Steroids

[Trudy]

You should be able to select any number of choices for each question.

 

 

With Ryan's happenings the last few weeks, we have found he is no longer a candidate for oral steroids. Not sure about injected ones anymore.

 

Our current vet used to work with the track greys in England. His experience has been greyhounds don't do great with oral steroids, so he avoids using them unless there is no other option and only then if the dog hasn't had past issues and he's on pins and needles to see how the dog does.

 

He has no issues using injected steroids, so Ryan had a couple of injections of cortisone. They didn't help.

When we went to the neurologist and she gave us oral prednisone, we told her that our vet didn't feel comfortable giving oral steroids as his experience hasn't been good with oral steroids and greys. She said she has no problems doing so and told us to go ahead and give them. Since I was unsure if he meant all steroids or just oral prednisone and she said it would be fine... we gave it to him.

 

Less than 24 hours later on the table for the MRI, Ryan let her know he's one of those greys our vet has problems giving ALL oral steroids to. He had blow out bloody D from his newly acquired bleeding ulcer from the prednisone.

 

 

Just wondering what others experiences have been.

[Guest Tenderhearts]

Lori Ann had a couple of injections, and was on a high dose of oral steroids (prednisone) for two months when we were trying to get the happy tail healed, and then the first amputation (about 3" of the tail).

 

The only side effects I noticed were the increased drinking/urination, which I expected.

 

The worst part was waiting for that to subside once she was tapered down as it seemed forever before she was back to 'normal'.

[Guest KennelMom]

Grandpa had steroids injected once, no problems. He absolutely can not tolerate even small doses of oral prednisone. The adoption group we adopted him from nearly lost a foster to prednisone, which was how I first learned that there is an intolerance to the drug in greyhounds (combo of Grandpa going on it, not doing well, mentioning it to the group and getting a very quick, very strong response warning from them about pred) IIRC, Care of the Racing Greyhounds does caution against oral pred unless it is absolutely necessary (been a long time since I read it and don't have my copy handy at the moment).

 

Now, I recall when all this happened talking w/the vet about injected v oral and there was a difference in that if they were injected, they were tolerated more easily. Little fuzzy on remembering that part though.

 

We've not been in a position since for any of our dogs to need steroids since then, but I would only give them if there were no other option and I'd watch the dog closely for a bad reaction like Grandpa had.

[HopeForHounds]

Foxy had an oral steroid, no pred a few years ago for her neck. No problem then. She gets low dose pred for her LP only when needed which is very rare, again she tolerates it well.

 

Hope you get Ryan's issue sorted out.

[turbotaina]

Turbo did a week of oral pred and we didn't have any problems at all, including with urination. But, he was on a low dose and a short course, so I don't know how he would have been if he had been on them longer.

[Remolacha]

Both Sugar and Fletcher have had doses of oral pred, but both were short term (5-7 days). Can't remember the dose, but neither one had any problems.

[Batmom]

B was on a low dose of oral pred to stimulate his appetite, for the last couple months before he died. It helped. It caused minor inconvenience initially -- he drank a lot and had to pee a lot -- but that effect diminished within @ 10 days; I did always give Pepcid prior to any other meds, including the pred, and usually was able to get some food down him before dosing. Prior to that, he had a med that included a low dose of steroid, forget which one, when he had kennel cough; minor increase in drinking and peeing.

 

Rocco the Evil Whippet was on oral pred once for a back/neck thing. It seemed to help him more, faster, than NSAIDs which he had for two other episodes. He had some increase in drinking and peeing but not very noticeable -- he drinks and pees a lot all the time for no reason that anyone can determine. He didn't have any trouble holding it thru the night.

 

Forgot one, Zema gets a little steroid cocktail injected before she gets a vaccine. Eliminates swelling and pain at the vaccine site. Doesn't "improve," "ameliorate," or "help"; it totally eliminates the problem. No other side effects.

[Bevd]

Stanley has been on oral steriods for about 6 weeks now. He's having Medrone V, alongside his Metacam, for spinal arthritis. The Metacam alone was no longer doing the job. My vet did say that they don't often like to add in something like Medrone but when a dog is struggling like Stanley was, it's worth considering.

 

For the first few days, he drank a lot more than normal and urinated a lot more too but this wore off after about 3 days. Since then, he's been fabulous on these meds. They've given him a new lease of life.

 

I know these meds are not ideal long term, but for Stan, they are the only option to keep him mobile.

[Guest Spiff]

Spiff has had one round of depo-medrol injections for LS - he was totally fine with it. I didn't notice any problems or changes (besides improvement in the LS!).

[Guest snowberry]

Herbie suffered extreme muscle wasting after a week on oral steroids (receiving 50mg a day, 25 mg twice a day), lost 2 kilos that week, and became so weak he couldn't even lift his leg to pee. I was having to carry him upstairs and bath him every day, because of course he needed to pee a lot. He also had episodes of panting, and when one of them lasted for four hours, I insisted we stop. We then had a couple of weeks of scaling down, and it was only when the dose reached 12.5 mg a day that the panting episodes stopped. He was also depressed and withdrawn.

 

He's now on 20mg every other day as part of his lymphoma treatment, since all chemo protocols seem to include prednisone as one component. I asked for a gastroprotectant, as I had been warned some greys developed bleeding ulcers, and on the days he has his pred, he also has Antepsin.

 

[Bevd]

Actually, I do think Stan has lost some weight and some muscle tone on these meds but for him at least, this is OK because he was quite a 'chunky' boy (not fat but heavily built).

[Fiona3]

As a last ditch effort to save Hobbes in August when he suffered a vascular event, our vet injected steroid and placed him on oral Prednisone. We thought it would just give him another week or so of life but now two months later he has improved his walk, no knuckling of back feet and the incontinence he was experiencing has been vastly reduced (in spite of the Prednisone). It confirms her diagnosis that his problems were due to a tumor and the Prednisone is keeping it under control.

 

He currently is getting 35 mg. a day, has gained weight and seems content and happy. Although he will never we able to go for walks again with the other dogs, he can get up and down without help, walks around our yard to bathroom and is quite mobile.

 

Hobbes is 13-1/2 years old and for us the Prednisone was a true life-saver.

[Guest Cris_M]

In nursing, we were taught that steroids were great drugs with huge side effects. That is pretty accurate. With steroids, one decides which is worse -- the disease or the steroids -- and proceeds accordingly.

 

Gabriel was on very high doses of oral pred since he had leukemia/lymphoma/pancytopenia. He had excessive urination, increased appetite, severe muscle wasting, and periods of increased heartrate and respirations. However, he did not have stomach ulcers. This was because our vet put Gabriel on Cytovec 100 mg three times a day at the same time he put Gabriel on pred. The Cytovec protects the stomach lining from erosion.

 

Most of the side effects from pred cannot be prevented. Stomach ulcers can. I do not know if the Cytovec can make a difference once the dog has stomach ulcers but it might be worth asking your vet.

 

Would I put Gabriel on pred if I had it all to do over again? You bet! It gave him several happy weeks after diagnosis and brought us even closer than before. Would I recommend pred to everyone? NO!

 

I do hope you find something that works for your hound. My prayers are with you both.

[Trudy]

Ryan was also on stomach protectants and had a snack with the doses we gave him. For him, it didn't help.

 

Since my vet does not like to use oral steroids in greyhounds because of what he has seen in the past, I was asking to see how many people here have had issues with steroids in their greys as I know many people here have used pred.

 

Other than Heather with one of her dogs, it doesn't seem like anybody had too bad of issues if they had any at all.

[Cheryl2]

With oral steroids my grey developed nasty mouth lesions very quickly. Had to switch back to injectable until we were done with it.

[Jiffer]

Icarus had both.

 

He was on Pred for his skin itchies back in '04. Aside from having an accident on the floor (totally my fault), he did fine on it.

Later when he was injured in a dog attack (2005), he was given a steriod injection and oral deramaxx to take. He had no side effects to either.

 

Mind you, on Pred he did suffer an increase in seizure activity within the first few days.

[Guest Honeysmom]

One time Payton had a steroid injection for allergies which seemed to help him and he showed no adverse signs from it.

[romansperson]

We've had to use steroids with our pups over the years - both injectible and oral - for neck and back problems.

 

Never had an adverse reaction to injectibles.

 

Side effects with oral steroids are dependent on which one is used (usually prednisone, but we've also used dexamethasone) and the size of the dose. Larger doses mean a greater chance of side effects and they can be more severe too.

 

Greyhounds often do suffer more greatly from the adverse effects, so our vets have always used less (usually half the dose) of oral steroids than they would use on a different breed of the same size. We always use a stomach protectant too.

 

We have fortunately not had to deal with bleeding, but we believe Roman suffered from steroid psychosis from his course of oral prednisone. It was really quite disturbing at the time.

[Guest jurygirl]

Jury can not take oral Pred either she actually does not do well on any drugs. She needed to be on something to help her protein losing enteropathy so we started using Budesonide oral steroid instead(found out about it on Greytalk). She has been on it since January and seems to tolerate it alright.

[ahicks51]

Coco (79 pounds) gets 5 mg of pred ~3x/week for his allergies. They don't seem to be dietary, so they must be environmental. I figure it might be grass. It gives him great relief from his symptoms, and the tiny dose has only one drawback that I know of: increased urinary volume.

 

One tiny dose of that drug makes all the difference in his life. He went from scratching his eye to the point of drawing blood to being a normal dog.

[Cynthia]

Pred is a catabolic steroid so muscle wasting and stomach issues with use is almost a given. Both Monty & Katie have been on pred off and on since April of this year (for different conditions). Katie's neurologist taught me to always give Tagamet when giving pred, and there have been no tummy issues for either of them. Fingers crossed that this continues to work well for them, as even a very slow decrease and then elimination of the pred for Katie resulted in severe symptoms within a few weeks.

Edited October 14, 2007 by Cynthia

[krissn333]

Pinky is currently taking 20 mg prednisone daily to treat her lupus. We thought she just had discoid lupus but she's recently started showing signs of SLO...both of her dew claws fell out and bled a couple of weeks ago, she just lost a rear outer toenail, and she's got another rear toenail looking like it's pulling away. She hasn't had any problems with taking the meds...she takes them every morning with the rest of her meds with her peanut butter. I just make sure she's had breakfast before she takes her meds, just in case.

[gazehund]

My only experience with steroids is we have never had to use them so far.

Good luck with Jet, I hope he feels better soon.

Edited October 14, 2007 by gazehund

[Guest greyhound_bug]

Lori Ann had a couple of injections, and was on a high dose of oral steroids (prednisone) for two months when we were trying to get the happy tail healed, and then the first amputation (about 3" of the tail).

 

The only side effects I noticed were the increased drinking/urination, which I expected.

 

The worst part was waiting for that to subside once she was tapered down as it seemed forever before she was back to 'normal'.

 

Eli had the same side effects as Lori Ann when he was taking it for an inflamed disc in his neck. He however, was only on them for 3 weeks from start to finish.

[Guest LynnM]

Have used both on many greyhounds, never a problem, but also have never had to use for a long-term situation.

 

Lynn