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Old September 1st, 2011, 04:02 PM
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Shadow on Prednisone

Okay, so a quick update as she's only been on the pills now for 24 hours. They do seem to be helping her quite a bit. Her bowel issues seem to be resolved, she has had her bowel movements while out on her walks yesterday and today, yay! I slept much better last night not having to worry if it was going to be another messy night. It seems the nerves are transmitting to her brain again.

When she walks now she does not seem to be quite so stiff, there is a much more natural look to her leg movement. She also seems to be more alert. Now somebody told me that Pred. may keep her from sleeping. She's still sleeping fine under my desk at work, but when she's awake, she is very alert.

Her appetite is fine! I ran out of chicken livers this week and with her appt and such I haven't been able to get to the store that carries them, so I bought a couple cans of Pedigree at Safeway just so I could put a wee bit of wet stuff on top of her Taste of the Wild kibble. Well suffice it to say that she thinks this is just the best! She's eating way more food now than she was with the liver on top. Sometimes she'd just pick off the liver or not even touch it if she knew the kibble was there. As a result she has lost 2 lbs over the last two and a half months. Right now I put in twice as much kibble and a bit of the canned stuff and it's all gone. I don't think it's going to hurt her to have a bit of the junk if it gets her to eat more of the good stuff.

The vet will be calling me tomorrow (Friday) for an update. He did want me to check how her feet were doing with the thing where you put her back paw upside down and see if she fixes it. In his office she just left it upside down and that is not good, he says a healthy dog will immediately fix the foot. Halo fixes her feet when I do this to her. At the park at lunch today Shadow would not let me flip her foot over, she put it back right away, but when we returned to the office she just stood on it upside down. Oh well, I guess I can't have everything.

Anyhow, for today, I'm happy with the prednisone, and it's not expensive either, so that's just a bonus.
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Old September 1st, 2011, 04:29 PM
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Winston Winston is offline
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DD that is good news!!! I am so happy that Shadow is feeling better even if just for a bit longer!

The vet told me the same thing about Winston..if he wants it give it to him who cares at this stage. I was already 10 steps ahead of him thinking I would do that anyway.

Well at least you know now that of she wont eat you can make a run to McDonalds for chicken nuggets

You guys are in my thoughts.

Cindy
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Old September 1st, 2011, 04:55 PM
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I'm so happy to see that precious Shadow is doing better, DD!!

As for the prednisone, it will probably give her a HUGE appetite. I don't know what dose she is on, but Nookie started on a 60mg dose for 3 weeks, then dropped to 50mg daily for a month or so, then 40 and so on. He was ALWAYS hungry! Hence the really chubby pics of him lol. He slept a lot though. It didn't make him hyper at all. One thing, if she is on it for quite awhile and the dose is fairly high, she can get whats called "pred head". It's a wasting of the muscles on the skull and in the face. Nookie had it so bad that one vet diagnosed him with masicatory myositis and had us ready to let him put Nookie under so he could do a biopsy on his skull muscles , but we decided to speak with our specialist first. She said most vets aren't familiar with pred head and don't let them do anything until she could see him.

If that happens, just know that it's "normal" on higher, long term doses of pred and isn't harmful. She will just look like a conehead
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Old September 1st, 2011, 05:03 PM
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One other thing, pred can cause them to get really bloated!
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Old September 1st, 2011, 05:14 PM
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Thanks for the Pred Head info Rgeurts. Shadow is currently getting 10 mg per day (5 in the morning 5 at night). After I think it was 5 days (might be 10 I don't have the pills with me) it drops down to just one pill per day, so the dose is very low. I guess he'll decide once she's on them for a while if they need to be increased or decreased, but fingers crossed that right now it's good. I guess I'll have to stock up on the cans of Pedigree . Shadow is fairly thin right now, so a bit of bloating won't hurt her I guess.
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Old September 1st, 2011, 06:54 PM
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That's great that the pred is working so well at a relatively low dose! That's a lot of improvement for such a short time on the new meds. I hope this gives you a lot more time together!
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Old September 6th, 2011, 04:58 PM
Red Shasta Red Shasta is offline
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Tierce the Shiba is on Prednisone for his seasonal allergies. It's sure better than having him scratch himself miserable. I would much rather a dog have a good quality of life now than having a miserable (longer?) life. I notice that he drinks a lot more than he used to and tends to be a little more reactive towards other dogs - not enough to be serious, but enough that I watch his interactions carefully.

He's been on the 'zone for about a month now and so far, so good.
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Old September 6th, 2011, 09:36 PM
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DD, it sounds like maybe she's been feeling well enough to possibly overdo a bit. Remember, she's been less active for a while, so she was probably a bit out of shape. Enough so that she tired herself out when she started feeling better again, maybe? It might be that after a few days she'll recover and start being more active again.
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Old September 7th, 2011, 07:38 AM
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DD I am so glad that things are going better for Shadow. She deserves to be happy.

The dose of preds that she is on is really a low dose, so I don't think you need to worry about any problems. If they help at this point then I think that is great.
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Old September 7th, 2011, 10:30 AM
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Hazel, it is possible that she's just fatigued, although I have tried to keep her doing short walks daily so her muscles keep moving. Even if that means taking a break halfway through our walks. I'll keep her on the 5 mg in the morning and half of that at night for now and see where we go. So far no more wetting in the bedroom, but I do have to wake her in the middle of the night and put her out just to be safe. Hazel, the heat here right now would explain the panting at home, but at work we're air conditioned and she still pants frequently, so that concerns me.

Sylvie, thanks for the support. I know her dose is low, so I sometimes wonder if it was higher if she'd have better results. Right now I'm kind of torn on whether I'm seeing enough results. Yes it's better than it was with the metacam, but I still think she could improve some, and I'm not looking for a 10 year old dog.

Red Shasta, so glad to hear that Tiece is doing well. I have a fond spot for Shiba's. I think they're wonderful little dogs. My second dog was called Sheba and our trainer bred Shiba's. Good luck to your boy with his allergies, my lab has them also, but not so bad that she needs pred.

Last edited by Dog Dancer; September 7th, 2011 at 10:48 AM.
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Old September 12th, 2011, 11:07 AM
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So I have a new question now about Shadow's behaviours and health. Last year one day when she was in DH's jeep for a couple hours on the way home her face was vibrating for lack of a better word. Her bottom jaw was just shaking up a storm and she looked like she would have a heart attack. It would stop when I was petting her, but otherwise she was shaking up a storm. I put it down to nerves as she doesn't like the jeep.

In the last few days though I've noticed her doing this more often. One day we were just sitting outside and the neighbours daughter was there and the mom said Shadow was shaking. On Saturday we were driving to a friends house and again her lower jaw was shaking. Then last night while we were all out together at a neighbour's house, her jaw was shaking. No real stress factors for her in the more recent episodes.

I'm not connecting this to the prednisone seeing as it happened a long time ago as well, but curious if anybody has had this with their dog. It really bothers me when she does it. It stops as soon as I start to pet her, but starts again when I stop.

Anyhow, I'll be asking the vet about it. Since increasing her pred. the other day I have not really seen the improvement I would expect. She was having a great deal of trouble with stairs on Saturday, and had a poop accident in the house last night (which was no big deal, she has never been good at waking me at night). She still seems to stumble quite easily when we're walking, which sometimes she wants to do and sometimes she doesn't. Should I be asking the vet about increasing the dosage? She's taking 5 mg at breakfast and 5 mg at dinner. I guess I was just hoping for a more dramatic improvement, and I could just be out to lunch with my expectations. The improvement was so drastic when I first put her on it, I guess maybe it got my hopes up too high and I should just be happy with what we've got. But I can't help but wonder if increasing it would help more...
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