Diagnosis Process for Chico

[Flura_N_Chico]

Hello,

First of all I wanna say thanking you for having and maintaining this beautiful community. I am very happy to have found a supportive group to help me through this process. I have been back and forth with this diagnosis and this forum has been a great resource for me.

So now will share some of my little guy's story. My fur baby's name is Chico. He is a 9 years old Chihuahua Mini Pin mix. Chico was my Mom's baby. My mom passed away 4 years ago to breast cancer. So now he is my little baby. My mom unfortunately did not feed Chico dog food. She basicly feed him what ever she ate so when he came into my care he was pretty overweight. Back then he was about 22 lbs. I put him on a dry food diet got his weight to some what normal(18-19lbs).

So it all started with stones. In April of 2017 I noticed blood in his urine and of course immediately took him in to the vet. After multiple visits, test and an x-ray we learn they are calcium oxilate stones and can not be dissolved with diet. Being as they wanted almost $1800 for the surgery It took me about a month and a half to get the money together. We had the surgery late June of 2017. I couldn't believe it he had 10 stones in his little bladder. (They were big too ...poor little guy)

When I go back for a check up with Chico a month after surgery very thing is good no stones. However he had elevated ALP levels(1784 u/l) and suggested we take the cushings test. My vets office dose not take appointments, it is first come first serve. Unless you ask for someone specific you get who ever is available. The vet that first suggested the cushings test was new and there was something about him I didn't like. Just felt like i couldnt trust him idk why(Thank God I have found one now I like and ask for him when I go in). I thought he was trying to get more money out of me. So I stupidly decide to wait.

Now we cut to his next check up in November of 2017. We get a his blood work and urinalysis. His weight went down to 17lbs.
Results:
ALP-615 IU/L
Cholesterol 326 mg/dL
Triglyceride 360 mg/dL
Precision PSL 170 U/L

Urinalysis
Gravity 1.004
pH 5.5

They ask to do the blood work and urinalysis first thing in the morning to try and get a more accurate read. I unfortunately do not have the results for this test but his ALP was lower, his cholesterol was lower. The gravity levels were still low however they were better. So again we decide to wait.

Chico was loosing weight and since he has always been over wight I have never seen him less than 17 lbs before. I started to notice 2 large symmetrical lumps on his back so I take him to see the vet in February. The vet felt the lumps and said that it's just from him loosing weight they are apart of his ribs. With him loosing weight he is getting closer to normal for his bread. I think he weighed 15.5 or 16 at this visit. The doctor said normal is about 14lbs. We didn't do any test at the moment because he was due for more test soon anyway. We planed on bringing him in march however schedules made it difficult and I couldn't bring him in the beginning of June.

Results from June 2018:
ALP 1529 IU/L
Cholesterol 307 IU/L
Trigyceride 191 IU/L
Precision PLS 326 IU/L
Platelet count 420 10^3u/L

Gravity 1.008
pH 8.0

After these results and with his weight gain(back to 18l.5bs) they want to test for cushings we do dexamethasone suppression test for cushings.

Results June 14 2018:
Pre 830am 5.6 ug/dL
Post 1230pm 5.3 ug/dL
Post 430pm 5.0 ug/dL

I guess based on those results and his elevated ALP and history of stones they are certain he has cushings we are just not sure weather it's adrenal or pituitary. I am supposed to bring him in for more testing next week not sure which test is next but I am hoping we finally find out for sure which type we are working with.

I am looking forward to and appriciate any input you lovely folks can offer. I'm all new to this and still learning. If I need to post more info with the results let me know. I tried to just post the levels that were high or abnormal.

Thanks again for allowing a space for me to share and learn through this process.

With Love

Michelle (aka Flura D Lily )
&Chico9

[Joan2517]

Hello and welcome to you and Chico! We have a 14 or 15 year old teacup Chihuahua named Dorita, or Doree for short.

Is Chico showing any of the classic symptoms for Cushings? Excessive drinking, peeing and constant hunger? Others more knowledgeable than I am will be along to say hello and give you some advice.

[Flura_N_Chico]

After reading my post I realized I forgot to include some other symptoms he has been displaying. Some of his symptoms he has been displaying since he came into my care so I didn't notice any difference. He is always in search of food. Constantly looking around the floor in the kitchen sniffing for the any little morsel of food he can find. After he had the stones and I started paying attention more attention an looking for other symptoms. After the stones I did notice a few what I describe as skin tags. They are like soft raised bumps that have no discoloration. He has a one on his stomach that is about 2x the size of his nipple. I have also noticed just within the last 4 months or so he has had small little scales or tags round his elbows. It started out with dryness. After looking back and talking with my sister and if my family members he has been had an issue with circling. About 2 mabey 3 years ago he had this circling issue where it seemed uncontrollable. He would circle in tight small circles and he would stop for almost a minute. I couldn't snap him out of it, not even with food. When I looked it up online I found that Mini Pins have issues with circling when they having had enough exercise. So I started taking for more and longer walks. Now he only has his circling fits once every 3 or 4 months. The excessive drinking and urination is there, however because of the stones I had been encouraging drinking and rewarding him for drinking a lot (with prescribed urinary treats). Since June of last year he has been on the royal canin urinary SO wet food to help prevent stones. Before the wet food he used to play with his dry food before he would eat. He would pick up just one kibble and toss it in the air and play with it for a minute before he would eat it. An he would do this at least with about 3-5 kibbles before he would eat the rest of his food. Now even with the few times I had to give him the urinary SO dry(that's all we had or the store was out of canned food) food he just devours it. No time to stop and play before he eats. It's kinda sad because it was so cute the way he would play with his food before he ate.

Since he has always had weight problems the pot belly was hard for me to see. His weight has fluctuated and he looks x10 better from when I first got him 4 years ago(a lot of family members have noticed). Even with some weight loss he is still over weight for his bread.

That's all I can think of now. I am on my way to work and will an back later if I think of anything else

With Love
Michelle & Chico

[labblab]

Hello Michelle! I’m so glad Joan has had the chance to welcome you and Chico, and I want to add my well wishes, too. I apologize that I don’t have the time to add more right now, but I will definitely return at another time. And as I say, I definitely want to welcome you both to our K9C family!

Best wishes,
Marianne