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Originally Posted by wandakt ...........He started her on Enalapril which is supposedly a mild blood pressure medicine. He will reevaluate her in a month and do blood work and hopefully the ultrasound. He said that through the years, the medication will have to be tweaked here and there but he thought I was the right one for the dog. .......Wanda |
Wanda-
I went through this with my cocker. My cocker Alex was on Enalapril for like 8 years. She lived to be 12 and died from an unrelated illness. Yes from time to time you will have to tweak the enalapril like increase the dose or decrease the dose and sometimes you will also have to use a low dose of a steroid (which is a dieretic(sp) in this case) because sometimes they can get a little fluid build up in their lungs. It is important to watch them to see if they cough because that means that there is fluid build up and if there is no coughing then there is no fluid. Every 6 months they go for the Vet to listen to their heart and lungs to make sure everything sounds ok. They can be a fairly normal dog with a normal life with only a few restrictions like I had to limit Alex's exposure to extreme heat and too much cardio activity like extended play times. It was also important to feed her a low sodium dog food and treats like Hills Science Diet Prescription Diet H/D (heart diet). I also gave her distilled water to drink because other water can have sodium in it. Otherwise she was perfect and no one would have ever known she had a heart murmur. Powder Puff will do great! Good luck to you and Powder Puff!