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I had previously posted about my 12 year old Border Terrier who really struggled with Lysodren. It just devastated her. After the loading phase, she never recovered enough to get going on the maintenance dose. I gave her 1/8 of the maintenance dose and **wham**, she could not tolerate it.
I was fortunate enough to get an appointment with Dr. Nelson, at UC Davis for April 14th. He is the Vet who literally wrote the textbook on Cushings in dogs (he told me he's treated over 1,000 dogs!). At the time I saw him, Zoe had not been on any medication (no Prenisone, no Lysodren) for two weeks. She was pretty weak.
He did the blood test and her values were very, very low. He decided the Lysodren may have knocked her adrenals completely out. Like: end of Cushings. He's seen it happen before. He put her on 5 mg of Prednisone twice a day for a couple of days and of course, she responded nicely. Then he tapered me off to 2.5 mg twice a day and now I am down to 2.5 mg once a day. We've been doing that for the last four days. I can honestly say, she's back 100%.
Dr. Nelson has kept in touch with me via email and always responds. He's very dedicated (a lot younger than I expected and quite cute, too!) Given that it is a teaching hospital, I intially saw a About-to-Graduate-Vet-student who spent an hour with me examining my dog. Then he consulted with Dr. Nelson, who came in with the student and spent another half hour with me. I only paid for the blood work and tests, about $300.00.
The plan is to taper Zoe off the Prednisone and see if her adrenals kick back in. He said if they do, and they begin overproducing again, he will try Trilostane (I may have spelled that wrong). If she begins to get week, he will just keep her on a maintenance dose of Prednisone.
So that's where I am at.
I was fortunate enough to get an appointment with Dr. Nelson, at UC Davis for April 14th. He is the Vet who literally wrote the textbook on Cushings in dogs (he told me he's treated over 1,000 dogs!). At the time I saw him, Zoe had not been on any medication (no Prenisone, no Lysodren) for two weeks. She was pretty weak.
He did the blood test and her values were very, very low. He decided the Lysodren may have knocked her adrenals completely out. Like: end of Cushings. He's seen it happen before. He put her on 5 mg of Prednisone twice a day for a couple of days and of course, she responded nicely. Then he tapered me off to 2.5 mg twice a day and now I am down to 2.5 mg once a day. We've been doing that for the last four days. I can honestly say, she's back 100%.
Dr. Nelson has kept in touch with me via email and always responds. He's very dedicated (a lot younger than I expected and quite cute, too!) Given that it is a teaching hospital, I intially saw a About-to-Graduate-Vet-student who spent an hour with me examining my dog. Then he consulted with Dr. Nelson, who came in with the student and spent another half hour with me. I only paid for the blood work and tests, about $300.00.
The plan is to taper Zoe off the Prednisone and see if her adrenals kick back in. He said if they do, and they begin overproducing again, he will try Trilostane (I may have spelled that wrong). If she begins to get week, he will just keep her on a maintenance dose of Prednisone.
So that's where I am at.
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