my 9 year black lab has cushings disease. we are giving him lysodren which he can't tolerate too well. help

Question

our black lab was given a loading dose of lysodren for 10 days. at the end of this period he started getting listless , lost appetite & had trouble moving around. gave him the antidote prednisone which perked him up. started him on maintenance dose of lysodren of 2.5 pills once a week. 2 days later he again was not doing well. any suggestions? we are afraid to overmedicate our beloved dog , scout. we have been told by our vet that if the cushings disease progresses too far that he may start urinating in the house but we don"t want a drugged up dog either.

Answer 1

Hi Fred,

There are other drugs that can be used besides lysodren, though it depends a little on why he has Cushing's. You probably know that it can be due to a pituitary (part of the brain) tumour -this is the most common cause in dogs- or a tumour on the adrenal gland. It can also be caused by long-term steroid treatment, but evidently that is not the problem your dog has.

If he has got pituitary dependent Cushing's, you may want to talk to your vet about a drug called ketoconazole- it's used relatively commonly in Cushing's dogs that cannot tolerate lysodren...that is actually the main indication for its use in treatment of Cushing's. Basically it interferes with the enzymes needed for production of cortisol. (Though it can also be used in dogs with an adrenal tumour).

Another drug is Anipryl, which reduces pituitary ACTH secretion (the hormone responsible for cortisol release). I'm not sure of its availability though, as I think it's still being trialled.

Please feel free to email me also.

Bassetmom- good luck with your first dog spay! I did my first one in March this year- kind of scary, but you feel brilliant afterwards!

Answer 2

Okay..... be sure that he is at the correct dose for him. Do ACTH stim tests to monitor his levels. Also the new drug that I used on my dog is Trilostane. This works well for dogs who cannot tolerate Lysodren. But it is not FDA approved and I had to order it from England. My Cushinoid dog unfortunatley passed away a few years ago from a bleeding tumor on the outside of his stomach. He seemed to respond well from this treatment.
http://www.wedgewoodpharmacy.com/animals/index.asp
http://www.dechra-us.com/trilostanevetoryl.htm
I don't have the information to get directly from England but these are other links. Plus I have to go talk to my anestheia prof for my first dog spay surgery on Friday! But I would talk to your veterinarian about this for Scout.

PS Fred please ignore that first person who told you to put your dog down (which I'm sure you did ignore). They obviously know nothing about Cushing's Disease which is completely treatable, and they know nothing about veterinary medicine. The person who told you to take Scout off steroids doesn't seem to know that your dog is sick because it's own body is over producing it's own steriods. A normal level of steroids is needed to live and that's why your body makes them. When an animal gets hyperadrenocorticisim (Cushing's disease) it's body just makes way too many of these natural steroids.
Email me if you have any other questions. :)

Answer 3

Know nothing about cushing desease in dogs but do know that the dog should get better after he is off steroids for a while. In humans it takes about as long to get rid of it than it took to develope it. If you want the dog and are willing to tolerate some problems he might have than just take good care of him

Answer 4

Ask your vet for a different treatment, if he refuses or just can't be bothered trying, find a different vet.

Hope your dog is OK =)

Answer 5

Put it down!!! Stop torturing the dog because you can't let go of it!!!