Anabolic steroids

[Debbie White]

Hi! My baby girl, Briar has been fighting this disease for over 7 months. She’s non regenerative and transfusion dependent. After consulting with Dr. Dodds, Briar is now on thyroid meds and an anabolic steriod called stanozolo (winstrol). Does anyone have experience with this drug and able to shed some light of what I might expect? Thank you.

[Patrice]

Debbie,
I’m sorry to hear about Briar. This has been a long battle for both of you. I’m glad Dr. Dodds is helping you, she has a lot of experience with this condition.

We’ve had a few owners here who used anabolic steroids. You could search the forum using the search on the right side of this page.

I particularly remember Sway, whose owner had similar experiences for almost a year. He did use anabolic steroids and it seemed to hold her for quite awhile. But eventuality he discovered she had an undiagnosed liver shunt that was the ultimate cause for the severe anemia. Surgery was not advised.

In some particularly intractable cases some owners had moderate success. But in general, I believe that there may have been a yet undiagnosed condition that drove the anemia.

It would be helpful to know what tests and diagnostics that have been done to rule out conditions that may be contributing to this.

You can post a summary here but also upload some of your most recent tests, CBC and CHEM screen and the vets diagnosis. Look for the page Urgent Advice and use that form to upload these. Please, no more than 3 documents at a time. Start a new form if you have more.

The goal of using steroids is to boost the bone marrow to begin the process of regeneration. It can be stubborn due to a variety of reasons.

I assume that Dr. Dodds had you try cyclosporine at some point? And are you still using prednisone?

My best Patrice

[Vally]

Hi Debbie. I’m so sorry to hear about Briar and I know you’re stressed to the max.

As Patrice said, Dr Dodds is the best to have on your side.

Please upload blood results. Patrice is a whiz at understanding them and can help you to understand what’s happening.

Regards, Vally