Addisons Disease

[Jibba]

Hi my dog is back at the vets again, and they are saying it may be Addisons, does anyone know anything about it, like what it is treatment, management, is it leathal?

[Vonasche]

Hi Nytewynd.

Addison's Disease is when the adrenal glands do not work as normal for unknown reasons. Animals under this condition are normally not able to produce enough corticosteroid and aldosterone by the adrenal glands. Cortisol is a natural "happy drug". It helps animals to get through any stressful situation by increasing blood sugar and relieving pain. Aldosterone enzyme works on the kidney to balance blood sodium and potassium levels which are critical to muscle and heart activity. Therefore, most affected animals do not show any symptom unless they undergo a stressful situation, such as another sickness.

The clinical signs are vague, so it can be just from being unwell, inactive, off food to vomiting, diarrhoea, drinking /urinating a lot, and abdominal pain. This can be managed by taking supplementary hormone tablets and checking blood electrolytes regularly.

A friend's dog was diagnosed with Addison's in January. She had recently undergone a hip replacement operation at 19 months of age.

At the moment she is on 5mg Delta Cortef daily, and .52mg of Florinef daily.

[tpl]

Hi Nytewynd,

I am so sorry to hear that your dog is not well. Are they doing an ATCH test to determine addison's?

My dog was diagnosed last year and she has her good days and bad days. Needs daily medication. A good place to start researching is the addisondogs.com website. It is manageable - just need to monitor them a bit more closely and try to avoid too much stress.

Let us know what the vet says and I hope your dog starts improving. Thinking of you as it is a very stressful time.

[Jibba]

Im not sure what test they will do at the moment, they just said bloods, so will have to see this arvo once they have been done and come back.

Im lucky that if it is Addisons, he is a very stable laidback dog, so he doesnt stress much, we actually had him here to be a stud to my bitch but came up as sterile, when doing the AI, and a few days later he got sick, so it was probably the huge infection making him sterile, cause he has been used before, his owner said we could keep him and now he is sick, the poor boy.

[wolfgirl]

Nytewynd I don't really know much about Addison's but just wanted to wish Leo well

[Jibba]

Nytewynd I don't really know much about Addison's but just wanted to wish Leo well

WG how is Pearl?

[GoldenWei]

Hi Nytewynd.

My old girl had addisons for about 6 or so years before she was diagnosed with Cancer, and went to rainbow bridge. Its a manageble disease, but requires daily medication, and you also have to be aware that they can go into a coma like state due to stress (known as an addison crisis). My girl never had one, but she did have bouts of relapses where we had to adjust the medication doses... and we were at the vets every 6 months usually for an electolytes check.