My 8 yr old Akita, Niki, was just diagnosed.

[MaryMunchkin]

Hello, I've been reading some of the threads when I can. This seems like the perfect place for me to be. There is too much misleading/incorrect info out there. My vet told me to check this out, and that I could trust the information, what a relief!

Anyway, we adopted Niki when she was about 2yrs old from a local shelter. She is a purebred Akita, had lyme disease when we adopted her. Received a Dx of Hypothyroid about a year ago. At that time her liver functions were normal and remain so to this day. Couple weeks ago they did the more definitive test for Cushings disease and it was a yes.

She has all these strange patches of missing hair, her undercoat is gone, broken hair where her collar was, bald tummy, ALWAYS thirsty, can't get enough to eat. It's terrible. But she remains so happy and sweet! We just started Vetoryl on 8/10. All night last night and today until about 2pm, she had the runs every two hours.

She sees the vet shortly, and eluded to the fact that she didn't think it was from the medicine, since she has been on it now for 6 days.

I am worried to say the least, and this beautiful dog has all this awful skin problems! I feel soooo awful for her.

I will get back with everyone with her exact liver values.
I do know her thyroid is at about a 3. From everything I have read, Akitas should be at the high end of the scale. More like 5.

Thank you for your time!
Mary

[Harley PoMMom]

Hi Mary,

Welcome to you and your sweet girl, so sorry for the reasons that brought you to us but glad you found us.

Could you tell us what dosage of Vetoryl your vet rx'd and how much does your furbaby weigh? Is your girl displaying any other ill symptoms such as vomiting or lethargy? Is she still eating and drinking? Do you have prednisone on hand? Has your girl's diet changed? The reason I'm asking is because diarrhea can be a sign of cortisol going too low.


It would help us a great deal if you could round up copies of all tests that were done on your girl and post any abnormalities listed with the reference ranges and units of measurements.

Please know you are not alone on this journey and we will help in any way we can.

Love and hugs,
Lori

[molly muffin]

Hi Mary and welcome to you and Niki. I'm so glad you found us.

So you have been reading the threads, and now you probably know that what we need to see in order to have an informed conversation are the lab results from various tests. Test High/Low and range basically. That way you sort of know where everything stands.

I'll be very interested to see what your vet says today, but from everything I've read and there are others here who have been through this and are going through this, that I hope can jump in, but having the runs after 6 days on the medicine could definitely be a possibility and is in fact, one of the things that we are told to watch out for, if the cortisol actually starts to drop too low.

Akita's are just beautiful dogs, my sister had one until quite recently. (her dog passed away) But they are lovely.

Hugs and welcome,
Sharlene and Molly Muffin

[MaryMunchkin]

I'm so sorry it took me so long to get back with all of you. Thank you for your time and caring responses.

The dosage of Vetoryl is 60mg Capsules. Niki weighs like 82 lbs.

The Low Dose Dexomethozone test results are as follows:
1). 4.1
2). 1.7
3). 3.3

She also tests positive for Lyme Disease.
Positive for both infection and booster. She did have Lyme when we adopted her, she was 2 years of age.

She also has Hypothyroidism and is on Soloxine, 1.0mg twice a day.
Her level is at 3.1 on therapy. Prior, it was @ like 2.3. Way too low for an Akita. I have read several articles from different Universities that believe Akitas should be on the upper end of the scale. More like 5.

What brought us to this is the fact that Niki presents with very complex issues, one being loss of coat, overall very thin and continually thinning coat. Strange patches of missing hair, with blackheads, hair is broken where her collar was, belly fur gone, potbelly, and an awful looking rat tail. No hair on the tip of her tail. We thought if we got her thyroid level adjusted it would come back, however, it just progressively worsens.

Through all of this, Niki is a one of a kind little angel! Her attitude is the same, happy happy puppy! I just want to get this figured out and get her healthy again. It seems like this has drug on forever!

Thank you so much for your help!

Mary

[MaryMunchkin]

I forgot about the results of the biopsies they took.
4 Punch Biopsies of haired skin, and one from the elbow.

The specimens from the neck, abdomen, and mid tail all have numerous large keratin-filled comedones. Adjacent follicles are in telogen phase wirh marked tricholemmal keratinization. The outer root sheaths are thinned. The epidermis is 1 to 3 cell layers in thickness, hyperpigmented, and has marked orthokeratotic hyperkeratosis.
Sebaceous glands are also atrophied. There is evidence of non inflammatory alopecia w/ mild Atrophic changes to the epidermis and hair follicles.

[molly muffin]

Oh poor Niki she does have some issues going on with her. It is the miracle of being a dog I think that can make them still seem so happy and loving even when they are going through some pretty trying ordeals.

I'm not even going to begin to say I know what the biopsies mean, although some others will probably be by that will have some ideas.
It doesn't look like she is able to suppress for the 8 hours that a noncushings dog would do. Did she have an ultrasound yet?
I'm wondering if they have determined what kind of cushings they think it is.

How is she doing now. I hope the runs have stopped.

hugs,
Sharlene

[Vail'sMom]

Hi Mary,
I too am brand new to this site, just stumbling across it in the last couple of days. I have an 8 year old Great Pyrenees "Vail" that was diagnosed with a couple things this past year (Mar 2012). We went through 3 successive years of testing for hypothyroid because he presented with some of the same symptoms (most noticably the rat tail)...to no avail, although he had low levels it at one point, it was determined to be stress related. Two years and four vets later...with lots of irradic and diffuse hair loss combined with darkening patches of the skin, extreme thirst, etc. we finally went to see a vet dermatologist. Vail was diagnosed with: 1. Atypical Cushing's, 2. Alopecia X (which explained the skin, hair loss, etc), and 3. Food allergies to beef, chicken, eggs (which explained a whole other set of symptoms).

Has anyone mentioned Alopecia X? I was very surprised to find out about it, and actually quite relieved to know it is easily treatable with over the counter supplements. Vail is 155lbs, and for his size he gets 9mg of Melatonin twice a day...within 6 months, almost all of his hair had grown back (his tail is still thin and the patch where I clip his lead to walk him is still broken and thin) but he is leaps and bounds better than where he was this time last year. The Melatonin doesn't make him sleepy either (not any more than your normal 8 year old couch potato anyway - he still goes for 2 walks a day for a total of about 2 miles, and chases the cat around when he's bored!)

Have you taken Niki to a dermatology specialist for the hair and skin issues?

Does Niki present with any other issues like really itchy skin, unexplained diarrhea

Does Niki have any sores inside her mouth?

What have you tried to combat the diarrhea?

Hope Niki is starting to feel better soon, and you as well!

- Jill (and Vail)

[Steph n' Ella]

Mary,
I am dealing with similar skin issues with my girl, Ella. She is not yet diagnosed with Cushings but for sure the skin problems could all be due to the low thyroid. I notice that her skin gets VERY oily esp. around the hairless or "black head" areas. The best thing I have done for re-growing hair is to treat the area with a cotton ball soaked alternatively in a topical antiseptic wash and a mild astringent.

http://www.cleanandclear.com/product/astringents-toners/essentials-deep-cleaning-toner-sensitive-skin

http://www.cvs.com/shop/product-detail/CVS-Antiseptic-Wash?skuId=209921

Of course I was so excited when her rat tail went away but then she went a little over a week w/o a bath or any treatment to her skin (spay surgery) and it started to come back :( And now after a lot of hair grew back on her tummy it got shaved down for surgery! I am on high alert to make sure it comes back in healthy!

[Squirt's Mom]

Happy Birthday, Mary!

How is Niki doing? I hope you get a chance to enjoy today with all those you love most, especially your sweet girl!

Hugs,
Leslie and the gang

[gummysmurf]

Hi Mary,

I just wanted to share with you some of my experiences with my boxer's skin problems. He's had problems with his fur thinning his whole life - it seemed seasonal and would mostly come back on it's own. But a couple of years ago he developed this bald patch on his stomach and it stayed bald - the skin was pink and started looking inflamed. He started licking and it was obvious there was an infection going on. He started getting ear infections a lot around this time too. We did round after round of antibiotics and nothing really helped - there would be slight improvement but it would immediately flare back up again.

Finally we went to the dermatologist. She cultured his skin and found that he had a lot of surface staph bacteria.

Amazingly what ultimately seemed to fix the problem was shampoos! She had me bathe Baxter weekly using a medicated shampoo called Pyoben, but I had to do it a specific way. I filled a standard shampoo sized squirt bottle full of 2 ounces of the medicated shampoo and the rest with water. I shampooed my dog with the mixture starting with problem areas first, so they were covered for 10 minutes or so (not adding any additional water, just using what was in the squirt bottle). Then you just rinse it all off. This really helped. His hair is slowly growing back now (and this is before we started treating him for Cushings).

The dermatologist also turned me on to this product you can buy from Amazon that is AMAZING for the treatment of skin problems and ear infections. It somehow naturally heals bacterial infections using enzymes or something. It's called zymox. My dermatologist had me applying the zymox conditioner and leaving it on him after the shampoo. When I googled it and found it on Amazon, I found that the ear drops had rave reviews so I gave it a try and we finally kicked Baxter's recurrent ear infections once and for all. I know this sounds like one of those too good to be true crazy testimonials but I swear by this product. He's had recurring ear problems his entire life and even being on antibiotics didn't seem to help - and then bam - I used this stuff for a couple of weeks (the Zymox otic solution that is) and there hasn't been another infection since (this has been since probably February).

I don't know if any of this helps - but if the skin seems red or inflamed and itchy, you could give the zymox a try.

Also, I couldn't find the Pyoben medicated shampoo without a prescription, but Malaseb should work just as well, and it's available on Amazon. Pyoben is made with peroxide and the active ingredient in Malaseb is Chlorhexedine.

[molly muffin]

Happy Birthday Mary. :)

Okay I am intrigued and looked up Zymox on amazon.ca to see if it available in canada and it is! Okay, so for ear infections, which one do you get? There seems to be tons of them. Ear infections, with hydrocortizone, without hydrocortizone, cleaner..etc.

Sharlene

[gummysmurf]

My doggy dermatologist is very opinionated, and one of the things she has a very strong opinion on is the over-use of hydrocortisone. Something about masking the problem. So I went with the hydrocortisone-free version. What I use is ear drops (not the wash) and it's simply labelled Zymox Otic Enzymatic Solution hydrocortisone free. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Zymox-Otic-Hydrocortisone-Free-Bottle/dp/B0002AL6VU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1351049382&sr=8-3&keywords=zymox+without+hydrocortisone

Note - she really tried to push expensive treatments, such as allergy testing and staph vaccine. I didn't go that route because the shampoo was making such a difference. There was still some redness on Baxter's belly when I started treating him with antibiotics for a UTI - so I can't say for sure if the medicated shampoo was 100% responsible - but it got us probably 80-90% there.

[Skye]

Happy birthday!!!!!! Whootwhoot!!!!