Page 92 – Second Chance AIHA Dogs

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Keymaster

Hi Terri,
Why in heavens name would you not deserve our attention??? You love your dog and do all you can to make him feel as good as possible in his last years. We are here to support you in that, you definitly deserve that!!!
I must say I am still kind of baffled that you did not get a better response from Dr. Dodds. It is not like her at all. But as you say, leave it at that, move forward. I looked at the CBC even though I am not good at interpreting. Of course the rise of the HTC jumped right at me, Happy Birthday, that was timely:) This is a VERY positive developpement! How much does Koda weigh? The general rule is to give 1mg of prednisone per lbs of dog, it seems to me the 25mg perday is low, but maybe I am wrong and Koda is smaller than I think? The accidents are very common. Please don’t get tempted and restict his water. He really needs that. Just be aware that he has to go out much more, maybe even during the night. This is a very common side effect of the prednisone and it will go away once the drug can be slowly reduced. Keep an eye on frequent urinating/straining/blood in urine. That could be a urinary tract infection. This too is fairly common especially in older boys. I gave my boy some cranberry extract, just opened up the capsules and sprinkled the powder on the food. It has lots of vitamin C too. If it did not help I am pretty sure it did not hurt.
Is Koda still on the rimadil? I have absolutely no scientific proof but I know a dog that developped anemia from this drug. Of course the vet denied it but the owner was pretty sure the rimadil was the culprit. This was also an older dog with arthritis. She did recover.
I hope Koda is still on a stomach protectant like sucralfate/carafate. Sorry if I repeat myself, but I have heard too many emergencies because of ulcers and don’t want Koda to go down that road.
You are absolutely right Terri, you do NOT want to strengthen Koda’s immune system if indeed you are dealing with IMHA. This would be totally counter productive.
If you are thinking of supplements Koda could benefit from, Milkthistle is a good one to protect the liver. Also SamE would do that. After a few weeks of prednisone many dogs get very high liver values and these products can help with that. There is also a product called petinic that helps these dogs. It has Vitamin B, folic acid and iron in it. All of these help with the blood production.
You are right, it might be easier to deal with all this with an old dog that had a good life. But it is still YOUR dog and if your vet gets a handle on this there is no reaso why Koda could not have a couple of good years. How is he dealing with it all? Is he feeling better now that his HTC is higher? Old dogs are so very special, they can make you happy just by being there.
Best wishes,
Brigitte

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