Have I even blogged about Gretchen’s Cushing’s diagnosis? (I mentioned it, but barely.) So, let’s recap:

The week after Thanksgiving, Gretchen had a binge bender than brought me home mid-day to figure out why the puppy cam was upside down. She did some impressive at any age table-surfing and found her “headed out the door”dog treats, AND an old powerlifting meet gift bag that included some (non-chocolate, thankfully) KIND bars in various stages of all gone and what was left was in shredded plastic! She repeated that feat again on Saturday morning (but with no nommies found), and then came absolutely unglued when she was crated (rare, but she was crate-trained) while we went to the work holiday fete that night.

To the vet we went, and we were all surprised when this healthy-looking gal tested positive for Cushing’s Disease. (I’ll probably add her results here at some point so they’re all in one place.) At the vet’s recommendation, we went holistic, in part because she was back to being all but symptom free by then AND because our vets are friends and they KNOW I’m resistant to certain big pharma medications. That went really well for several weeks, and again, I’ll almost assuredly create a Cushing’s page here to track it all, but then in late April, she began having acute anxiety again. On May 31, our holistic vet broke up with us. (No, not really, but I try to keep things light, and when the holistic vet tells you it’s time to use conventional pharmacology, it’s sobering.)

And somewhere in the midst of all of that, baby girl was also diagnosed with high blood pressure. She’s on a microscopic dose of Amlodipine (2.5 mg tab QUARTERED, and one of those pieces twice daily), and while it dropped her BP a bit, it remains a little higher than desired. With everything else going on, we’re going to re-evaluate THAT when the vet tells me it’s time… I think in September?

So, today is day one on Trilostane. She’s on a whopping 15mg compounded into a chicken flavored chewable tablet that the princess rejected as a “treat” but thankfully, she did gobble it down with her breakfast. Yes, that’s a high-maintenance, home-made meal, which I’ll also include on the Cushing’s page. She loved it at first and seems bored with it at this point. I know there’s plenty of room for discussion; my dogs have put me in camp “we like variety when a slow switch is done”. They definitely seem to get tired of the same flavors day after day, week after week.

So far, so good. She’ll be at my side for the next 10 days, until we do her first monitoring bloodwork to assure this is the right dose for her. Despite what I’ve read, I’m still insisting she’s going to live to be 20, and have a happy, healthy life until then.