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Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - sophie and debbie
| Sophie went back today for her blood tests and they said everything was fine and they wanted to reduce her from 2mg Pred. a day to 1.5 mg a day. I told them I wasn't comfortable with this since we decreased her 50% last week and that would be too much in a 2 week period. They were ok with this but honestly I think they are rushing this. As you know last Monday they wanted me to go from 2mg twice a day to 2mg once a day and I decided to do it very slowly over that week so I'm not decreasing it any further till next Monday if all her blood work is fine then we can decrease it to 1.5mg a day. Im not sure how to read this because we are only getting a spin done right now because it is so much cheaper so for Aug 9th it was PCV 46% TOTAL PROTEIN 6.8g ldL and this week Aug 16 it was PCV46% TOTAL PROTEIN 6 gldL. It looks like it is down a bit to me but I have know idea what is down. Its the first time I'm reading a spin usually we get a CBC done. Her weight is maintaining at 14.1 kg. not a loss but at least not going up any further. And last night she slept on my bed for the night. hurray! Crazy to be so happy about something like that but its been 3 mths since she has done this. Usually she jumps up and settles for 5 mins then jumps down and lye's on the cool floor. After going to the vets yesterday I had to go to the hospital myself and apparently I have shingles on my face and my lower eyelid. blah . The stress of a loved one can take its toll eh? Hopefully it wont last long . They say they caught it early enough for treatment so here's hoping. I just hope Sophie stays well this week and her weight goes down a bit. She is breathing so much better with the once a day pred. I see a lot of differences in her. |
| debbie N.B. Canada |
| Debbie, Unless Sophie is very tiny, say less than 15 pounds, this dose of pred (1.5mg) is not considered a clinically immunosuppressive dose. Umm fancy word. It means that you are no longer supplying prednisone to do the job of suppressing the white blood cells that might have been responsible for the hemolytic damage. At this point you are carefully lowering the dose to help the adrenal glands "wake up" again. They have been inactive while you have been flooding Sophie with high dose prednisone, or in other words the same kind of cortisol these glands make. They realize they are not needed and stop working. It is very important to do this slowly in order not to cause a shortage of cortisol in the body while these glands wake up. Cortisol controls many important body functions related to stress and if it is not there in sufficient quantities when needed, there can be problems. So you want to reach a dosage that is just a bit lower than the body can make for itself on a daily basis. This encourages those glands to begin contributing again. However, your vets have done this many times and understand these risks. They know how to do this decrease. You are, however, not doing anything risky or wrong to not want to lower the dose now if you just can't do it. my best patrice |
| Patrice NYS |
| ok Patrice; that makes sense what your saying and why i am seeing an improvement in sophie this week. Im still waiting till next week to lower it though. thanks for the info. debbie |
| debbie N.B. Canada |
This thread was discussed on 17/08/2010
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