MelissaHod
03-14-2016, 01:47 PM
My 9 year old Bishon Shitzu girl Tika has just recently been diagnosed with cushings by a Low Dose Dex test. She is 28 or so pounds. She loves food, always has so she is overweight (I cant resist those eyes when she begs) We noticed her drinking a lot of water and panting a lot and didn't have the energy at all on our walks anymore and went in for a skin growth on her leg which started the whole thing. We took her in for the Low Dose Dex test and vet called and said she had it. (I don't know levels I am going to request it). So he started her on 30mg once a day. The first few days she would be tired when I left for work, but by the end of the day she would seem to pick up and have better energy and seemed happier still low energy on walks. This went on about 7 or 8 days, then I noticed she just seemed way more tired. Still wanted to eat (all the time) but just kinda tired. I also noticed that every time I gave her the meds about an hour later, she seemed kind of stoned. Would stare into space and no energy. We did this for the 12 days and brought her in for ATCH test. Vet called the next day and said that her baseline was still high but after an hour of the injection of ATCH her levels came back low. He was a bit baffeled by this and said he spoke to the internal medicine specialist as he was a bit confused and she said it was likely the peak of the medicine, so they both decided to increase her dose to 30mg in the am and 30mg at night. We didn't feel good about this at all as I could see how it effected her in the am and the thought of making her tired and feeling off at night too didn't sit well. But we did it based on his recommendations. That night we could tell she felt very nauseous and couldn't get comfortable and felt really bad, ears were down etc. So we called the vet the next morning and he said he was glad we called and that he had spoken to another internal medicine lady to get a second option and they both decided together to take her off it for a few days and start at a does of 10mg in the am and 10mg at night. So that is where we are now. She was off the meds yesterday and felt so much better. He is going to call us on Tuesday and see how she is and likely start on Wednesday. I am just hoping that her side effects were not just from the medicine alone, making her feel sick as I would like her to be able to continue to be on them. Does it sound like it was just too much? I just want her to feel normal.