Adrenal gland tumor

[June]

My dog has protein in urine, and did an ultra sound, the vet find a tumor on the adrenal gland and suggest the Dexamethasone Suppression Test as vet said my dog have Cushing. My dog does not drink a lot but sometime paint and have a pot belly. Hair grow slowly. With the Dexamethasone Suppression Test, is there any side effect on the test as cortisol is inject to do the test?

Not sure whether to do further test, or to treat or not to treat as hear a lot of scared story on Cushing and the drug use have lots of side effect?

thank you for the helps

[labblab]

Hello and welcome! I literally have only one minute to post right now, but I wanted to let you know that I combined the info in your two new thread-starters into this one single posting. This way, all your info will be consolidated in one place. ;)

Once again, welcome!
Marianne

[June]

My dog has protein in urine and did an ultra sound and find an adrenal tumor. Vet suggests to do an Dexamethasone Suppression Test. Is there any side effect of injecting cortisol in the dog body.

Blood test:
Every thing normal except
ALP 210 (5-160)
SDMA 19 (0-14)
Potassium 5.3 (4- 5.4)

Drinking is normal, pot belly, sometime paint.

Not sure whether to do further test, or to treat or not to treat as hear a lot of scared story on Cushing and the drug use have lots of side effect?

Feeling scared and frustrated!

[molly muffin]

Hello my biggest concern is the SDMA being elevated as this is an early indicator of kidney disease. Did the vet mention that?

An LDDS does not usually cause problems as it is a suppression test and what they are checking is to see if he can suppress producing cortisol at 4 and 8 hour.

cushing meds can be life saving, but I'd want to discuss with vet, the kidney issue and what they think about that in conjunction with the cushings.

[June]

Thanks Molly,

The vet does not mention any thing about early sign of kidney disease. I will certainly ask them those questions. I saw that there is foam in the urine. That's worry me. Right now, no medication was given to treat urine in protein. Vet would like to have the LDDS test first. Does the cortisol injection would cause cushing?, just worry about it.
With Cush pup, does the adrenal gland tumor (cushing) has any cause to the kidney disease?

Thanks

June

[molly muffin]

No the injection for the LDDS would not cause cushings.
when the cortisol agent is injected, the body notices that it has enough cortisol and so doesn't produce any more. At 4 hour and 8 hour they redraw blood and see if the body continues to not produce more at each time.

Any time a dog has high cortisol for an extended period of time, Months, years, etc, it will affect other organs. At this time, you don't know for sure if your dog has high cortisol/cushings so it is not determined if high cortisol has had any affect on the body.

Protein in the urine can be an early indicator towards kidney problems.

[Squirt's Mom]

Hi and welcome!

Personally, I would forget Cushing's and concentrate on the kidneys. IF kidney disease is in play that could cause false positives on the testing for Cushing's. And kidney disease would influence how, and if, treatment for Cushing's could be approached. So start with the kidneys. ;)

Hugs,
Leslie