New treatment for cushings, has anyone used it?

[Whitney]

Hi, my name is Whitney and 1 of my 3 poodles has cushings. Her name is Sarah. My boys who are cushings free are Marshall and Shadow. I have had all of the testing done on Sarah and despite everything the medication was not working at all. I was bound and determined to find an answer so I started researching and researching some more and I ran into a site for a vet hospital in Texas that was doing research on alternatives for treating cushings. They had promising results with something called lignans which I now know comes from a tree. I took all the research to my vet and she suggested we try it. It has been a year now since Sarah has been on 20 MG twice a day of lignans coupled with 3mg of melatonin 1 time a day. Her hair has grown back almost completely, her skin has gotten thicker, her water intake is back to normal. Her liver enzymes are still a little high but the panting has virtually stopped. She has chronic yeast infections however that the ligands have not helped and without being able to use steroids I've resorted to yogurt and soak bathes of water, hydrogen peroxide and vinegar and as long as I am dilagent with the soaks I keep it at bay.
Has anyone tried the lignans? .
Does anyone know of anything for the yeast problem that can help more permanently?
I've already changed to non grain food that is 100% gluten free, changed her snacks to green beans, keep her hair clipped around her nails and use hypoallergenic soaps that are not oatmeal based?
FYI the cost is about 20 dollars for a month supply.

[Harley PoMMom]

Hi Whitney,

Welcome to you and Sarah! I have manually approved your membership so now all your posts will be seen right away. Also, please just disregard the validation email that was sent to you from k9cushings. ;)

Lignans and Melatonin is the treatment recommended for Atypical Cushing's which is when the cortisol is normal but one or more of the adrenal sex hormones are elevated. This type of treatment takes months to see improvement so I am glad that they have had such a positive effect on Sarah. Are you using the regular melatonin? And are the lignans standardized? Also, this type of treatment was first promoted by the College of Veterinary Medicine/University of Tennessee, we have numerous articless in our Resource Forum regarding Atypical Cushing's so I am providing a link to that specific thread:http://www.k9cushings.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198

Could you share more information about Sarah because the more we know the better our feedback can be, ok?

Could you tell us what symptoms Sarah was displaying that led you or the vet to test for Cushing's? What diagnostic test/s were performed that a diagnosis of Cushing's was made from? Was a CBC/chemistry blood panel done and if so, could you post those results too? With respect to the blood chemistry and complete blood count (CBC), you need only post the highs and lows and please include the normal reference ranges. Does your girl have any underlying illness that she is taking medication for? And if so, what is it and what is the medication? Besides the lignans and melatonin is she taking any supplements, medications or herbs?

Steroids, whether synthetic or produced by the adrenals suppress the immune system, leaving a dog open to infection. Bacterial and fungal are common with dog's that have Cushing's. Fluconazole is one anti fungal medication that I have seen used on the forum.

I sure am sorry for the reasons that brought you here but I'm glad you found us and we will help in any way we can. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask them. ;)

Hugs, Lori

[Whitney]

I will get all the numbers from her vet. The first time I noticed anything was when she was five, she is 13 now. She is a toy apricot poodle. She has had allergies since she was a puppy. She's allergic to grass, pollen, gluten, cats, smoke. We have tried every kind of allergy medication you can imagine and unless my vet gave her a steroid injection or steroid pills they would not let up. After steroids and more steroids the first symptom that gave me pause was her shivering severely when she would get a bath. Sarah's favorite thing in the world was getting a bath and getting groomed both of which she couldn't stand overnight. Within days I noticed she was walking when she urinated, something she never did before. I of course immediately looked for any sign of infection. She had one small dryish patch by her vulva. I took her to the vet and this was the 1st yeast infection of which we've been fighting ever since. Again all the creams had steroids in them. To keep the skin from being irritated I use glycerin gel, give her live culture yogurt and soak her in a mixture of water, vinear and hydrogen peroxide. She then started chewing her feet constantly. The above treatment has alleviated that as well. The yeast was creeping all over her body and it happened fast. She has always been a healthy eater but became insatiable. She would screech and wHine for food. We called it singing for her supper just to keep our wits about us. High pitched is an understatement. Water intake and urination were increasing more and more until I literally wasn't getting more than an hour sleep and neither was she. All the Cushing med we tried her on had minimal to no effect until the lignans. Within 2 months things had started to completely reverse. She isn't her puppy self anymore and her legs are weaker and I doubt she will ever like bathes again but so far this is working better than I could have hoped. Another thing I started doing was only giving her filtered water. Especially since the allergy testing doesn't cover everything. I am left with one concern though. She seems to eat more but not gain weight. Her numbers have been improving since we started the lignans. But her cortisol was seriously elevated so I'm a little confused about it being an atypical treatment only.

[Whitney]

The melatonin I give her is a slow release and I order the lignans from a site the vet told me to get them from. I had all the testing done. Yes she had a full cbc done along with the act and the extended testing. Of which is rechecked at 6 mo. Her numbers have been down both rechecks. Cortisol was down and there was another hormone that was elevated but I will have to wait for the vet to send me the results because I can't remember the name of it. The vet is trying to figure out why the liver enzyme are up now. We don't know if there is something else going on right now.

[Harley PoMMom]

When steroids are in excess, whether man made or from the adrenals, this will cause Cushing's symptoms such as increased drinking/urinating, and also cause elevations in those liver enzymes especially the alkaline phosphatase (ALP) with moderate increases in the alanine aminotransferase (ALT).

Steroid induced Cushing's known as Iatrogenic, is when a dog has been given some type of steroid over a period of time and the only treatment for that type is to slowly taper the steroid use. Man-made steroids like prednisone have the same reaction is a dog's system as cortisol does, so these man-made steroids will skew the results on an ACTH stimulation test.

I mentioned before that the lignan/melatonin treatment was first promoted by the College of Veterinary Medicine/University of Tennessee for Atypical Cushing's. They have done studies on the effect of this type of treatment and the melatonin they recommend is the plain or regular kind not the fast acting or slow released kind.

Hugs, Lori

[Tam]

This sounds great where can we try to find it?? I do not know if it would help Reese or not but I certainly would try if it would not harm her. The test on Reese to see what type of cushings she had was inconclusive. I am sorry that Sarah has this awful disease. It is very heartbreaking to watch a loved pup get weaker. Reese was doing ok other then skin infections but is now getting weak in her legs and actually choked on saliva twice tonight. She lost footing and fell, seemed almost like seizure. The vet said it was nothing to worry about just yet ...I of course am panicked. Would love to try something tht may help her feel better. Thanks!

[AvileeG]

Hi Whitney,

I am really interested in your experience with Sarah, because our little Daphne has been diagnosed with Cushing's but can't tolerate Trilostane (the small amounts we gave her sent her into a downward spiral last fall). Much like you, I did what research I could, and the the only three alternative treatments that I could find with legitimate research to support them were lignans, melatonin, and phosphatidylserine. So for the past couple of months, Daphne has been on a product called Cushaway, which is a combination of all three. So far we have not seen any obvious improvement (but on the other hand, we have not seen obvious further decline, either).

So I'm curious about Sarah's dosages of lignans and melotonin with regard to her weight (how big a toy poodle is she?). Cushaway has 24 mg HMR lignans, 3.6 mg melatonin, and 90 mg phosphatidylserine in each tablet, and the dosage is specified as one tablet for every 30 lbs of weight.
Daphne is about 10.5 pounds, so she is getting ½ tablet a day (so 12 mg lignans, 1.8 mg melatonin). I wonder if Sarah is a comparable size to Daphne?

I'm also curious how long it took before you saw her hair starting to grow back?

As far as the allergies -- Daphne is also an allergy dog, her allergies are to chicken and (more recently) turkey. It took us years to figure out the chicken thing, during which she had chronic skin problems. We do make her food rather than buying it -- we have done that with all our companion animals for decades, after finding what a difference it made with our first dog. Even the more high-end commercial dog foods can have additives in them you don't want (and a lot of commercial pet foods can have pretty nasty stuff, such as the leavings from the slaughterhouse floor). And you avoid those instances such as all the recalls a few years back, when melamine was getting added into ingredients sourced in China... We've found it especially important with Daphne to be able to control her diet as precisely as we can (she's diabetic as well). If your vet is open to it, you might ask about resources for making "real" food for Sarah.

Then as far as the yeast infections -- I imagine you're using yogurt for the probiotics, which is good; but the amount of probiotics in yogurt is relatively small. We've been giving Daphne a probiotic called Pet Dophilus which has 1 billion little probiotic bacteria per ¼ teaspoon, which is more along the lines of what we've been told is optimal. You might try looking at the health food store for a good probiotic and see if it helps!

Avilee

[kanga]

I know how hard this for you! Sorry but i don't have a good advice and good information about what happen to your doggy! Hope you will find some good information soon to help your doggy with this kind of health problem.