Emmy update
First, thanks to everyone who has sent well-wishes, etc our way for Emmy. We really appreciate it!
Next... Emmy appears to be responding to treatment. Which is good, because she isn't peeing every 1-1.5 hours, and her water consumption is down to probably more reasonable levels. It's also bad, cuz this strongly suggests CDI (central diabetes insipidus). I'm hoping it's not, but I don't know how to further confirm it or refute it- it's a diagnosis of elimination. There's no single test that tells you for sure "yes, she definitely has DI." There's the urine tests (I get to collect urine samples from my dog, how fun is that ) that still need to happen. There's a possible water-elimination test in her future- this is where she has limited water intake and she is monitored for weight loss due to dehydration. If she loses 5% of her body weight in a set time period (for her this is about 1.5 pounds, and she's underweight right now!), then she probably has DI (which type depends on the urine test results). We could try not giving her the medication and see if she returns to her old behaviors. If she does, it is probably DI. Sigh.
I really don't want my dog to have this disease. Like I said, it's potentially life-threatening. It could be chronic- for the rest of her life. It's expensive- a week's supply of the meds cost almost $60. That's almost $255 for a month's supply; almost $3100 for a year. She's only about 1.5 years old. Admittedly, this is a trial we're doing right now; based on my research this medication is normally administered via nasal spray, eye drops or injection. The rescue group we got her from said they may be able to help us find discounted sources for this medication, the nasal/eye/injection formulations may be cheaper than the tablets, the canine health plan I have her on should give me discounts on meds, and she may not need as many doses per day or as much medication per day if we have to go into maintenance mode. But still. We may not be able to afford this. Sigh.
I may need to take her somewhere for a second opinion, or something. I'm just lucky my vet even considered the possibility- DI is extremely rare in dogs (my vet has never treated a case personally, and I think another vet has maybe seen 2 cases in her dozen years of practice), and before her bloodwork came back he was saying it's much more likely that this was behavioral/psychological than DI. Even after the bloodwork he said it could be her being "crazy in the head"- that her levels indicated it could be that or DI, that it was hard to say.
It's entirely possible that she was given up because of the DI (or psychogenic?) problem- we know she was an owner release (meaning her owner dropped her off at the shelter 'formally'). If her owner didn't figure out she had a medical problem and just assumed she couldn't be housetrained, that could be why s/he dumped her. Even if her previous owner took her to a vet for this problem, the vet may not have diagnosed her correctly and the previous owner gave up on Emmy, or the vet did diagnose her with DI and the owner decided it was just too much... I don't know. Since this happened in WV and Emmy was dropped off at a kill shelter, it's hard to know what would have happened to her if the rescue group hadn't pulled her from there.
At least if we had to give her up, she would go back to the rescue group and they'd try to find a new home for her. Which would be difficult because she would be a 'special needs' dog at that point, and many prospective adoptors shy away from that... Gah. Sorry. I'm rambling at this point and thinking of worst-case scenarios and it isn't even certain she even has DI at this point. I should stay positive, right? It's hard, because she appears to be responding to the treatment... it's good and bad, a potential double-edged sword.
Some interesting trivia: the insipidus part of DI comes from the word 'insipid', because the urine produced by DI sufferers is so dilute and 'weak'. Fascinating, no?
In other news, we went to the Reston Festival (the Restival!) and came home to Emmy-induced chaos. It is likely that one or both dogs ate cheese pizza. And finished off a bag of canine dental chews. And Emmy certainly found things to get into, scatter about and destroy (mostly trash items, but one bamboo coaster was sufficiently gnawed that it needed to be thrown out). And when we got home it was all "we're happy to see you we love you PLEASE FEED US WE'RE STARVING NO ONE EVER FEEDS US, EVAR" and I concluded that no, the two slices of the large pizza were enough, Lorraine wouldn't miss a meal (she's a little pudgy at the moment and on a diet) and dog food on top of the pizza and who knows how many dental chews would just not be good for puppy tummies. And they had finally resigned themselves to this, until ambug666 came back downstairs and they decided that "Daddee is a pushover, of course HE will feed us!" It was quite comic to watch.
I've got to get to bed- please keep your fingers crossed for me. Both for Emmy's sake, and mine- I really don't want to wake up to the sound of canine retching tonight! *g*
ETA: A winner is me! No canine pizza puke! Yay!
Next... Emmy appears to be responding to treatment. Which is good, because she isn't peeing every 1-1.5 hours, and her water consumption is down to probably more reasonable levels. It's also bad, cuz this strongly suggests CDI (central diabetes insipidus). I'm hoping it's not, but I don't know how to further confirm it or refute it- it's a diagnosis of elimination. There's no single test that tells you for sure "yes, she definitely has DI." There's the urine tests (I get to collect urine samples from my dog, how fun is that ) that still need to happen. There's a possible water-elimination test in her future- this is where she has limited water intake and she is monitored for weight loss due to dehydration. If she loses 5% of her body weight in a set time period (for her this is about 1.5 pounds, and she's underweight right now!), then she probably has DI (which type depends on the urine test results). We could try not giving her the medication and see if she returns to her old behaviors. If she does, it is probably DI. Sigh.
I really don't want my dog to have this disease. Like I said, it's potentially life-threatening. It could be chronic- for the rest of her life. It's expensive- a week's supply of the meds cost almost $60. That's almost $255 for a month's supply; almost $3100 for a year. She's only about 1.5 years old. Admittedly, this is a trial we're doing right now; based on my research this medication is normally administered via nasal spray, eye drops or injection. The rescue group we got her from said they may be able to help us find discounted sources for this medication, the nasal/eye/injection formulations may be cheaper than the tablets, the canine health plan I have her on should give me discounts on meds, and she may not need as many doses per day or as much medication per day if we have to go into maintenance mode. But still. We may not be able to afford this. Sigh.
I may need to take her somewhere for a second opinion, or something. I'm just lucky my vet even considered the possibility- DI is extremely rare in dogs (my vet has never treated a case personally, and I think another vet has maybe seen 2 cases in her dozen years of practice), and before her bloodwork came back he was saying it's much more likely that this was behavioral/psychological than DI. Even after the bloodwork he said it could be her being "crazy in the head"- that her levels indicated it could be that or DI, that it was hard to say.
It's entirely possible that she was given up because of the DI (or psychogenic?) problem- we know she was an owner release (meaning her owner dropped her off at the shelter 'formally'). If her owner didn't figure out she had a medical problem and just assumed she couldn't be housetrained, that could be why s/he dumped her. Even if her previous owner took her to a vet for this problem, the vet may not have diagnosed her correctly and the previous owner gave up on Emmy, or the vet did diagnose her with DI and the owner decided it was just too much... I don't know. Since this happened in WV and Emmy was dropped off at a kill shelter, it's hard to know what would have happened to her if the rescue group hadn't pulled her from there.
At least if we had to give her up, she would go back to the rescue group and they'd try to find a new home for her. Which would be difficult because she would be a 'special needs' dog at that point, and many prospective adoptors shy away from that... Gah. Sorry. I'm rambling at this point and thinking of worst-case scenarios and it isn't even certain she even has DI at this point. I should stay positive, right? It's hard, because she appears to be responding to the treatment... it's good and bad, a potential double-edged sword.
Some interesting trivia: the insipidus part of DI comes from the word 'insipid', because the urine produced by DI sufferers is so dilute and 'weak'. Fascinating, no?
In other news, we went to the Reston Festival (the Restival!) and came home to Emmy-induced chaos. It is likely that one or both dogs ate cheese pizza. And finished off a bag of canine dental chews. And Emmy certainly found things to get into, scatter about and destroy (mostly trash items, but one bamboo coaster was sufficiently gnawed that it needed to be thrown out). And when we got home it was all "we're happy to see you we love you PLEASE FEED US WE'RE STARVING NO ONE EVER FEEDS US, EVAR" and I concluded that no, the two slices of the large pizza were enough, Lorraine wouldn't miss a meal (she's a little pudgy at the moment and on a diet) and dog food on top of the pizza and who knows how many dental chews would just not be good for puppy tummies. And they had finally resigned themselves to this, until ambug666 came back downstairs and they decided that "Daddee is a pushover, of course HE will feed us!" It was quite comic to watch.
I've got to get to bed- please keep your fingers crossed for me. Both for Emmy's sake, and mine- I really don't want to wake up to the sound of canine retching tonight! *g*
ETA: A winner is me! No canine pizza puke! Yay!