm glad you found us!!
My dog, Max has hind leg weakness from cushing's. he has been on Vetoryl for about two months, with his dose just being upped a few days ago. When he first started Vetoryl, he couldn't get up any steps, not even the one step up to get into the house. Now he is moving better, and he can make it up the steps into the house! So I have to say that the Vetoryl is definitely starting to help him (At first we didn't see much change, and we were afraid it wasn't working)
We were in the same situation as you, where our vet wasn't quite sure what was wrong with him. They originally thought it was food allergies, so he was getting shots of prednisone and then prescribed prednisone pills for 2 months until he finally got so bad that we did further testing and discovered cushing's.
Anyways, just wanted to say welcome!!!

Nikki

[sunnie's mom]

Thanks for your reply.Sunnie is 20-23 lbs. What does your dog's weight? I thought we would be on atleast 20 mg. Maybe my vet wants to start out on a light dose. We go back in two weeks for a recheck.I don't know if he has treated a cushings dog before.That worries me.

[Nikki]

Max is exactly 20lbs. The first vet wanted to start low at 20mg a day (we had to give him 2 10mg pills every morning). When we weren't happy with the dose, and his post ACTH stimulation # was 14.1 (Pretty high) we went to a different vet who agreed to up his dose to 30mg. He said that testing aside, he would of started Max on 30mg just based on his weight.

[gretchenbailey]

Welcome! I have a 9 year old Boston Terrier with Cushings. He too had the weakness in the hind legs. He was on Lysodren but it did take some time for his strength to return.

[lulusmom]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm sorry for the reasons that brought you here and we're glad you found this site too. Welcome to the family. :D

Besides the stiffness in Sunnie's legs, what else was going on with her that prompted you to continue to look for help for her? We are particularly interested in hearing about the usual symptoms associated with cushing's such as, excessive drinking and peeing, voractious appetite, coat and skin issues and panting. Dogs with cushing's do have muscle wasting, leading to weakness, caused by the catabolic effectz of high cortisol. Stiffness is not normally the case; however, there is a condition associated with cushing's called psuedomyotonia. Was this condition mentioned by Auburn when they confirmed the cushing's diagnosis?

It would be very helpful if you could please round up copies of all testing done by Auburn and the other vets. These tests could have included blood chemistry, complete blood count, urinalysis, low dose dexamethasone suppression test (LDDS), acth stimulation test and abdominal ultrasound. With respect to the blood chemistry, we need only see the abnormal values and please include the normal reference ranges. Did your vet tell you whether Sunnie has pituitary or adrenal dependent cushing's?

You mentioned that Sunnie was on Prednisone and it sounds like it may have been chronic use. How long was she on it and had she been completely free of it for at least several days before any of the tests were done to diagnose cushing's? Prednisone is a synthetic steroid that causes iatrogenic cushing's so we always like to make sure that is not an issue with newly diagnosed dogs. Symptoms are the same as naturally occurring cushing's and it requires no treatment as symptoms resolves once the dog has been weaned off the drug.

You mentioned in your most recent post that you were concerned that your vet may not have much experience with cushing's. That is always a concern as it is when dosing and monitoring protocol are not followed by vets that a dog is at a much greater risk of adverse reactions.

Your experience sounds a lot like my own and a host of others here. I was trying to get a diagnosis for my three year old Pomeranian for well over a year. She is one of the rare youngsters with cushing's. She is now 10 years old. After finally being diagnosed by an internal medicine specialist, I determined that our then gp vet was as ignorant as I and had never heard of cushing's. When my second one was diagnosed, I was much more savvy and had him seen by a teaching hospital. So you see, you aren't a unique case and you are in very good company here.

If Sunnie has been on Vetoryl for two weeks, she needs to have an acth stimulation test done now.....and make sure your vet checks her electrolytes as well. You want to make sure that you have Sunnie to the vet within 3 to 5 hours of her morning dose of Vetoryl. Since your vet has not instructed you about this, it would be a really good idea if you read up on Vetoryl so that you have a better understanding of the drug, how it works, the recommending dosing and how to monitor treatment. You can find a wealth of information in our Helpful Resources section. I've provided a handy link below. I highly recommend that you share as much information with your vet as possible.

http://www.k9cushings.com/forum/showthread.php?t=185

At 20 to 23 pounds, 10mg once a day is a conservative dose which is good. It is always better to start low and make adjustments as you go. Being conservative may cost you more in acth stimulation tests but there is a way to save money on this test, if your vet will cooperate. There is really no reason that he shouldn't but if he doesn't you may want to interview possible new vets.

Now for how to save that money. Rather than retype a bunch of stuff, I've provided a copy of a response I posted on another member's thread about cortrosyn.


Acth stimulation tests...ARGH!!! They are the bane of my existence and I was so happy to learn that there is a way to save money but only if you have a smaller dog. Rascal is small enough to save you money too. Way to go, Rascal!!! :D Most vets use a stimulating agent called Cortrosyn but we call it liquid gold because it's that little vial that dictates the cost. The vial is .25mg and instructions say to use entire vial but not all dogs need the entire vial. There have been studies done that show using just 5mcg per kg is all that's needed. Since there are 250mcg in one vial, your vet can get two stim tests out of one vial. This has saved members a lot of money, especially those of us with teeny dogs who can get five and six stims out of one vial. Formula for Rascal's weight in pounds converted to kg is 39 divided by 2.2 = 17.73 x 5mcg = 89mcg. Your vet can round that off to half a vial or 125 mcg.

Some vets are not aware of this so we always provide the url to Dr. Mark Peterson's blog which instructs vets on how to dilute and store cortrosyn for future use.

http://endocrinevet.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-dilute-and-store-cortrosyn-for.html

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by printing this out or providing the URL to your vet and asking if s/he will please split the vial.

We'll be looking forward to hearing more about Sunnie and seeing those test results. We're here to help in any way we can so don't hesitate to ask questions and share as much information as possible. The more information we have, the better able we are to provide meaningful feedback.

Glynda

[sunnie's mom]

I had no idea what was wrong with her.I had never heard of k9 cushings.She was drinking more and peeeing more but dumb me thought it was because of her age.It was the stiffness that got me started looking for help.I was told be all of the Vets at first it was a muscle disease and the only treatment was prednisone.Because there was only one type of the disease.We didn't use the prednisone long at the time.When we saw it wasn't working we would stop it. After a year of being told "I really don't know what is wrong with her" I called Auburn Univ. I knew someone there had to know what it was.We went through the Neurosurgery Dept. The Dr. was almost sure she had cushings after the first two hours of looking at her.He tested for that first.Her muscle disease called Myotonia was caused from the cushings.I'm 80 miles from AU so it would work out better to use the Vet here in town for the blood work etc. But I'm not sure he knows how to treat her.I don't want to come off as a know it all but I want whats best for Sunnie.We went back last Thurs. for the blood test.I was expecting the all day thing like before.He drew the blood once and sent us home.No going back in 2-4 hours like before.The next day they called and said looks good,come back in two weeks.Maybe I just worry too much, but after all we have been through I don't want someone to drop the ball.

[sunnie's mom]

How many of you have the weakness of the back legs in your cushings dogs? And how long did it take to see a change after getting on Vetoryl.

Moderator's Note: I have merged your latest post into your baby's original thread. Normally, we like to keep all posts on a pup in a single thread as it makes it easier for other members to refer back to the pup's history, if needed.

[addy]

Hi,

Quite a few dogs have muscle weakness from Cushings. When I asked my internist about Zoe's weak back leg muscles she said it can take quite some time to build up those muscles again.

Some articles I read suggested starting on short walks, maybe ten minutes a day and resting the dog every other day. Start slowly and build up to longer walking times, a week at a time. I actually did that with Zoe last fall and she was getting stronger. Then winter came, she developed allergies, etc. It did not take long to lose that which we worked so hard to gain.

I know another member is using an underwater treadmill and it is helping. Some use acupuncture, laser.

One thing you have to remember is lowering a dog's cortisol can unmask conditions that the high cortisol was helping (like prednisone does). So sometimes, we are seeing arthritis, disk problems, etc that we did not know our pup had.

hugs,
addy

[sunnie's mom]

Thanks for the reply.Arthritis was ruled out early on.we went to the Neurology Dept. she was checked out from one end to the other.I had never heard of k9 cushings. Our histopathology came back Fri. and it stated the muscle 'wasting' was due to cushings.I'm hopeful nothing else shows up.But I know many things can.