Happy .... Cushing's or Hypothyroidism

[Happy]

Good day to everyone :)
My parents have a 10.5 year old dog called Happy (a mixed between Tibetan Terrier and a mother, for which we do not know the breeds that are mixed - but my guess would be that there were quite a lot of them), and he has 29.5 kg. Since the beginning of this year, he is accompanied by poor luck with health - in the begining of January he had a severe urinary infection first, which we managed to heal with antibiotics. Later in January he had castration due to tumours on his testes; Within a week, the poor man had another complicated surgery due to kidney stones in the bladder. He was barely able to get through his previous conditions and he was already exposed to extremely high sugar .... so Happy is now on insulin, and because BG is by no means lower, he is now 20 units - we use Caninsulin (and his blood sugar is between 18-28 through the day and night). Happy's veterinarian - endocrinologist believes that Happy has Cushing's syndrome and that his resistance to insulin is due to the fact that he probably has Cushing's (to be able to perform tests for Cushing's syndrome, Happy must reach 29 units of insulin - as the veterinarian says they will only be able to find the tests reliable enough).
Since Happy was the most healthy and happy dog ​​for most of his life, the whole situation was extremely shocking, and I must admit that I am really, really confused (all I read from the begining of this year is health pages and links between various symptoms / diabetes - cushing - thyroid,. ...). According to his symptoms (symptoms of both Cushing's and hypothyroidism are unbelievable similar), I wanted to perform thyroid tests a few days ago and today I received the results: T4 = 0,2g / dl (1,3-4,5) and TSH 0,39 ng / ml <0 , 60. I am completely aware that there may be some other disease in the background of extremely low T4 hormones, but it seems to me however that only hypothyroidism might be possible. The veterinarian gave me the decision to treat thyroid hormones with pills .... and now I'm in a dilemma, should we try to treat the thyroid, or should we continue to increase the dose of insulin and wait for the test for cushing's syndrome?
Has anyone ever met a similar situation and would be willing to share any information with me?
I apologize for a long and quite confusing message ....
My sincere Thank You to every reader and i will be really grateful from the bottom of my heart for every answer or advice.
I wish you all a very happy, positive, fairytaly, beautiful, magical day .... and lots of kisses from your furry friends :)

[Katy1]

Greetings and welcome to the best place on the planet for not only information but especially support for you and your pup, or in your case, you parent’s pup.

I can only talk to you about my experience with regard to cushings disease and insulin. I have a 10 year old miniature schnauzer who had been diabetic for almost one year prior to her cushings diagnosis. Several weeks before her official diagnosis, she began drinking a lot of water and needed to pee more. She had developed a big pot belly and had put on extra weight even though her diet remained the same. My husband and I had to be out of town for a week so I spoke to our vet about checking her glucose. He called me while we were gone and told me that Annie’s insulin regulation was out of control and he suspected she had cushings disease, which can really mess with the insulin control. He ran the necessary tests, including a check for a bladder infection which was negative. He also did an ultrasound of her adrenal glands after the test for cushings came back positive.

Annie had no weakness in her legs or hair loss which are classic physical symptoms of cushings. There is also an excellent sister site for dogs with diabetes and I have to go back and forth because my Annie has both. You might want to check that out too. It’s k9diabetes.com. I have no personal knowledge of hypothyroidism but there are people here who do.

The only thing I’m qualified to tell you is, trust your instincts and talk to your parents to gain more information about Happy’s symptoms and ask your vet for a definitive test for cushings. Don’t fill your head with numbers right now because everything can change in a heartbeat. Blessings to Happy and your family. Karen.

[Squirt's Mom]

Hi and welcome to you and Happy!

I am not able to chat with you very much at the moment but I did want to give you the most important piece of information I can offer - directions to our sister site K9Diabetes. They are the experts on canine diabetes and will be able to better help you decide IF it is feasible Happy does indeed have Cushings or not and how to proceed from here. Please follow this link, register asap, and start talking with them - http://www.k9diabetes.com/forum/

More later on Cushing's!
Hugs,
Leslie

[Katy1]

Hi Leslie, thanks a bunch for jumping in for this person and his parent's pup. I was just trying to offer some information from a personal perspective but I noticed I didn't have the correct link, plus I don't how to post a link. I still have so much to learn here and you all are so patient with me as I slowly learn. Blessings Leslie, Karen

[labblab]

Hello and welcome from me, too! I’m so glad that both Karen and Leslie have had the chance to greet you, and I totally agree with their recommendation that you join the k9diabetes forum. This is for a couple of reasons. First, of the three possible conditions, diabetic control is the most urgent. And from what I’ve read, it sounds as though the medication you’d give to supplement hypothyroidism may affect the way in which the body is able to process insulin. The people on the k9diabetes forum will likely be much more familiar with this issue, and hopefully can offer more knowledgeable advice about trying the thyroid supplementation now, as opposed to holding off for the time being while you are working on stabilizing the insulin dose.

As you’ve already written, a dog with a low T4 but normal TSH can be suffering from low thyroid levels that are secondary to another condition, such as Cushing’s. So Cushing’s may indeed be a possibility. But if I’m understanding your vet’s strategy, he wants to wait to test for Cushing’s until he’s had the chance to try to bring the diabetes under better control with a reasonable dose of insulin. I can’t argue with that. First, dogs suffering from uncontrolled high glucose levels are more likely to register “false positives” on the Cushing’s blood tests, meaning that they test positive even when they don’t really have the disease. And secondly, if a dog’s glucose level can indeed be well controlled with a reasonable dose of insulin, it makes Cushing’s less likely, altogether.

So to summarize, it does make sense to me to hold off on the Cushing’s testing for the moment. As to whether or not to start the thyroid medication now, I’d ask that question over on the diabetes forum. I’m hoping that they can better advise you as to whether or not it would be better to start, or to wait while the insulin dose is still being increased. Please do let us know what you can find out, OK? This will be a good education for us, too.

Marianne