Hypothyroidism

[Guest wrldruler]

In response to George's chronic diarrhea, we're having a bunch of "standard" tests run. We're still waiting on the Irritable Bowel results.

 

So far, all the test came back fine, except for the thyroid.

 

He came back with a T4 level of 0.4.

 

I have read that 0.5 --> 3.6, with an average of 1.47, is normal for greys

http://www.greyhound-data.com/dir/396/Hypo..._Greyhounds.pdf

 

The vet wants us to put George on thyroid meds for one month, and then retest, and re-evaluate.

 

Curious is there are any risks with doing a one month trial, or should we just give it a shot and see how his behavior and blood scores change?

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

 

[turbotaina]

Is he otherwise symptomatic for hypothyroidism? If he's not, I don't know that I'd treat. And did you have a full panel run?

Edited November 2, 2007 by turbotaina

[RobinM]

Nothing BAD can happen. I presume you will have him on Soloxine?

 

My Chloe has hypothyroidism. When I got her she was on the meds. She had ONLY had a T4 and it was .02 I did a VERy slow wean off as I wanted to know what her ful thyroid panel was. It took 3 weeks to wean her off and then we had a full panel down. She indeed had T4 of .02 and her T5 was ridiculously low and worst of all, we did not recognize our dog which was the reason she had been bounced the 1st time around.

So, we put her back on and within aweek, we saw a drastic change in her perosnality. She was back. Even if her #'s were not so low, we would have put her back on becasue it was helping her. Sometimes there are drugs that are used off label if necessary.

 

Did your dog have a FULL panel done? If not, I strongly urge you to do it. If it was doen recently, the lab should still have the blood. You can call your vet and ask.

 

What are the personality traits of your dog?

[fritofeet]

I wouldn't do a thyroid test run without the full panel results to support the need for it.

 

My previous vet told me that nothing bad could happen to my non-greyhound by running a drug trial on him.

My new vet thinks that it is very likely that the medication contributed to the series of strokes that he had, since he was not hypothyroid, but had cancer.

 

I can't remember the lab, (MSU?) that runs the full thyroid panel-but if you need that information for your vet, I'm sure another GTer will chime in with it, or I can look it up when I get home.

 

I had a bad experience, and am a little jaded-but there can be bad side effects with ANY drug. Vets tell us that Rimadyl is completely safe, and yet there are dogs that have passed from adverse reactions to it as well. Again, the cases that I know about had contributing undiagnosed health issues, but it has happened.

 

I'm not saying that your dog is not hypothyroid or that he doesn't need medication-I'm just saying that I personally would make sure that the need is there before doing a "trial."

 

 

 

[Batmom]

I would get a full panel run and interpreted at MSU before starting thyroid supplementation. T4 is a very inaccurate means of judging thyroid function -- it can be unmeasurable one day, high the next, medium the next, etc.

[Guest wrldruler]

I paid ~$100 for a "Super Chem" blood test, found the low T4, and then paid another ~$75 for a second thyroid specific test.

 

I will have to get all the test numbers from the doc. So far I have only been briefed over the phone.

 

Based on the second test, the vet said he had a "3T4 by Dialysis" value of 10, with normal being between 8 and 40.

 

I will get the print out and repost.

 

Thanks

 

 

[Guest DeweytheGreyt]

Nothing BAD can happen. I presume you will have him on Soloxine?

 

My Chloe has hypothyroidism. When I got her she was on the meds. She had ONLY had a T4 and it was .02 I did a VERy slow wean off as I wanted to know what her ful thyroid panel was. It took 3 weeks to wean her off and then we had a full panel down. She indeed had T4 of .02 and her T5 was ridiculously low and worst of all, we did not recognize our dog which was the reason she had been bounced the 1st time around.

So, we put her back on and within aweek, we saw a drastic change in her perosnality. She was back. Even if her #'s were not so low, we would have put her back on becasue it was helping her. Sometimes there are drugs that are used off label if necessary.

 

Did your dog have a FULL panel done? If not, I strongly urge you to do it. If it was doen recently, the lab should still have the blood. You can call your vet and ask.

 

What are the personality traits of your dog?

 

I disagree. Our Fallon had to be seen at the UW Vet school here due to a skin condition. The vet put Fallon on thyroid meds because he as "low" (not taking into consideration that greyhounds have funny values") and because she thought it would help with the skin condition.

 

While the jury is still out on whether or not having Fallon on thyroid meds cleared his skin up or if it was the ketoconizal, or the cehpalexin (please forgive my spelling) our specialist told us that the thyroid meds would make his hair fall out but would be replaced with new hair within a couple months.

 

Fallon went from a happy, FURRY dog to a mopey darn near hairless dog in less than 2 weeks once on thyroid meds. Our specialist is now reconsidering her suggestion of thyroid meds and has asked us to wean him off as he is darn near naked and losing more hair daily.

[BauersMom]

A T4 test without the full panel is really meaningless. The vet might have said "free" T4, not 3T4, and in that case, they still need the rest of the panel (TSH, etc) before making a call.

 

Nothing BAD can happen. I presume you will have him on Soloxine?

 

Well, except that you'd be dosing a dog with thyroid supplement who doesn't need it. That's significant.

 

Dogs will react to thyroid treatment because the effect of the supplement causes changes, regardless to they NEED it or not. I wouldn't recommend someone put their dogs on any meds unless there was a medical reason for it, and certainly I wouldn't recommend thyroid supplement for the sole reason of behavior modification when there are medicines (and other nonmedical methods altogether) out there for that use.

 

Treating the symptom and treating the cause are two different things, and if the thyroid is low because something else is going on, then it's better to keep digging and find the cause.

 

 

[RobinM]

For us, regardless of what her numbers were, she WAS going back on Soloxine because without it, she was not a complete dog. She hid in her crate and didn't interact.

 

So, the numbers are important but so is the behavior.