My dog has been diagnosed with Addison's - struggling

[SimpleSaying1]

My one year old cockerpoo was diagnosed with addisons early in the summer. When the symptoms first came on we thought we had lost her and she only just pulled through mainly due to quick spotting of the disease by our vet. Since then we have been trying to balance her drugs to maintain hormone levels and she is on quite a high dose of hormones and steroids. She is a tiny dog! And looking back the symptoms were there from the start, she has always been underweight, the smallest by a mile in her litter etc. And in someways the diagnosis was a relief but it is coming with so many problems!

1. Due to the nature of the disease and my insurance - insurance won't cover it - currently I've spent over £2500 on her, and each 'addison episode' runs well into the high £100s - her drugs cost a fortune and currrently she has to have blood tests every week
2. Her hormone levels aren't balancing, we think we get her right and then she has another dip or something brings on a stressful situation and she plummets again
3. When she is well the drugs are making her crazy, she has turned from an excitable dog to something which is so hyperactive everything with her is hard work, from walking to trying to groom her (our dog groomer has now refused to do her she wriggles and struggles so much) I'm just sitting here thinking I want my old pup back but all I am facing is years of a completely nutty dog who is going to bankrupt me. I love her, I really do, so please don't judge me for the above but I just feel so down about it all!

*sorry that should say 'blood tests every few weeks'

I am not a medical expert by a long shot but something that stood out to me was the possibility that it won't be like this forever...

• this is a recent diagnosis and so hormone treatment takes time to balance and stablise properly
• added to that your pup is at a prime age for her natural hormones to be fluxuating a bit, making it trickier to achieve a balance right now
• finally, her age also means some of what you describe might be influence by general teenage behaviour that you can expect to get better with calm, consistent training

What prognosis does your vet give?

I sympathise. One of my rescue dogs was diagnosed with Addisons and it was a nightmare getting the medication right. The vets did find the right dosage but then the drug was suddenly no longer available for animal use (it was a human drug - this was a few years ago) so we went through a very difficult period of finding another drug that didn't cost the earth, and endless blood tests to get the dosage right.

My insurance also ran out very quickly and it was a matter of just paying monthly for the drugs once the dosage had been worked out correctly.

Fingers crossed for you that your vet gets the dose right soon.

Thanks both, as far as I can tell the diagnosis is good as long as they can balance her drugs - but she has had three episodes in 4 months which isn't good and she is so small and slight it does worry me how quickly she loses weight etc.
Rather how was your dog long term?

Hi,

My last rescue dog had Addisons disease and I did as much research as possible and believed all the online stuff about it not being the worst disease out there and it is all about getting the dosage right, however, that is not the case for everyone. Our dogs dosage and medication was changed a few times and none worked. He was constantly sick and on drips and it cost us thousands (we didn't mind obviously), unfortunately nothing seemed to work for him and on top of this the steroids that he needed to survive made him eventually become aggressive. In the end we had to have him put to sleep as it was just no life for him so I'm here to tell you another side but to also wish you every luck in the world and hope that your dog gets on the right dose and lives a long happy life. Good luck as it is hard work having an addisons dog.

Simple our rescue dog was absolutely fine with the Addisons itself once the dosage had been correctly calculated - unfortunately she had a whole host of health issues in general and we lost her to a brain tumour.

In fact, every time the vet insisted on yet another bloody (expensive!) blood test I got very irritated as she was absolutely fine in herself - but you have to trust that the vets know what they are talking about I guess!