Abby, the Shih Tzu

Hi Cindy,
Welcome! I am sorry to hear about Abby. But I am glad to hear that you chose to find a vet you are comfortable with. Many owners seem to end up with vets that either are not knowledgeable enough or they have outdated information. On Second Chance we spend a lot of time helping owners make the tough choice to change.

True, even with a super vet, this condition requires hard work on your part as you are doing at home nursing care. We can educate you and help you do this successfully. Our moderators have all gone through this and we are very experienced.

3 weeks is not a long time with this but it may feel like it a has been more than a month!

What we need are as many detail as you can provide. We would really like to see any lab test results. You can upload these on our Urgent Advice page.

Describe in detail her specifics such as weight, age, health history and all the treatments she is on with dosage info and side effects. How is she feeling and behaving?

You will hear from others soon.
Mt best
Patrice

Welcome Cindi & Abby

Glad you’ve found us too – but sorry Abby has been ill of course. As the others have said, it would really help if you could give us as much information as possible. I am pleased to hear you’ve found a vet to help you our local vets were out of their depth too & it’s a relief when you find someone who really does know what to do.

We will try to answer any questions you have – between us we certainly have a lot of experience with this horrible, scary disease. Looking forward to hearing from you again – this is really hard work & you need to take good care of yourself as well as Abby!

Love Sheena, Worzel (diagnosed Dec 2012, in remission) & Ollie xxxxx

Cindy,
yes peaks and valleys are totally normal. There will always be fluctuations in PCV, depending if it is a check on a fast, if your dog is dehydrated or even stress can effect the results. Is Abby on any supplements? we usually recommend petinic for vitamins that are blood building. SamE to protect the liver and thyroxine because most of these dogs have been low thyroid before they were diagnosed and usually are after diagnose. Some vets will argue that if they were tested, the results are not accurate because they are on prednisone, how ever if they are low thyroid (I can almost guarantee Abby is) a low dose of thyroxine could mean a turn around , it did for my dog and many others I know. An other VERY important medication to add is Sucralfate, to prevent ulcers. There are other medications that can do that, but in our experience Sucralfate does it best. The problem is it coats the digestive tract so well that you have to give it away from all other medications and food so it will not interfere with absorption. Food can be an other issue. Is Abby eating? In the beginning of the disease dogs usually don’t have a big appetite. This will change once the prednisone kicks in and then they feel ravenous. Make sure you feed a very low fat diet, a lot of fat triggers pancreatitis in these dogs. We found that Dr. Dodds liver cleansing diet works very well and most dogs love it:
http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/Liver%20cleansing%20diet.htm
You can play around with it and also use different proteins like lean chicken or turkey and other vegetables.
I am glad Abby’s PCV went up again to 19, that is a positive step and I hope it will rise some more again. If you see her not being well and low energy for a long time, check her gums and if they are very pale, I think I would not hesitate to go to the vet and do a quick manual PCV test to see where she is at. This should not be very expensive, no need to wait, they should be able to do it right there at the clinic. It could give you peace of mind.
Best wishes,
Brigitte