camval1
05-08-2017, 11:31 AM
Hi everyone,
Just giving an update on Brick.
He had his latest stim test this past Friday.
His pre was 2.6 and his post was 2.5.
Doctor says perfect; well controlled.
He weighs about 41 lbs now and is on 5 mg trilostane once daily.
We're still concerned about his weight loss. We haven't been able to arrest it.
Two different internal medicine vets believe it's attributed to a combo of his Cushing's, pancreatitis, and IBD.
We're going to switch him to a hydrolyzed food for easier uptake. Hopefully that will slow the loss (and maybe reverse it some??).
But I had a good conversation with his intern. She suggested a whole bunch of testing (which I did back in January and was mainly inconclusive) to see if anything's changed since January.
But I told her, even if we do see something, what are we going to do? He's an old Airedale (13 years and 1.5 months). We're not going to operate on him, we're not going to do needle biopsies of any masses he could possibly have (lotsa risk there anyways). If we did a biopsy and found something, still not going to operate on him, or do chemo, or anything like that. He's just too old for all that.
So I asked if there were more targeted blood tests that we could do to monitor his kidney, liver, pancreas, and GI health. There is.
I could imagine doing those, just so we can keep him comfy and happy.
He's already beat the life expectancy of his breed (some say 10-12 years and others say 11-13 years).
Just giving an update on Brick.
He had his latest stim test this past Friday.
His pre was 2.6 and his post was 2.5.
Doctor says perfect; well controlled.
He weighs about 41 lbs now and is on 5 mg trilostane once daily.
We're still concerned about his weight loss. We haven't been able to arrest it.
Two different internal medicine vets believe it's attributed to a combo of his Cushing's, pancreatitis, and IBD.
We're going to switch him to a hydrolyzed food for easier uptake. Hopefully that will slow the loss (and maybe reverse it some??).
But I had a good conversation with his intern. She suggested a whole bunch of testing (which I did back in January and was mainly inconclusive) to see if anything's changed since January.
But I told her, even if we do see something, what are we going to do? He's an old Airedale (13 years and 1.5 months). We're not going to operate on him, we're not going to do needle biopsies of any masses he could possibly have (lotsa risk there anyways). If we did a biopsy and found something, still not going to operate on him, or do chemo, or anything like that. He's just too old for all that.
So I asked if there were more targeted blood tests that we could do to monitor his kidney, liver, pancreas, and GI health. There is.
I could imagine doing those, just so we can keep him comfy and happy.
He's already beat the life expectancy of his breed (some say 10-12 years and others say 11-13 years).