SingingSibe
08-09-2014, 12:09 AM
Hi all! Sorry for the lengthy initial post...
I took my Siberian Husky girl, Kingu, to the vet this past week because she has been 'not quite right'. Here's a quick rundown of what's going on:
Kingu's primary symptoms are lethargy, thinning fur, skin troubles and a slight pot belly. Not sure if she drinks excessively, she drinks larger quantities at one time than my other dogs but gets up to drink less often. She urinates a little more often than my male, but her urine does not appear very dilute. She pants more than my other dogs but not constantly. It takes her a long time to cool down after a walk. She spends most of the day lying on the cool kitchen floor or the bathroom floor. She isn't trying to eat everything in sight but if there's food out she isn't far away. She always cleans her bowl (and any of the other dogs' if they happen to leave a few pieces and I don't get the bowls picked up quick enough).
Health history:
She's had more than her fair share of allergic reactions to bug bites/stings/ingredients and also injuries (Slipped on a patch of ice and slipped her knee out of place, now we know she has luxating patellas as well. Got a really bad scratch on her eye. An icicle fell off the roof and hit her head.) over her lifetime. So anti-inflammatory meds and steroids on and off for many years.
She's had weight issues since around age three. We have her thyroid tested at that time and she is 'borderline' hypothyroid, but not hypothyroid enough to treat. That vet sold us some Slentrol (weight loss drug) and some weight loss food. Initially she loses weight (to 70 or so from nearly 90lbs) but then increases and holds at around 80lbs. They increase Slentrol and decrease food to slightly less than two cups of weight loss food per day. She starts eating grass like no tomorrow. We give her two cups a day and she can handle that, but she isn't really losing weight. They want to decrease her food more since she is at the max dose of Slentrol... We change vets... And change strategy. We change her food and increase exercise but it doesn't help much.
We moved further south three years ago and it's much hotter and more humid here than we're used to. So overtime she gained more weight. Her fur became more coarse, and she stopped shedding normally. Also lost all the undercoat on the tip of her tail. She was lethargic too. So two years ago we took her to the vet we have now and the blood test showed she was hypothyroid. She is currently well regulated according to thyroid tests on .6mg of thyroxine. Although, none of the fur thinning/ coarse fur symptoms have resolved, she is still lethargic and still has trouble losing weight.
In the past year she has had a series of UTI's (never had one previously, then got a few a few months apart), and hot spots on and off including one on her tail. What we thought was a hot spot on her tail has not resolved. The vet and I now believe this may be calcinosis cutis or tail gland hyperplasia. It's in the spot where the tail gland is. If it is tail gland hyperplasia (also known as 'stud tail' - a condition fairly common in intact male dogs believed to be due to excess testosterone) it leads me to wonder why my spayed female is presenting with a condition linked to excess androgens.
The vet did an X-ray... Come to find out she is fairly constipated, so they couldn't see much. Gave us some laxatives and told us to add some pumpkin to her food to get things moving better. Blood test shows liver enzymes were within normal range (don't have the numbers, but we looked at the paper and all her values were well within range, I can ask for them though if it helps). She goes back in a week and we'll discuss what route we want to take.
Vet suggested another xray (they originally were going to do two, one on her side and one on her back but she wasn't keen on lying on her back. Good thing, because after processing the X-Ray there wasn't much to see except fecal material) to check the other organs. From there she says we could do an ultrasound, but since we live close to a vet school (Auburn) and they've done more ultrasounds than she has, she'd recommend we go there for that.
What test should I consider next? She's obviously not feeling up to her full potential... I just hope we can figure out what is up so she can feel better. It's like a compounding problem: she doesn't want to exercise, gains more weight, it's harder on her joints, she doesn't want to exercise...
Thanks in advance (I know from all the reading I've been doing on this forum that y'all are awesome :) )
-RJ and Kingu
I took my Siberian Husky girl, Kingu, to the vet this past week because she has been 'not quite right'. Here's a quick rundown of what's going on:
Kingu's primary symptoms are lethargy, thinning fur, skin troubles and a slight pot belly. Not sure if she drinks excessively, she drinks larger quantities at one time than my other dogs but gets up to drink less often. She urinates a little more often than my male, but her urine does not appear very dilute. She pants more than my other dogs but not constantly. It takes her a long time to cool down after a walk. She spends most of the day lying on the cool kitchen floor or the bathroom floor. She isn't trying to eat everything in sight but if there's food out she isn't far away. She always cleans her bowl (and any of the other dogs' if they happen to leave a few pieces and I don't get the bowls picked up quick enough).
Health history:
She's had more than her fair share of allergic reactions to bug bites/stings/ingredients and also injuries (Slipped on a patch of ice and slipped her knee out of place, now we know she has luxating patellas as well. Got a really bad scratch on her eye. An icicle fell off the roof and hit her head.) over her lifetime. So anti-inflammatory meds and steroids on and off for many years.
She's had weight issues since around age three. We have her thyroid tested at that time and she is 'borderline' hypothyroid, but not hypothyroid enough to treat. That vet sold us some Slentrol (weight loss drug) and some weight loss food. Initially she loses weight (to 70 or so from nearly 90lbs) but then increases and holds at around 80lbs. They increase Slentrol and decrease food to slightly less than two cups of weight loss food per day. She starts eating grass like no tomorrow. We give her two cups a day and she can handle that, but she isn't really losing weight. They want to decrease her food more since she is at the max dose of Slentrol... We change vets... And change strategy. We change her food and increase exercise but it doesn't help much.
We moved further south three years ago and it's much hotter and more humid here than we're used to. So overtime she gained more weight. Her fur became more coarse, and she stopped shedding normally. Also lost all the undercoat on the tip of her tail. She was lethargic too. So two years ago we took her to the vet we have now and the blood test showed she was hypothyroid. She is currently well regulated according to thyroid tests on .6mg of thyroxine. Although, none of the fur thinning/ coarse fur symptoms have resolved, she is still lethargic and still has trouble losing weight.
In the past year she has had a series of UTI's (never had one previously, then got a few a few months apart), and hot spots on and off including one on her tail. What we thought was a hot spot on her tail has not resolved. The vet and I now believe this may be calcinosis cutis or tail gland hyperplasia. It's in the spot where the tail gland is. If it is tail gland hyperplasia (also known as 'stud tail' - a condition fairly common in intact male dogs believed to be due to excess testosterone) it leads me to wonder why my spayed female is presenting with a condition linked to excess androgens.
The vet did an X-ray... Come to find out she is fairly constipated, so they couldn't see much. Gave us some laxatives and told us to add some pumpkin to her food to get things moving better. Blood test shows liver enzymes were within normal range (don't have the numbers, but we looked at the paper and all her values were well within range, I can ask for them though if it helps). She goes back in a week and we'll discuss what route we want to take.
Vet suggested another xray (they originally were going to do two, one on her side and one on her back but she wasn't keen on lying on her back. Good thing, because after processing the X-Ray there wasn't much to see except fecal material) to check the other organs. From there she says we could do an ultrasound, but since we live close to a vet school (Auburn) and they've done more ultrasounds than she has, she'd recommend we go there for that.
What test should I consider next? She's obviously not feeling up to her full potential... I just hope we can figure out what is up so she can feel better. It's like a compounding problem: she doesn't want to exercise, gains more weight, it's harder on her joints, she doesn't want to exercise...
Thanks in advance (I know from all the reading I've been doing on this forum that y'all are awesome :) )
-RJ and Kingu