Dog with Cushion's Disease

[TexasErin]

My sister has been crying all afternoon. She just found out her dog has Cushion's disease.
She, Maggie, is a 5-year-old mutt who has had SO many health problems. Maggie had cataract surgery on both eyes a couple of years ago. She has really bad allergies and some hair loss. And now a new health problem
Maggie has been vomiting off and on for the past couple of weeks and shaking. The vet had initially told them it was just a stomach bug. They took her back to the vet this morning because she started vomiting again yesterday afternoon and has been drinking a TON of water. She has also lost a bunch of weight- she was too heavy partly due to medications for allergies, but she has lost all of that weight the past couple of weeks. This morning they called my mother and told her that Maggie has diabetes, but that she could probably just take a pill and maybe not have to have injections. The vet called later though and said it is something called "Cushion's syndrome." I guess it has something in common with diabetes because they said she will have to have daily injections after all.
Anyone know anything about this?

 

[HauntedMansionGeek]

Hi, sorry to hear about your sisters dogs health.

I think you might mean Cushings disease??
If so, here's a good link for you and your sister to read.

I hope it all works out for the dog.......from the article it sounds like this isn't all that unusual, so the doctor should have up to date info about treatments and such.

Good luck.

http://www.petdiabetes.org/cushings.htm

 

[TexasErin]

Yeah, that's it. Forgive my ignorance. I had never heard of it until today. Thanks for the link. I'm going to call my sister.

 

[HauntedMansionGeek]

You're not ignorant at all!!! You didn't know.

Now go make that phone call......

 

[DocRafiki]

I recently did a good bit of internet searching for a Cushing's client recently (I'm a vet). I found a decent message board and several sites that have really good explanations. I also thought my own dog had this a couple of months ago and got pretty worried. It's not a diagnosis you want to hear (it is cancer, after all), but then again it's not the end of the world. Average life expectancy is 2 years, but a lot of people think that those numbers are inaccurate due to a number of factors.

If you're interested in the other links, PM me and I will find them for you.

BTW, there is a new safer treatment that is hard to get in the US. I have not tried to get it, but there are lots of people on the message board with info on that.

 

[DocRafiki]

I just re-read and saw that the dog has had allergies. Cushing's can also be iatrogenic, i.e. caused by medications (steroids). In that case, it would not be cancer. Just to clarify