Holy heck. If a vet put Ellie on $373 worth of meds a month and I found out she didn't need them, well, I would NOT be happy.

the Flovent was 178.00, her Denamarin 62.00 her ursodiol was 30.00, Potassium Citrate 25.00 Soloxine 10.00... Hydromet 12.00...Then her frontline and heartguard... and that was just samie- she had my other dog SADIE--on even more meds- at one time- soloxine, tramadol, clavamox, benezeperil, amlodipine, and claritin- and all of this at ONE time!!!

and to go a step further- i faxed the specialist Sadies labs- (he saw her in december)... and he said to stop the thyroid med with her too. their thyroids were in normal range. Both dogs! sadies at 22 and samie's at 24. both tsh in normal range and both on thryoid med. ??????

for what it's worth- sadie is only on benazeperil for her protein loss- and we are hoping that her high blood pressure is what caused so much protein loss in her urine. If that's the case then I will be HOT about things. bc liver can reverse and repair- the kidneys cannot. As soon as I get some free time I will update info on Sadie.

Tramadol is for pain. Why was Sadie in pain?

If you ever need to use Denosyl, it is cheap at entirelypets.com.

Not to mention the stack of invoices i have for all of the unnecesary tests she did- we have a budget we track and we averaged about 500-600 a month at the vet. when samie fainted one day and we did labs and xrays it was 378.00 just for that day. it has been literally insane. we ask ourselves...how in the world did things get so out of control? how did this happen?

what else could we do but think we had such a great vet! she kept finding so many things wrong with our dogs that the old vet didn't. the old vet too was bad- she said i was lucky to have samie this long with her ct. the specialst said to us.. has she ever had a scope? who diagnosed her with ct?? he said she did not cough while we were there with her once. she does not have ct. i have a video of her that i will take with us in 5 wks. i am anxious for him to see it. she is coughing but maybe it wasn't ct after all. yeah you guys are right- i need to rest my weary brain for a little while. My mom is coming in town this week from Ohio. It will be so nice to see her.

WE had a bad storm here sat am and both cars hail damage big time! and our brand new house.. a hole in the roof and shingles everywhere from the storm. water leaking from the b/room ceiling. it just has to get better. what a w/end! :-)

yeah she overcharged us big time for the denamarin. sadie sometimes has back leg pain. she runs like a maniac and that week she was limping a little. she is totally fine now. if she does it anymore she is having it looked at. she was only on the tramadol for an as needed basis. and she needed it the week she was on everything else. you should see the doggie drugstore i have here. it's crazy!

I wonder if it is luxating patella.

I feel bad that you spent all that money for possibly no good reason.
And I'm so glad you decided against a liver biopsy for now.

omg i was so mad at my husband for not wanting to do the biopsy. we spent so much on Sadie and now Samie needed something and he was totally against it. so at first I was so mad at him. It if wasn't for YT we would have done the biopsy... We were ready to schedule the appt the following week. I wanted to get in out of the way before my mom came this week. Plus i did not want to wait. The trigger to see the specialist is when we learned that the ursodiol could potentially mask a problem. that was all i needed to hear and off we were right to the specialist!

Both of my girls i believe at one we were told that knee pops out...not a grade level to be concerned with. Samie has already had the surgery for lp 3 yrs ago. we are still hoping Sadie will not ever need it. if she ever has problems with it again to the point where she would need pain meds then i want it x-rayed.

I am signing off for the evening. Have a good night :-)

almost 2 wks w/o meds!
 

We are nearing 2 wks now w/o meds and Samie is doing well. I am anxious to see what her labs will show in another 4 wks. the only thing she always has an issue with is her ears. She has some hair in there that I would like to remove but she always gets an infection when i take it out. She seems to have a lot of wax buildup so i make sure to stay on top of that and clean her ears. she has been itching them and I tried cleaning last night. There must be some irritation bc the swab had a super tiny spot of blood on it. I think she may have scratched and that was why- but it still freaked me out. she hasn't itched or dug in her ear anymore today. I don't want to use any type of cleaner just yet bc i don't want it to burn or irritate her. I do have some ear relief drops and some wax-ol which is a more oily liquid and soothing that i will use if she starts shaking her head or starts digging in there again. I sometimes see her digging and then licking her paw. Once I get all of the wax out she stops. Also i see no brown color discharge or anything so I don't think any infection. no foul odor or anything either.

she is doing well overall. Mom and sister are visiting from out of town...and they are getting LOADS of LOVE. they are loving life :-)

update on SAMIE...
 

Well after seeing the specialist... and discontinuing ALL meds! (flovent, pottassium citrate, soloxine, Denamarin, Ursodiol)

We did a new baseline with new complete blood work up and urinalysis.

Samie's Bat came back PERFECT!!!!!!

She is NOT HYPOTHYROID!!! SO no more Soloxine

and... NO CRYSTALS!! the urinalysis is done "in house" so her urine is immediately tested within seconds of collecting it. her ph was @ 6.0, we will continue to monitor every 3 mos to make sure no signs of crystals show up= I also have test strips so I will monitor her ph every few weeks since I am too nervous to just wait it out for 3 mos :-) No more Potassium Citrate added to her food either now,

Needless to say the (OLD!!!!!!!) vet had her Over-medicated for no reason!
this Vet is no longer OUR vet!

It was the FLOVENT that was impacting her LIVER!!! and immediately the Vet wanted to jump into doing a biopsy! Makes me so MAD to just think about it again!!! she so messed up and for the second time! And she messed up big and this was for the LAST TIME!!!

We are still unsure if she has collapsing trachea or Laryngeal Paralyis so we are closely monitoring that. Samie has bad allergies, her nose and eyes have been watery and when she lays down sometimes she coughs. I have benedyrl to give her if her allergies are really bad and she does a lot of coughing.

the only thing we found was she is producing protein in her urine, and her lypase and amylase is high. this "could" be the reason for the protein loss but we will monitor and we just started her on Benazeperil) her UPC was 2.3
we are hoping the med will help this come down.

The specialist recommended a diet LOW in fat and high in fiber. they are still on Wellness wgt mgt it has 6% fat and 8 % fiber. We also are adding Metamucil (1/4 teas 2 x's per day) to her food. Stool has been a tiny tiny bit loose but nothing runny. Still- I am keeping a close watch on it.

However, now that we have the new baseline it's time to talk to a nutritionist about what the best diet is.

Wanted to give ya'll the news!

:bravo:

What wonderful news!!!!!!!

So happy to hear the BETTER result!

I am looking EVERYWHERE for the Nutritionist info that someone gave me and I cannot find it anywhere. I would like to do some research but I have so many threads and messages LOL. If anyone remembers posting it please let me know :-)

I have not been on this site for awhile and I had not been up to date on what had happened recently..I am so sorry for what you went thru. It is really a crime the way this last vet treated you..geez...that is so wrong.. sounds to me like she doesn't like what she does and needs to rethink what she wants to do when she grows up...If I had to pay everytime I personally spoke to my vet I would have been broke a long time ago.. I almost left my vet because of a partner he had that didn't seem to like animals..I never saw her touch my dog when she did an exam. And it wasn't because he was dirty or mean or anything like that. And she overmedicated him once and I almost lost him...That cost a fortune in the Emergency room...They are just like our own doctors though, some of them are just in the wrong business...I am so happy you have found someone to help you..your babies and you have been thru hell for apparently no reason...I just pray they continue to improve...God Bless...:animal-pa :)

I can't believe she was over medicated that much.
You must be relieved.:)

I have a nutritionist, Wylie's Mom does and then there is the one from Cornell or U of Tennessee.

I am currently researching Dr. Shawn Messonnier, DVM. he is here in Plano,TX and he is a Holistic Vet. I am hoping he can help us with a super great diet to feed my girls. I also am hoping her can just be our regular vet. I just don't know what our best options are. My girls need to be on a LOW fat and HIGH fiber now bc of pancreatitis problems. One was diagnosed with it more than the other so they both need this type of diet. no vomiting, just runny poo. and not every single time. but more so than not. today it is mushy.

I have 2 wks until we get a new UPC reading to see where we are at with that- and then I will have a fresh lab to take to the nutritionist or fax to which ever one I pick. I don't know if I want to do a phone consult with one or just go to Dr Shawn Messionnier. He is so well known. If you do a search on him it's amazing the accomplishments he has made.

in the meantime, the girls are still on Wellness wgt mgt. I tried to switch to the wellness super 5 mix/senior since the fat content wasn't too much higher. the folks at wellness told me the wgt mgt formula can vary from 6-10% and the super 5/senior did not have more than 10% fat. but maybe it was enough to make a difference?? don't know but not taking any chances. can't wait to find the right rood for them.

the stool started being a bit more runny so we are now back on the wgt mgt. food. and adding fiber supplement called Konsyl. 1/4 teas 2x's a day.

Anything to try to get harder stools. Been mushy today. :-( passing gas... (pee-u!) not too often but a few every now and then. so i know her tummy does not feel good. maybe tums or pepcid a/c will help.