Aw Diana, I'm so sorry you're ill
! How stressful to have all this going on at the same time. I hope your virus goes away soon. And I hope that whatever your more serious illness is, that it eases up for you and that you heal and get better. You will stay in my thoughts and I'm sending good positive energy your way.
It took a long time to get diagnosed. Wylie's ACTH test was "borderline" aka "intermediate". When that happens, if you still suspect Cushings despite that result (which we did, based upon symptoms), you have to send blood to the U of Tennessee Vet school / endocrine lab - it's the only place in the country that can test for Atypical Cushings. At that facility, they re-do the ACTH and also test the levels of intermediate hormones to see if it's indeed Atypical. And sure enough, it turned out he has Atypical.
No, Wylie's numbers weren't like Teddy's...which makes me think Teddy is probably typical Cushings (makes things a little easier, in a way). Wylie does have similar meds to regular Cushings dogs - he is on Lysodren/Mitotane which is a chemo drug - but it is at a low dosage and he only takes it MWF. Usually what you do when you start a Cushings med is you ramp up first (give it every day for a while), then you back off a bit and see where you land with the next ACTH results (see if the cortisol is where you want it). (Sidebar: ALSO, on that note -- very important -- when you do start his new meds, you also ALWAYS want to have cortisone pills on hand in case the meds are too strong and he starts to show LOW cortisol, then you give him an external cortisone pill to stabilize him. Your vet will know what I'm talking about and go over it with you.)
I would sure hope Teddy's immune system would stabilize once you start treating the Cushings...that would be my assumption anyway since once you start getting that raging cortisol down, you really do start to see the positive changes. Cortisol at those high levels is SO tough on the entire body - from the organs right down to the skin...it effects it all.
Oh, and btw, Wylie's US showed his adrenals as pretty much totally normal, which his Internist said is pretty common...interesting, huh? You'd think it'd be enlarged when undiagnosed, but apparently this is not always the case.
It's such a complex, convoluted, insidious disease -- it took me a long time to really understand Cushings, even though my bach degree is in nursing, lol!
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Originally Posted by dianaww  Hi Oh I see how did you get that diagnosed that would of been really difficult I imagine, had Wylie been castrated or not? Teddy is so I doubt this will be the reason for his. So does Wylie have to have the same sort of MEDS that dogs with usual types of Cushings, Teddy is so tired, and the most worrying this is it has killed his immune system. His total white cell counts have been in the 2.5, 3.5 & 4.5 areas instead of his usual total of 8, the lowest they say is normal is 5.5 and that is the lowest, so at 2.5 he is nowhere near 5.5 even at 4.5 it is still too low, so he is often running a low grade fever, we are extra careful with him due to infection risks etc. I hope the US scan will show us if his adrenal glands are swollen or something else that is causing this level of coritisol.
Did Wylie have similar results to Teddy (NOT that I am suggesting Teddy has the same thing at all) He may well have standard type of Cushings, His US will be next week we hope or early part of week after. It depends when referral hospital can fit us in. It is 60 miles from us and I am very seriously ill myself, and usually don't go out I am almost totally housebound, I have to go though, and also I have a hospital appointment myself too 55 miles away, and on top of all my usual illnesses I now have a virus with all the stress, so I am hoping and praying I will make my appointment and more importantly his appointment.
I usually get really ill going 6 miles and back !!!! |