Madcatlady
01-01-2013, 04:12 PM
Hello! My 11 yr old pap Jasper has just been diagnosed with pituitary Cushings before Christmas.
He has had symptoms for a while that we thought were just aging, particularly since last summer, he started to have accidents in the house, weeing a lot more, drinking a lot, panting a lot. He also got a big pot belly, he developed eczema, his fur was thinning on his back, all random symptoms that we had looked at at the vets individually but the vet didn't connect the dots. He has also been a very nervous dog with bad skin since we got him (we have had him since he was 7, he was a rescue dog) so I don't know if perhaps this has been building for years.
About 3 months ago he had to have an operation to remove an ulcer on the back of his knee that just wouldn't heal (could this be a symptom?), we always get our dogs blood tested before a GA to make sure that they are fit for it and his blood tests then came back slightly elevated on some things but within a normal range for his age. Then a few weeks ago we spotted him limping on his front leg and took him to the vets, he had some muscle wastage in that leg and the vet found eczema and a corn in between his foot pads, so it was decided that he would have the corn removed again under GA, we thought that that had probably been causing his limp.
This time his blood showed lots of too high levels, some was tracked down to a mouth infection and he has had antibiotics to treat that and that got better, but finally his other symptoms have been looked at and the vet suspected Cushings so they did all the different blood tests to be as sure as possible and that's what they think it is.
They did have a weirdly anomalous result in his first test where the result was low where it should have been high before a medication was given, but this didn't happen again so they aren't sure what caused this.
Today would be day 4 of his Vetoryl 30mg regime however on the advice of the emergency vet last night we have discontinued the tablet after Day 3 because of some side effects.
Yesterday he was sick once a small amount in the morning and then after that we gave him his next dose at 4pm. Around 8pm he started to lose strength in his back legs and couldn't get up or down the steps into the house and was walking really stiffly. We were pretty panicked and spoke to the emergency vet who advised us to monitor him, thankfully this weakness seemed to pass by this morning but he was still not quite right at 3am when I checked on him again (the main problems seemed to start around 4 hours after which fits with what I've read here about when Vetoryl peaks in the blood).
We are going to speak to our own ordinary vet tomorrow and see if he needs to be tested again.
I feel so sorry for him, I want his symptoms to get better but not at the risk of such extreme side effects! I don't know if the side effects will pass after a time or what.
Jasper weighs about 4.6kg and we are based in the UK. Our vet has based his dosing on the literature by the manufacturer which states 3kg - 10kg of body weight is 30mg, but as Jasper is at the lower end of that perhaps he should be on less?
He isn't on any other medication and doesn't have any other health conditions that we are aware of but he did recently have suspected lungworm which has been treated.
Thanks for any advice you can give!! I'm trying to be positive, he's my little man!!
Marie
He has had symptoms for a while that we thought were just aging, particularly since last summer, he started to have accidents in the house, weeing a lot more, drinking a lot, panting a lot. He also got a big pot belly, he developed eczema, his fur was thinning on his back, all random symptoms that we had looked at at the vets individually but the vet didn't connect the dots. He has also been a very nervous dog with bad skin since we got him (we have had him since he was 7, he was a rescue dog) so I don't know if perhaps this has been building for years.
About 3 months ago he had to have an operation to remove an ulcer on the back of his knee that just wouldn't heal (could this be a symptom?), we always get our dogs blood tested before a GA to make sure that they are fit for it and his blood tests then came back slightly elevated on some things but within a normal range for his age. Then a few weeks ago we spotted him limping on his front leg and took him to the vets, he had some muscle wastage in that leg and the vet found eczema and a corn in between his foot pads, so it was decided that he would have the corn removed again under GA, we thought that that had probably been causing his limp.
This time his blood showed lots of too high levels, some was tracked down to a mouth infection and he has had antibiotics to treat that and that got better, but finally his other symptoms have been looked at and the vet suspected Cushings so they did all the different blood tests to be as sure as possible and that's what they think it is.
They did have a weirdly anomalous result in his first test where the result was low where it should have been high before a medication was given, but this didn't happen again so they aren't sure what caused this.
Today would be day 4 of his Vetoryl 30mg regime however on the advice of the emergency vet last night we have discontinued the tablet after Day 3 because of some side effects.
Yesterday he was sick once a small amount in the morning and then after that we gave him his next dose at 4pm. Around 8pm he started to lose strength in his back legs and couldn't get up or down the steps into the house and was walking really stiffly. We were pretty panicked and spoke to the emergency vet who advised us to monitor him, thankfully this weakness seemed to pass by this morning but he was still not quite right at 3am when I checked on him again (the main problems seemed to start around 4 hours after which fits with what I've read here about when Vetoryl peaks in the blood).
We are going to speak to our own ordinary vet tomorrow and see if he needs to be tested again.
I feel so sorry for him, I want his symptoms to get better but not at the risk of such extreme side effects! I don't know if the side effects will pass after a time or what.
Jasper weighs about 4.6kg and we are based in the UK. Our vet has based his dosing on the literature by the manufacturer which states 3kg - 10kg of body weight is 30mg, but as Jasper is at the lower end of that perhaps he should be on less?
He isn't on any other medication and doesn't have any other health conditions that we are aware of but he did recently have suspected lungworm which has been treated.
Thanks for any advice you can give!! I'm trying to be positive, he's my little man!!
Marie