Vally - 227. page

[Vally]

Mary, Bingo is feeling great at the moment.  Presently keeps racing outside to chase off the council workers who are mowing the street lawns.  I let him do it even though they’re doing a good job.  They don’t look too terrified of him (they haven’t seen him hungry) but the gate is shut in any event and he can’t get out – there he goes again, whenever they come close to my place.

We are now 3 weeks and 1 day into last reduction with no issues.  Yes the blood test 2 weeks and 5 days away still has me worried but I keep telling myself we’ll deal with it.

Love Vally & Shorty.

[Vally]

WHITE WINE!!!  The drunkard.

And I have a fit when dad gives Bingo, who is sitting adoringly at his feet, a bit of his meatball with ONION in it !!!  Dad says it’s only a bit – and I go on and on about how onion is POISONOUS to dogs and sure, go ahead and KILL him.  Dad rolls his eyes, Bingo rolls his eyes, I start slamming things, or when dad again, with Bingo lovingly gazing at him, gets tossed a bit of food in the 2 hours between food and his cyclosporine.  FINE, I’ll have to start the 2 hours again before he gets his drugs.

Linda, can you double check about dissolving the pred.  Here there seems to be a dissolvable prednisone, so I don’t know if all prednisone can be dissolved.  Sheena you probably know better on this though.

Do the reduction the way you feel safest.  Also to my way of thinking (nothing scientific in that) 20% of 20mg of prednisone is still a lot more than 20% of 7.5mg.  It must surely be harder for the body to cope with a pecentage drop at a higher dose, than the same percentage drop at a much lower dose – does that make sense?

 

[Vally]

Don’t apologise for being down.  We all totally understand that. I agree, if your vet thinks things look a little better, that’s good.  You’re seeing him day in day out and looking and looking for signs of problems.  Your vet hasn’t seen him for however long, differences are more noticeable – if he thinks the eye movement is a little better, I’m sure he’s right.   And as Sheena said, the weight will go back on when Diablo starts to feel hungry again.

As someone who suffers from car sickness, bus sickness, air sickness, train sickness, boat sickness (have I left any out?) – I soooo get that.

Lots of love, Vally & Bingo.

[Vally]

Linda, the wimp here says go with the 5mg in the morning and half the 2.5mg at night for now, then, when you’re ready cut out the night dose and leave Sadie on the 5mg tablet only in the morning.

PS Congratulations on the 1 year anniversary.  It’s a wonderful milestone and worth celebrating.

Love Vally and Bingo.

[Vally]

I do indeed cut that wonder drug into a microscopic size tablet.  I bought a new pill cutter – same as the old, but my way of thinking was that there is a new blade at work and I don’t use it for any other tablet.  I have another which I use for his supplements. Although really the position of the tablet in the cutter is such that it’s using the blade in a spot that hasn’t been used before – make sense? Anyhow…

Whilst some tablets don’t make the grade and get tossed out as they are more crumbs than tablet, Bingo’s vet thought he should  go from 2.5 mg daily to every second day, so I figure, if the microscopic tablet is smaller than it should be, then we’re practicing for the next reduction.

I totally get the idea of giving the larger pepcid tablet on the Atopica day.  That so makes sense.  Bingo gets Pet Tinic every second day – on the day he doesn’t get his Neoral (cyclo) – as a boost for, I don’t know, whatever.  See I have an (anal)ytical mind too.

Love Vally & Bingo

[Vally]

Just thinking going from 7.5 to 5mg is still a 33% drop.  I’ve gone through my stuff and that is what we did with Bingo.  It was when we got to the 5mg mark that we had problems twice, went back up and back down slower.

Linda, what mg tablets are you using.  I’m guessing 5mg tablets.  Bingo actually uses prednisolone, not prednisone, and 5mg is the lowest mg tablet.  You’re giving 1 tablet in the morning and half a tablet at night.  Correct?

Perhaps for a few weeks do 5mg in the morning and a quarter tablet (1.25mg) at night, making it closer to a 20% reduction.  After a few weeks, when all is good (hear the positive in my tone???), drop the night one and just do 5mg in the morning.

Heartworm medication – I don’t use it – well Bingo doesn’t use it – now and I know that is a risk but his vet said it’s not the issue HERE that the pharmaceutical companies make it out to be.  I used to do every 6 weeks which is every 42 days – that was easier to mark on the calender.  I also felt a bit better knowing if I did forget by a few days, I was still inside the 45 day mark.  I believe the 30 day idea is simply because it’s easier to remember to dose on the say, 1st day of each month.

Lots of love

Vally & Bingo

[Vally]

Linda,

Bingo still takes 25mg Neoral (cyclosporine) every second day (he weighs in at a lean 7.6kg – 16.7 lbs).  His vet preferred to drop the prednisone over dropping the cyclosporine as he said the pred has more long term effects than the cyclosporine.  Last time there he mentioned we may look to drop the cyclosporine down next.  As Bingo has never really had too many side effects of the cyclosporine, we’ve worked more on the pred reductions.

I’m with Sheena too Linda, I think the dose Sadie is on now of the Atopica is quite low.  I like averages – a mere 3.3mg a day.  I too think it would be good to bring Sadie’s pred down a little in preference to the Atopica – 20% drop better, 25% drop fine though.  I understand you are worried about the Atopica though.

Love Vally & Bingo.

[Vally]

Linda, he’s  actually on 0.9 mg a day (I said 1.9 above by mistake) because he takes a quarter of a 5mg tablet (1.25mg) one day and an eighth of a tablet (0.625mg) the next day making an average of 0.9 a day.   His vet said on the last visit to go from 1.25 daily to 1.25 every second day, but I’m terrified of skipping a day, so I convinced him to do it my way and then the plan is to drop the 1/8th tablet in a while and leave him on 1.25 every second day.

Love Vally & 0.9.