Poorly Jack-Liver Disease

pulliptears

Well, the results are in......Jack tested Negative for Cushings. This amazed me I have to say, but the vet says his symptoms at present are so varied you could probably pin any illness on him now.
He is now officially a medical mystery. His liver enzymes are still elevated but as this appears normal for the breed it could be a red herring. He also still has glucose in his pee, yet isn't diabetic. There is still blood in his pee too, and once again after leaving the stress of the vets his pee was almost pure blood.
Anyway, despite the extra risk he is going in for a scan on monday so will be knocked out for that. Hopefully all will become clear then and we can move towards finally making him better.

pulliptears

Incidentally, I know I must appear mad talking to myself here, but hopefully this may help someone else in the future!

YorkiePud_3

Well Jack, you're certainly making the vet work hard ... !!

I may have missed reading it, but has the vet said if there's a possibility of kidney stones?

Reason I ask is because my little Yorkie (some years ago now) had quite a few of the same symptoms. Now, I know it is against the board rules to throw any diagnosis out and I am not trying to second guess or do that, I'm just raising it because of the amount of blood in his pee.
Sometimes Toby peed just pure blood (or, what looked like pure blood) ... others, it was just a little bit tainted red ...

Makes me wonder if your Jack hasn't got a mishmash of things wrong with him so they don't sort of fit into the one diagnosis if you see what I mean!

If nothing's been mentioned though, I would consider asking the vet if he or she thought Jack might have kidney stones ... it just seems very similar to my dog ... (he had a little operation to remove them and was right as rain after) ...

At least, come Monday, you should have a clearer picture though and hopefully it's something that can be sorted out with meds ... here's hoping for a Eureka moment ... !!

Eeeeh Jack, you've got us all puzzled now ... !!!

pulliptears

YorkiePud wrote: »

Well Jack, you're certainly making the vet work hard ... !!

I may have missed reading it, but has the vet said if there's a possibility of kidney stones?

Reason I ask is because my little Yorkie (some years ago now) had quite a few of the same symptoms. Now, I know it is against the board rules to throw any diagnosis out and I am not trying to second guess or do that, I'm just raising it because of the amount of blood in his pee.
Sometimes Toby peed just pure blood (or, what looked like pure blood) ... others, it was just a little bit tainted red ...

Makes me wonder if your Jack hasn't got a mishmash of things wrong with him so they don't sort of fit into the one diagnosis if you see what I mean!

If nothing's been mentioned though, I would consider asking the vet if he or she thought Jack might have kidney stones ... it just seems very similar to my dog ... (he had a little operation to remove them and was right as rain after) ...

At least, come Monday, you should have a clearer picture though and hopefully it's something that can be sorted out with meds ... here's hoping for a Eureka moment ... !!

Eeeeh Jack, you've got us all puzzled now ... !!!

Lol, I think we are all straw clutching now and guessing, my Sister in Law has been googling all week to try and hit on a reason but can't.

We know Jack's kidney function is normal, however, there is a possibility of Kidney or Bladder stones which I guess is what they will be looking for on Monday.

I was leaning towards stones because they could explain why his wee gets bloodier after stress (if the stones are perhaps rubbing as he is jumping around), that said, he is still well, eating and poo'ing normally.

I think that poor vet is ruing the day Jack walked in

pulliptears

Things are not looking so good I'm afraid, we are now left fearing the worst and I've been in tears all night.

Jack went in for his scan this morning, we collected him late this afternoon and were met by a nurse, not our usual vet. She was initially not going to tell us of their findings preferring to leave that for the vet herself later in the week, but as I told her I was already fearing he was riddled with cancer anyway so she may as well tell us.

She said they had found his kidney and bladder, gallbladder and prostate seemed fine, but there was something of 'interest' on his liver. She said they were waiting on some blood tests now and would give us the full picture on Thursday. Quite what the tests are for I don't know, nor do I know what this thing of interest is.

Of course we are now thinking that this can only be Cancer. He's still eating and drinking normally and still not appearing in pain so I'm really at a loss now.

I will update more on Thursday.

skintlass

So sorry to hear that pulliptears - hopefully they will be able to treat Jack now that they have more information from the scan, in the meanwhile spoil him :-).

pulliptears

Just got home from facing 3 very baffled vets. They tell me there are lesions on his liver, which in all probability are because he is older but as they cannot yet pinpoint an exact cause for his problems they are not ruling out issues there, although they are fairly certain its not tumors as the rest of him is clear.
All his other organs appeared fine, though she did say his gall bladder appeared to be 'sludged' more than it should be, which pointed her right back to cushings lol. She did say something about his Urine not being 'dilute' which made her think it probably wasn't cushings but that her colleague had told her he'd seen a Cushings dog that didn't have dilute Urine.

As he has had one test already and it has returned clear she has now decided to do the 8 hour tests so back in on Tuesday for the day. If that also comes back negative then her next plan is to open him up and have a look at the liver more closely. She did say that he looks like a Cushings dog and acts like a Cushings dog something I had to agree with from my research.

So, another week of waiting, but at least Jack seems a little livelier today. I'm also exceptionally relieved again.

DebiT

pulliptears wrote: »

Just got home from facing 3 very baffled vets. They tell me there are lesions on his liver, which in all probability are because he is older but as they cannot yet pinpoint an exact cause for his problems they are not ruling out issues there, although they are fairly certain its not tumors as the rest of him is clear.
All his other organs appeared fine, though she did say his gall bladder appeared to be 'sludged' more than it should be, which pointed her right back to cushings lol. She did say something about his Urine not being 'dilute' which made her think it probably wasn't cushings but that her colleague had told her he'd seen a Cushings dog that didn't have dilute Urine.

As he has had one test already and it has returned clear she has now decided to do the 8 hour tests so back in on Tuesday for the day. If that also comes back negative then her next plan is to open him up and have a look at the liver more closely. She did say that he looks like a Cushings dog and acts like a Cushings dog something I had to agree with from my research.

So, another week of waiting, but at least Jack seems a little livelier today. I'm also exceptionally relieved again.

Pulliptears, here is a site that I very often go to when I have a problem either with myself or my cat, lol. http://www.earthclinic.com/Pets/cushings-disease.html
Have found it very useful in the past, as many of stories are from ordinary people like you and I who have resorted to various natural remedies and found them to work better than some of the toxic medication sometimes recommended by vets.
Good luck, and if don't get much joy from your vet, you might find something useful on this site.

tankgirl1

apologies for bluntness, but i just typed a message and lost it

what are your vets like? do they deal with farm animals too?

is jack insured?

have you thought about referral to an internal medicine/endocrinology specialist?

pulliptears

tankgirl1 wrote: »

apologies for bluntness, but i just typed a message and lost it

what are your vets like? do they deal with farm animals too?

is jack insured?

have you thought about referral to an internal medicine/endocrinology specialist?

vets, currently PDSA as OH was made redundant a few weeks back. He isn't insured no so a referral isn't an option sadly. I'm confident they are doing their best just eliminating everything methodically.

I've been passed an interesting link tonight to a study on Scotties and gallbladder sludge as well as one on 'pseudo' cushings. I was considering popping them into my vet but didn't want to offend her.

Thoughts?