greyhead

Great news! Hope you'll still keep your eye out for suitable rugs to put around. He'll need them sooner or later.

It's important that you not do the LS test repeatedly (i.e., more than twice) at or near the same time. It can hurt (e.g., herniate) the disks further up the spine. You can watch the muscles bunch up mid-spine as they try to stay on their feet. I'll just add to chorus of voices saying you need a good vet.

Theoretically there's no dosing different between Soloxine and other forms of thyroxine, but Soloxine is widely believed to be better absorbed. Therefore, it's potentially stronger than the others. It sounds like .4 is the place to start for Vinnie and your regular vet just isn't aware that sighthounds should get half the regular dose. In all likelihood OSU will say Vinnie's numbers are normal for a greyhound. You're going to have to decide what you want to do. I didn't ask OSU or Dr. Dodds either to start with, just relying on my own instincts about the numbers in consultation with my vet, who did know about greyhound dosing. ETA: I was writing while tbhounds, whom I dearly love, was posting. She refers to the extended discussion we've had on GT -- and I'm glad we have -- about what's common for greyhounds in general and what's normal for any particular individual dog. There are those who believe (like Batmom, OSU, and MSU) that a greyhound can get along fine with no detectable T4. I'm not going to rehash that argument here because it about killed me the first time. I'll just say that what's possible for a three-year-old intact racer may not be the same as what's optimal for a neutered older hound. In the end it's still up to you and your vets to decide what's possible and best for your dog. Further editing: If you're a glutton for punishment, we can probably give you links to our GT arguments about hypothyroidism. If I were you, though, I'd break the pill in half, give .4 mg, and tell your vet about it tomorrow. But that's me, and I'm not a vet.

What a good long life she had with you and your pack. I'm very sorry for your loss.

Bernadette, I know from experience that Dr. Dodds would probably not approve that big a dosage for a greyhound. I take it she was unaware what your vet was proposing for the dosage? Does your vet know that greys should get half the dose any other dog of comparable age and size but non-sighthound would get? Our Spencer is a tall and large male, approx 85 lbs at that time, and was on .5 or .6 of thyroxine. When we changed vets, the new vet retested and submitted the results to Dr. Dodds. She said that was a large dose for a greyhound but that his blood levels of everything were good so it didn't need to be changed. (Nobody told her anything about his size, and that dose was good for him until recently when we retested and reduced it.) I would not start with a dose anywhere near .8, especially not with Vince's issues. I'd think something like .4 would be more appropriate. Perhaps the vet would agree that you should just break those tablets in half. ETA: The problem of competing experts has arisen before, regarding thyroid, IBD, and other serious medical issues. The best we can do is research enough to be educated about the issues and know our individual dog very well. The final decision about what to do or not do for our animals is always ours, after all.

Not a clue. But I hope that appointment is early next week. Has the vet outlined what the diagnosis possibilities might be?

I think you're going about this very well, and I'm hoping that a little thyroxine will make lots of things much better for Vinnie, including the pain. Hypothyroid conditions can give rise to widespread pain. Before I was diagnosed, I got to where I couldn't pick up a mug of coffee some days because of the pain in my forearms. It's likely that OSU will say that Vinnie is in the normal range for a greyhound. As I've argued before, individual differences are very important, and what's possibly a normal range for many or most greyhounds isn't necessarily optimal for each individual greyhound. Good luck to you and Vinnie, and I hope you'll let us know how it works out.

Shane had one for six months that escaped detection, until it finally showed as E. coli. It took months of antibiotics to "clear," but even then he had a leakage problem. He seems to have an issue with his kidneys after all that, and the only way we've been able to almost eliminate the leakage entirely is by putting him on a medium protein kidney diet (Royal Canin Renal). Whenever we try to put him on a different food, the leakage increases big time, so Royal Canin it is. I should also mention that he tested positive both for Babesia, for which he was treated two years ago when all this started, and for Lyme, for which he's about to start treatment. Have you tested for TBD's? They can mess with the kidneys and lead to problems like this.

I'm so very sorry for your loss. :f_white

Yes, I had that reaction to #6 myself.

It's a lipoma! The vet aspirated it. I asked if there were many false negatives with aspiration, cuz I thought I'd read that somewhere, but she said no. So we're good on that front. Thanks for your support!

Hey Kelly! After looking at the video again, I'm noticing an expanse of wood flooring. Perhaps some non-slip rugs, runners, or foam standing pads would make walking easier in the house and increase his confidence a *whole* lot! And then maybe he'd get up and move around more, which would lead to stronger muscles. Also wanted to mention that we vary Spencer's doses of meds depending on how he's doing, as some earlier posters mentioned doing. I'm really thinking and hoping that Raxley could get enough relief from a med increase to improve! He's a very lucky boy to have come to you, I think, and your concern and TLC have already made him better. You know that, but I just thought I'd mention it.

Our Spencer is 11-1/2 (and looks SO much like your guy), taking 200 to 400 mg/day of the gabapentin, and 1-2 tramadol tablets/day depending on how he has been doing. He has been getting acupuncture/chiropractic treatments for the past three years, which have kept him not needing the meds until about six weeks ago. His diagnoses are lumbosacral stenosis (by the Dr. Stack test) and a slipping/arthritic lumbo-throracic disk (by x-ray). Before the meds, he'd started moving and behaving much like Raxley. So I agree with tbhounds that you can probably up that gabapentin for sure, and perhaps the tramadol too. We're about to revisit the possibility of getting a depo medrol shot for him; we had held off on that because we'd understood that those shots only work for about two years, and he was only 8 when the LS became apparent. Some dogs seem to get by very well with a depo shot every six months and don't need other meds. That would be nice, I think! One thing that has been important for Spencer is to get one to two 30- to 60-minute walks per day (60 only if we stop a lot and visit with people). That has kept the supporting muscles good enough to do their jobs. (But his two-mile walks of prior years are too much now. Even though he can complete the walk, he pays for it afterward.) It also matters that his nails are in good trim because otherwise one of his back legs turns outward too much and his stance becomes too wide. Don't know if any of this info has been helpful to you, but I hope so. Let us know how things work out, okay? ETA: On walks, we've started using an assist harness that we got from GT-er Carol Becker. If he needs help, we want to be able to manage it. Carol makes these to fit greyhounds perfectly.

Robin, fwiw, we've put Spencer back on Budesonide briefly (2-3 weeks) a couple of times, turned it around, and then been able to discontinue it again.

This. And speaking from experience, make sure they do a good check of the thyroid. In a related vein, does she go for walks with you? I ask because another clue for us with our hypothyroid dog was that he started to tire after a half-mile of walking.

Oh dear, I'm sorry this is happening. What was in the shot? Did the vet think the pain was from gas? Sweet Beau is in our thoughts and prayers.

It sounds like your vet has ordered further thyroid testing, which is good. You can look in the GT archives and find a lot of argument about hypothyroidism and greyhounds. I'm in the camp that thinks that the fact that greyhounds may be hypothyroid less often than other breeds doesn't really matter if your dog is truly hypothyroid. Googling canine hypothyroidism -- or even human -- may tell you a lot about all the things affected by thyroid function, and it may even make you feel better about the situation. Some dogs have been pulled back from the brink by thyroid supplementation. ETA: The last couple posts happened while I was composing this one. I'm not meaning to blow by the chest-rad issue.

Perhaps he was hit by a thrown ball or frisbee once upon a time and now only has to hear the sound of one being thrown to want to get away. (I got hit in the face with a baseball thrown in the dark when I was 6, and it made quite an impression on me!)

I'm very sorry your boy had to leave. Godspeed Govey

Yeah, Jason, I followed your and Toby's situation, and I'm so very sorry about the whole thing. (But happy about your new girl!) I'm guessing the vet didn't see the message before she went home. (Message transmission is not their strongest suit.) So it's good that GT is here for us. No freaking out -- got it! He is having trouble with the stairs this evening, so we did just get his harness on him for safety's sake. Now I'm wondering whether the gabapentin is helping or hurting the LS situation, since loss of feeling in the nerves is what leads to stumbling. He doesn't seem to have gotten my memo asking for just one problem at a time! ETA: One of the vets just called. We have an appt with his regular vet Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, this other vet gave me an idea for varying his gabapentin dose and for watching the lump.

Thanks, everyone. The soonest vet appointment I can get will be Tuesday, of course, and I'll request the "soonest available" when they call back. What I'll ask on the phone also is what developments, if any, should send me to an e-vet before that. Meanwhile I'm reading some scary stuff in the archives, including mention of an unnamed blood vessel cancer (Houndtime's Merlin). It's so small compared to some of the pictures I see of hemangiopericytoma. Haven't gotten to the mast cell pictures yet. Anything else I should be looking for? I'm not trying to make myself crazy. But I've found working with vets is much easier if I aleady have some idea what they're talking about. As it is, based on his walk this morning, I think we'll be doing the p.m. walk with his assist harness on him.

Just found a lump on Spencer's thigh, about the size of a nickel, and it appears to be subcutaneous. I don't see any redness or other discoloration, and he doesn't mind my rubbing it. It doesn't move as far as I can determine. He had some trouble with that leg on this a.m.'s walk, with it drifting outward and the foot turned out more than usual. (He has been treated for LS for 3-4 years, currently on gabapentin and tramadol.) I've called in to the vets' office and requested that one of them call me before they go home and tell me what to look for over the weekend. Meanwhile, can you guys educate me about how to evaluate lumps at home in deciding whether and when vet attention would be a good idea? Links to previous threads,etc.? I'm off to search the archives myself, too. Thanks, Mary

Congratulations to Rocky and your family! He's a handsome one! Nice tag too!

Rest well, big guy.