Needs Cushing's Help

[We Hope]

Am pasting this from k9diabetes. Joan has been back at the diabetes board more than once. I don't know if she was a previous cc.net member or not. Maybe starting this thread will help her both with her dog's problems and with her registration ones.

http://k9diabetes.com/forum/showpost.php?p=15178&postcount=1


I understand that this a forum for diabetic dogs--I registered with you when you were hosting the cushings forums temporarily. I've tried to register with that forum with no luck so I'm hoping that maybe someone here might be able to give me advice. My BC/Aussie mix is 14 and was diagnosed with Cushing's last month. She had been on a maintenance dose of lysodren for about 2 weeks and seemed to be doing relatively well--and then she stopped eating altogether about a week ago. Had a whole battery of blood tests done and found her cortisol levels were okay, kidney, liver function was normal. I don't think my vet knows what to do at this point--said maybe the pituatary tumor was causing her problems. She has weakness in her legs and is congested. She didn't want to even drink water but I've managed to coax her to. She was lethargic and seemed depressed-she seems to be a little better in that regard yesterday and today, but is still not eating. She's off all medications now--she was taking the lysodren, prednisone and eye drops because her eyes were pus-filled. She WAS doing real well prior to this and was amazingly healthy despite her age. I'm at a loss now as to what to do. Please let me know if any of you have any suggestions. Thanks so much.

Joan

Jayvee is the name she used to sign up at k9diabetes. Hope someone can help!

Kathy

[acushdogsmom]

Joan is registered here.

http://www.k9cushings.com/forum/member.php?u=127

She was in the "users awaiting e-mail confirmation" queue, so maybe the registration confirmation e-mail ended up in her spam folder somehow or there was some kind of glitch in the import process.

Anyway, I just manually approved her membership here, so she should be able to post here now.

Please ask her to start a new thread here, in our Questions and Discussions Forum.

[lucygoo]

Joan....
The symptoms you're describing sound very familiar to what my Lucy had. And hers indeed was a very large pituitary tumor that they just removed a week ago in a study. I would first get your dog at least back on prednisone immediately. Lucy was on 20 mg/day and it helped the swelling in her head, and even made her eat again. (She hadn't been eating at all) It will also make her feel much better, she'll just be drinking water and peeing nonstop. Is she showing any neurological signs as well? Lucy started having these weird spasms in her back, where she would hunch her back like a cat. She also got confused and was very lethargic.

Of course, they'll need to do an MRI to make certain it is a pituitary tumor, which is very expensive, and you'll have to make the decision whether you want to do that or not. My dog is only 11, so I went ahead and did it....now we're going through postop hell, and I've had to take off a huge amount of time from work. My other options were radiation or a drug from Canada that they're trying out to see if it shrinks tumors, or just palliative care for a few months (prednisone and tramadol.)
I know what you're going through now....Please at least call your vet and insist that she be given prednisone until you get to the bottom of this.

Gina and Lucy.