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Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - To Ron & Cooper from Brigitte & Kahlu
| Ron, I would love to compare notes. You are right, there are quite a few similarities between Kahlu and Cooper. Diagnosed about the same time, neutered male, similar age (Kahlu is turning 3 in 2 months)about the same size, they are on the same immune suppressants and they were both active, athletic dogs. When I mean athletic, check this out: http://www.parispoodles.com/Sport.html His breeder put these pictures up on her website. It still hurts to look at them. Now he can't even jump into the van and climbing stairs is hard. But then I have to look at the positive side. First and most important, I sill have him! He is going 2 steps forward, one step back. So over all we are moving in the right direction. Cooper has infections on his paws, Kahlu has one UT infection after the other. I just brought in a sample the other day and it was sent away to do a culture. With all the similarities the disease still seems to be different for every dog. This is why I treasure this board so much! Nobody understands the way all of the people on here do. Best wishes to you and Cooper, Brigitte & Kahlu |
| Brigitte BC Canada |
| Brigitte, First and foremost I hope that Kahlu is progressing with his treatments. Both Kahlu and Cooper do have many similarities. As you have stated they are both normally very high energy dogs as all Standard Poodle's and Airedale terrier's are and both seem to have dug in their heals trying to beat this nasty disease and I am convinced they both will. Today was a good day for usat the vet. We got a reading of 38 on our PCV test. As I had reflected in earlier posts we had been on very high doses of Pred and 50 mg Aza at the start of all 5this and as it turns out we came down the ladder to fast and could not hold stable numbers. Two weeks ago with PCV of low thirties we went back up on Aza to 50mg while staying at 30mg Pred. Also the infection in his foot is finally getting better after 6 weeks of antibiotics, and I am sure that it has had a positive effect on his HTC numbers. Our plan now is to continue taking a PCV test twice a week, a super chem panel every two weeks,and stay at 30 mg Pred and 25mg Aza. Hopefully our PCV tests will allow us stay this course for awhile. If they come down again into the low thirties we have to make another decision. Dr.Dodds has indicated at this point that she would lower the Pred. to 20 mg after we have reduced the Aza to 25mg for a week hoping to get the regeneration process moving on its own. My vet would rather add Cylosporine to the mix if we can't hold the HTC at remission/normal state as we are now. Any feedback appreciated and is Kahlu in the same range at this point trying to make the same decisions? |
| Ron Lakeland |
| Hi Ron, We did the pred reduction very conservative. The first ones were from 75mg to 70, then 60, 50, 40 all in 3 week intervals. After that Dr. Dodds recommended weekly reductions. We then went to 30 and 20 after 2 weeks on that we cut the Azathioprene in half. This is week 2 of this and I hope to lower the pred again on Friday to 15mg. Kahlu did a good jump 10 days ago RBC to 5.2 and HTC to .42. Unfortunately his liver is still very stressed. I hope this will be better on Friday. We do full CBCs every 2 weeks now. Maybe it would be good to have Coopers Thyroid tested? Kahlu's is very low. He has been put on thyro tabs on Dr. Dodds recommendation without even testing him. He was tested 10 days ago, that came back very low and he was put on a higher dose. He is still very tired, but life starts to be a bit more normal. We have been going on walks, which Kahlu enjoys a lot. Playing with other dogs and throwing a ball is out of the question, I am scared he could get injured. So we started a hide and seek and a search game that my daughter who is in K9 SAR's showed me. We have to keep that mind stimulated! I am glad Coopers foot is healing. I would find open wounds hard to deal with. UT infections seem to be easier for me. But we just deal with what this disease throws at us and tug along. Best wishes to you and Cooper, Brigitte & Kahlu |
| Brigitte BC Canada |
| Hi Brigitte, As you might suspect I am following Kahlu's progress with great interest. Kahlu has been fighting this ugly stuff for one month longer than Cooper. Hopefully we can match the good news that Kahlu had with his latest HCT numbers. Cooper's energy level isn't up to Kahlu's yet but we are seeing some positive changes that is encouraging to us. Thursday we will have culture results on Coopers infected paw, Superchem panel, CBC, and I also requested reticulytes data to be included. We will also spin another PCV test and hopefully the reduction of Aza to 25 mg won't have a negetive effect. I will also have a discussion with the vet concerning the possibilty of running a Thyroid panel. Wishing you and Kahlu the very best with your test results Friday. Ron&Cooper |
| Ron Lakeland |
This thread was discussed between 11/05/2009 and 12/05/2009
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