|
Treatment
Misty started taking 5 mg
of Piroxicam once a day, which we still give her and I give it to her right
after she eats dinner, dipped in some peanut butter. The vet also suggested I give her
Baytril for 7 days and then stop for 3 weeks and to do this every month
to prevent any infections.
Over the next few weeks I also saw three different vets in this
office and was told by one she would not live more than 3 months, another
said 3-6 months and the last one said if lucky, maybe a year. Surgery was not an option because
of the location of the tumor.
I then asked about building up her immune system with diet and
herbs and that’s when they referred me to a holistic vet. We started acupuncture. X-rays
did show arthritis in her hind legs, which I knew she had because when we
lived up North in the cold weather she would have trouble getting off the
floor. I have heard of acupuncture helping with arthritis and figured it
couldn’t hurt and maybe it could help the cancer. I also started her on
Cosamin DS for her arthritis, the human capsule twice a day and because
of Ron’s wonderful write- up on Natasha, I started her on 1 tbsp. of flax
oil with Lignans by Barleans with a ¼ cup of low fat cottage cheese, once
a day. The holistic vet put
her on a diet of Cowboy Cookout by Merrick. Because she is a wonderful eater-she lives to eat- and
the can food is expensive, I give her 1/3 can mixed with about ¼ cup of
dry food twice a day. She
has not lost any weight, and has in fact gained a few pounds, so we are
trying to cut her down a little.
She was weighing around 37 pounds, but recently she’s been around
39 pounds. He also doesn’t
want her to have any chicken, fish, eggs, corn meal, rice, wheat or
flour. He truly believes in
the Chinese method. She is
also on some Chinese herbs-Suo Quan Wan (for urinary leakage), Max
Formula, and Zhi Bai Di Huang.
I also use Proin 50mg (I give her ¾ tab in the morning and
afternoon, and a whole tab. at bedtime) for her incontinence, Pepcid AC
10 mg once a day and I give it to her at least an hour before she
eats. I buy the generic form
of the Pepcid and it’s needed because Piroxicam interferes with stomach
acids, and Piroxicam 5 mg, once a day-given to her soon after she eats
her dinner. I was giving her Baytril at bedtime for 7 days once a month
until recently, but now she is on Amoxicillin twice a day – see below. I give Misty her pills either in
a small piece of cheese, or a little roast beef and I dip her Piroxicam
in peanut butter. I mix her
Amoxicillin and herbs in with her food and feed her twice a day.
Urine Cultures, Blood Work and
Ultrasounds
Since Piroxicam
can affect kidney function we had been doing blood tests for kidney
function, but it had shown no change. I was checking her urine once every 3 weeks but
stopped after a while, since I saw an Internal Medicine Veterinarian who
said it was probably a waste of money to have blood work and urine so
often. In Misty’s case, it
is very important to get the urine from a clean catch. One vet I took her
to wanted his technician to insert a needle into the bladder and get a
clean sample. This is a
better way to test the urine, but the tech had never done this on a dog
with TCC and because of the location of the cancer, it is risky, very
tight, and if she missed, it could have caused a complication that could
have killed her. We are
aware that when you take a clean catch there will be some blood and it
not as accurate. But it is
safer than the alternative. After many months, one of the vets I took
Misty to see suggested an ultrasound. It did give us a guideline as far as exactly where the
tumor was located and how much cancer was in the bladder. (It occupies
about 1/3 the volume of the bladder.) We have since repeated the
ultrasounds 2 other times, with no growth. This past summer in my quest to find a good vet I took
Misty to an Internal Medicine specialist who did and a chest and abdomen
ultrasound which showed no cancer in those areas- this was very, very
expensive and they didn’t tell me what the cost would be before doing
these tests (the total was over $500 for one hour!) I guess I should have asked about
the cost before the tests were done. They also suggested doing Chemotherapy. But at this point I felt I had
built up her immune system so much, it just didn’t make sense to me to
destroy all the good we had done for so many months, just to “maybe” give
her a few extra months.
October - December
2006
She was doing fine until
this past October when a series of events took place. First she slipped on the grass
chasing an armadillo and hurt her shoulder. She started limping and then started yelping when she would
lie down. This injury lasted for about two months. The vet took an X-ray
of her shoulder, but it was negative. Then she had a ruptured anal gland. The vet put her on Clavamox for
10 days and she healed, but just didn’t seem like she had much energy. She seemed very tired and quiet
so he put her back on the Baytril for another week. A week later she had some kind of
episode where she started howling, running around the house and then
falling over on her side a few times. I wasn’t with her at the time, but my daughter was
home with her. By the time I came home Misty was fine, wagging her
tail. I took her to the vet
and he said it sounded like an epileptic attack (she had never had one
before), or that it was related to her shoulder and she just went crazy
from the pain. (The holistic vet also said although it sounded like an
epileptic attack, but it could have past a blood clot since there was a
lot of blood everywhere.)
The regular vet put her on Tramadol twice a day. She became very lethargic and had
very little control of her bladder, but he said to keep her on it and she
would adjust to it. She was
not getting any better, so after a week on the Tramadol I took her off of
it. I went back to the Baytril after a few weeks. I usually watch
for signs of quietness, bleeding a little more when she urinates and not
being able to hold her bladder as long as signs she needs an antibiotic
like Baytril. After a few days of taking the Baytril, she gets
better. But this time she was getting lethargic again and she
could not hold her bladder at all, going about every 1/2 hour. She
was also bumping into things and we noticed she had lost most of her
vision on her left side. I
took her to another vet- the vet I usually see wasn't in the
office. This vet increased her Baytril and took some urine for a
culture and sensitivity test. This test had never been done
before! The results showed she had an infection called Enterococcus
species and that Baytril was not one of drugs that would cure this. The
holistic vet feels she might have had a kidney infection. Because we cannot get a good
urine sample with all the blood, it is hard to know for sure. We then
switched her to Amoxicillin.
It took about a week for her to get better, but her recovery was
remarkable. She was running
around again, barking at the cats, chasing the armadillo and the sparkle
was back in her eyes. She
has regained some of her vision on the lower left side, but still does
not have much upper vision on that side. She probably had a stroke that caused her vision loss,
or the cancer has spread.
But she seems to be getting around ok. She does have some up and down days, but overall
appears happy.
Internet Sites
There is not a lot of information about
what owners have done with their dogs that had TCC on the Internet. There was a wonderful site that I
found very helpful. It was
written by someone named Sydney who did research at Washington University
in the Biochemistry Department, who had a dog named Rennie. I think Rennie was a Samoyed and
looked a lot like Misty.
They had written that because TCC damages the epithelial cells
lining the bladder, TCC makes the dog particularly susceptible to
frequent bladder infections.
They stressed how important it was to have the correct antibiotic. If the infection is not treated
with an effective antibiotic, the dog may become listless, uninterested
in playing, and even exhibit signs of pain such as emitting a sharp
whimper when trying to move.
For Rennie, improvement was dramatic up to the last month of her
life. They felt aggressive
treatment with the correct antibiotic was essential to maintaining
Rennie’s comfort and quality of life. I was going to contact them because this was
exactly what Misty had gone through, but when I went back to the site
after the first of the year it wasn’t available anymore. If anyone has any information on this person and how to get in
touch with Rennie’s owner, I would greatly appreciate letting me know.
On Rennie’s site they also said that
continuous antibiotic treatment should be avoided in order to minimize
selecting for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Urine cultures and antibiotic sensitivity testing must
be done and it takes about 4-5 days to get the results. I now plan to test her urine
about every three weeks or so, and watch Misty’s behavior for signs of
infection. Misty is still on
the Amoxicillin and I am concerned about leaving her on this for so long
(it has been 2 months now) as I know that dogs can become resistant to
the drug. But the holistic vet
feels that she is doing so well, that we should keep her on for a few
more weeks. I have learned
from Rennie that you should discuss the issue of antibiotic therapy, and
drug resistance with your vet and not to let your concerns be dismissed
lightly. I went into the
vet’s office saying she needs to be on a different antibiotic. This one is not working
anymore. Your vet may not be
sufficiently familiar with kinds of bacterial resistance, which can
emerge over six to nine months of antibiotic therapy.
Natasha’s Cancer Fight
Newsletter site talks a lot about the importance of Flax Oil and
diet. There is a wealth of
information and it helped me to seek alternatives. Although TCC is very different
than the cancer Natasha had, I feel we can still learn from other kinds
of cancers. I also feel the flax oil with cottage cheese has helped
Misty’s immune system, not to mention how beautiful her fur looks.
I also want to mention the
Canine Bladder Cancer message board where a lot of owners have written
about their dogs and what they have done. It has a lot of messages and it is nice to talk with
others who are going through similar problems.
That site is: http://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/all,1543,0.htm
Another site that I found
was about a pit bull named Cooper. It has some information about
TCC and what they did for Cooper. That site is: http://www.krafx.com/CopperDawg/tcc.html
Purdue University did a
study of Dogs with TCC that was last updated in 2005. Information about this study and
TCC can be found at: http://www.vet.purdue.edu/pcop/CanineUrinaryBladderCancer.pdf
Alternatives
We feel it is important to think out of
the box and to seek alternatives when dealing with TCC. Using Chinese herbs can be
beneficial. These can work
well for the specific needs of the dog, but it is important to not do a
“shotgun” approach of adding a variety of other nutrients or antioxidants
to the herbal treatment without having your dog evaluated by a
veterinarian who understands the holistic approach to therapy. Every dog reacts differently to
herbal treatment and, from what I’ve read, the cancers and, or infections
seem to progress differently in each dog. We have read and heard that by only using Piroxicam
without any other alternative treatments, the TCC might go into remission. We didn’t think we would be as
lucky with Misty, and I truly believe she would not still be with us if
not for the acupunctures, herbs and flax oil. When she was first
diagnosed we were hoping she would live a year, and here she is going on
16 months since she was first diagnosed. I do have to tell you this has been very expensive and
it does take a lot of commitment. Her herbs alone were running us about
$300 every six weeks. We
have just switched over to using powder instead of pills for her herbs,
but it is about $150 every six weeks. We are averaging about $300 a month now between foods,
cultures, herbs, meds, vet visits and acupuncture visits. I did find a lab that will sell
me her Piroxicam at a reduced price, so that helps some with the cost.
We try not to leave her for more than a
few hours without letting her out.
She has to go out every 2-3 hours during the daytime and our walks
take a long time because she squats a very long time, even after she’s
finished. We have just
started to put a diaper on her at night in case she has a mistake, but
most nights she is dry in the morning. We use a brand like Depends and just cut one half down
the center with a circular cutout for her tail and cross the elastic
straps over her back for tension.
We were cutting a hole for her tail without the cut half way down
the middle, but because she has such a big fluffy tail, (although she is
losing a lot of her hair on the tip of her tail and seems very sensitive)
we had a hard time putting her tail through the hole. I also use
unscented baby wipes to wipe the occasional blood after she urinates.
Because we started everything at once we
can’t tell what has worked and what doesn’t. I do know that after
receiving her acupuncture in about 3 days she is perky and the sparkle
and energy level is back for a few weeks. We go about every 3 weeks for
her acupuncture. We also
feel strongly that the flax oil with cottage cheese, as well as her herbs
has helped her too. We go
for short daily walks twice a day to keep her moving. Also, since we didn’t have an
established relationship with a vet in the area we have seen several vets
over the last year. Looking back this might have actually helped Misty
since we have been given many different views on what to do; of course it
has also caused us to be uncertain about what to do next. We were also
disappointed that the veterinarians we saw could not provide any research
relating to options for treatment and probabilities of success. Their approach to treatment was
“cookbook.” We feel we were teaching some of the vets what they should
have already known. One vet
turned to me and said, “Maybe I should be asking you what to do!” Even our holistic vet could not
provide probabilities of increasing her like span, stating the Chinese
have been using herbs for 5000 years, so it must be good.
At this point and time we don’t want to
change anything. I can tell
you that it is very important to build the immune system, and to watch
for infections. It appears
that if you can control the cancer the most likely cause of death or
concern for putting a dog to sleep is related to infections. At one time Misty’s was so weak
that we had to help her get up to walk outside to urinate and it was the
infection, not the cancer that was the problem. If we did not treat her with the correct antibiotic
following cultures and sensitivities she would have died. We feel she has done so well that
we will continue to do what we can for her and try to keep her as
comfortable and pain free as possible. Something is working and we are glad to still have
Misty in our lives.
Susie, Jim,
Marni, Aaron and Misty
Please feel free to
contact me at: fourpawzx3@yahoo.com
Misty & Marni - February 2007
Please get in touch with
any comments or reactions to this site.
|
