Tobyroo
03-21-2015, 01:38 PM
Hello everyone. Thank you for having such a wonderful community built here. I have been lurking and reading comments for a few days and I am finally ready to post and ask for some advice, help and some understanding.
I will start at the beginning of this journey that we have been on with Toby. I have had him since we was a teeny pup, only 5 weeks old. He just turned 11 on February 26th of this year. He has always been very active, woo wooing all day and just in a generally good mood. On January 23rd, 2015, Paul took Toby for a walk. Everything was as usual until they got back to the door. Toby fell to his side and had a grand mal seizure. Paul rushed him to the vet within the hour. The vet ran a blood test as well as a urine test. I thought for sure that he had diabetes ( I had a cat with diabetes that had seizures at one point in my life) Toby had exhibited a few other symptoms that came to mind after his seizure. He had become food crazed, even scavenging for 10 to 20 minutes at a time even though he had just had a full meal. He also become a bit lethargic, just kind of lying about. I chalked it up to old age, but after the seizure, I started trying to piece together other symptoms. The blood test came back. Thyroid levels were low. Glucose was fine. And the urinalysis showed a uti. We treated him for he uti. The vet thought that is what caused his seizure. The uti cleared and he had another seizure on February 20th, 4 weeks exactly after the first one. Paul took him back to the vet and while there he had an episode of what I call "shaky legs." I have since found out that his legs shake more than likely due to muscle weakness and general intolerance to exercise.....anyways the vet freaked out and said that she had never seen that before and that we needed to take him immediately to a neurologist.....as much as I wish we had an endless money supply, we don't, and a neurologist would cost thousands of dollars. I knew that there had to be a more cost efficient way to diagnose his issues.
My sister in law raises boxers and she thought with his symptoms that it could be a thyroid issue. She suggested that I have his blood tested with Jean Dodds at Hemopet. Not knowing that Jean Dodds is a celebrity of sort with thyroid research in dogs, I gave her a call and low and behold, she called me back. She was very kind and told me after sharing Toby's symptoms that he more than likely had a thyroid issue and thyroid issues are easy to manage.
That same day I called a new vet, because I was not going back to the other one. The universe aligned for Toby that day, because this vet was familiar with Dr. Dodds, thyroid issues and just seemed to have a better knowledge of what we might be dealing with. We ran more blood tests and checked his urine's specific gravity. His kidneys are fine but his thyroid was not. But the vet believed that the thyroid issue was a secondary condition and that Cushings might be the primary condition causing his issues. The doctor recommended that we have an xray done as well as the ACTH Cushings test. She went ahead and started him on Soloxine twice a day for the thyroid and we discussed our options. We decided to have the ACTH test as well as the Xray. The xray showed that his liver is slightly enlarged and that he does definitively test postive for Cushings. We just found this out today. The vet wants us to have an ultrasound done to figure out the location of the Cushing's, whether it be in his adrenal glands or pituitary. I have read that the majority of cases in his breed are pituitary and managed through medication. The vet will not prescribe the treatment until we have the ultrasound completed. I just want opinions on what those of you who have dealt with Cushings think. Is this common to diagnose the issue but still require yet another expensive test before treatment? I understand that he could have a tumor near his kidneys that might even be malignant, but I also know that the chances are more for the treatment with medication route. We are going to do what we need to for the sake of our Toby, but I want to make sure that what money we have to put towards his treatment is used as wisely as possible.
His symptoms are still present....he has the telltale pot belly at this point as well as lethargy, increased hunger, leg shakes and he has had a few seizures in the last three weeks since we started the soloxine. We can't walk him for very far for fear that he will have a full on seizure. We give him diazapam when he has a seizure or if he exhibits the sign that it is inevitably going to happen. We do take him on car rides when we can to get him out of the house. About three days of the week he acys perfectly normal...playful, vocal and normal. Any advice or wisdom that you have in our situation would be greatly appreciated.
Oh not sure if this is helpful, but we do feed him Keen from Honest Kitchen if anyne has any feedback on that as well. I just picked up Andi Brown's pet food book and plan on looking into that to see if we want to go back to making his food ourselves again.
I will start at the beginning of this journey that we have been on with Toby. I have had him since we was a teeny pup, only 5 weeks old. He just turned 11 on February 26th of this year. He has always been very active, woo wooing all day and just in a generally good mood. On January 23rd, 2015, Paul took Toby for a walk. Everything was as usual until they got back to the door. Toby fell to his side and had a grand mal seizure. Paul rushed him to the vet within the hour. The vet ran a blood test as well as a urine test. I thought for sure that he had diabetes ( I had a cat with diabetes that had seizures at one point in my life) Toby had exhibited a few other symptoms that came to mind after his seizure. He had become food crazed, even scavenging for 10 to 20 minutes at a time even though he had just had a full meal. He also become a bit lethargic, just kind of lying about. I chalked it up to old age, but after the seizure, I started trying to piece together other symptoms. The blood test came back. Thyroid levels were low. Glucose was fine. And the urinalysis showed a uti. We treated him for he uti. The vet thought that is what caused his seizure. The uti cleared and he had another seizure on February 20th, 4 weeks exactly after the first one. Paul took him back to the vet and while there he had an episode of what I call "shaky legs." I have since found out that his legs shake more than likely due to muscle weakness and general intolerance to exercise.....anyways the vet freaked out and said that she had never seen that before and that we needed to take him immediately to a neurologist.....as much as I wish we had an endless money supply, we don't, and a neurologist would cost thousands of dollars. I knew that there had to be a more cost efficient way to diagnose his issues.
My sister in law raises boxers and she thought with his symptoms that it could be a thyroid issue. She suggested that I have his blood tested with Jean Dodds at Hemopet. Not knowing that Jean Dodds is a celebrity of sort with thyroid research in dogs, I gave her a call and low and behold, she called me back. She was very kind and told me after sharing Toby's symptoms that he more than likely had a thyroid issue and thyroid issues are easy to manage.
That same day I called a new vet, because I was not going back to the other one. The universe aligned for Toby that day, because this vet was familiar with Dr. Dodds, thyroid issues and just seemed to have a better knowledge of what we might be dealing with. We ran more blood tests and checked his urine's specific gravity. His kidneys are fine but his thyroid was not. But the vet believed that the thyroid issue was a secondary condition and that Cushings might be the primary condition causing his issues. The doctor recommended that we have an xray done as well as the ACTH Cushings test. She went ahead and started him on Soloxine twice a day for the thyroid and we discussed our options. We decided to have the ACTH test as well as the Xray. The xray showed that his liver is slightly enlarged and that he does definitively test postive for Cushings. We just found this out today. The vet wants us to have an ultrasound done to figure out the location of the Cushing's, whether it be in his adrenal glands or pituitary. I have read that the majority of cases in his breed are pituitary and managed through medication. The vet will not prescribe the treatment until we have the ultrasound completed. I just want opinions on what those of you who have dealt with Cushings think. Is this common to diagnose the issue but still require yet another expensive test before treatment? I understand that he could have a tumor near his kidneys that might even be malignant, but I also know that the chances are more for the treatment with medication route. We are going to do what we need to for the sake of our Toby, but I want to make sure that what money we have to put towards his treatment is used as wisely as possible.
His symptoms are still present....he has the telltale pot belly at this point as well as lethargy, increased hunger, leg shakes and he has had a few seizures in the last three weeks since we started the soloxine. We can't walk him for very far for fear that he will have a full on seizure. We give him diazapam when he has a seizure or if he exhibits the sign that it is inevitably going to happen. We do take him on car rides when we can to get him out of the house. About three days of the week he acys perfectly normal...playful, vocal and normal. Any advice or wisdom that you have in our situation would be greatly appreciated.
Oh not sure if this is helpful, but we do feed him Keen from Honest Kitchen if anyne has any feedback on that as well. I just picked up Andi Brown's pet food book and plan on looking into that to see if we want to go back to making his food ourselves again.