Winston's situation
Sooo, in the ongoing saga of a sick Corgi...here is a very long post about Winston
He has had a systemic infection, severe hip displaysia...which has morphed into some level of kidney/liver failure & severe anemia. Last week we took him off all the meds with the exception of 1/2 a Tramadol morning.& evening. He no longer on Rimadyl, doxycycline, amoxicillin or clavamox of which he's been on for the last 10 months...in varying dosages.
While I've had him on some oils--for liver/kidney function & topical pain along his spine, the rubber hit the road yesterday when the last of the Rimadyl wore off. He was in obvious pain & hardly able to rise and the Tramadol wasn't cutting it. Rimadyl is a drug that promotes liver/kidney failure (thusly the severe anemia). I dosed him with 6 drops each Frankincense & Marjoram....and 3 drops each Rosemary, Cypress, Clove & Cinnamon. Within a few hours he was up..then took a nap...ate like a horse...is drinking water again. I dosed him 3 times yesterday & twice today.
Today--he's fine, back to normal trotting around the house & lawn without limping or obvious pain. I've put this together looking at inflammation, pain & anemia with a side order of liver/kidney function. We are at the end of the road with the dog. It's quality of life over quantity & today he got some good quality.
IN the past I have I created an oil blend to hopefully affect liver/kidney function which I rolled on his belly twice a day. about 10 drops each Frank, Rosemary, Lemon, Citrus Bliss, Roman Chamomile & top of the bottle with FCO. I also used Deep Blue across his pelvis for pain and on his spine when his back was sore. (good results with this) I've used a blend of Melalueca/Frank/Margoram on his pads as a boost to antibiotics.
As a little background:
This essentially started on Jan 1 (literally) when a tussle between Corgi's led to him being bitten in the throat. We thought it abscessed but it was simply a bad crush injury with local infection. Biopsy showed no cancer in the lymph glands at that time. Steroids, antibiotics & time...4 weeks & he still wasn't 'right'.
By March we'd tried several antibiotics--steroids etc..then the weird gait. Xrays revealed "the worst case of hip displaysia we've ever seen". Rimadyl, Tramadol, antibiotics (they thought he had a systemic bacterial infection. By mid July they asked to do a liver biopsy and would neuter him then. Biopsy showed negative for anything. Rimadyl was reduced & Tramadol stopped, antibiotics continue (you can see a pattern here ) 2 weeks later a horrid nose bleed cured by Geranium oil. I overdosed him with 20-30 drops & his face became hugely swollen. Steroids. This is when they found the Anemia.
Blood tests in August & Sept stayed same--no worse but dang, he's borderline at the blood transfusion level. It was then I started supplementing with homemade kefir twice a day with slightly cooked liver, flax seed meal & brewers yeast. He has come up only 2 points on his blood counts. The kidney function shows he's chronically dehydrated, but he wouldn't drink.
All that to say--yes--probiotics are daily--Zendocrine & PB assist too...Taking him off all the other meds is seriously the last ditch effort to say--this dog is hopeless. They want to do a bone marrow biopsy in 2 weeks. Basically that will tell me does he have leukemia (which two biopsy's have ruled out) or not. The treatment is the same both ways--nothing. They plan to send the biopsy & stuff to Colorado State University for eval...
So...I began intensively treating him with oral oils last weeks. I should add that the lady vet has requested that I use no oils...(sigh)
Comment
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Comment by Wilson Waddlepants and Joyce on November 5, 2013 at 11:08pm
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Jane - I noticed you asked about a good book to learn more about essential oils. I have this book and I highly recommend it. Actually I have the 4th edition and this is the 5th edition. When my daughter comes for Thanksgiving I'm going to be sure she brings her 5th edition copy so I can look through it. She introduced me to using essential oils just a few months ago and I love them. The book doesn't address using oils for dogs, but it's a wealth of information on where oils come from, how they're made, their chemical constituents, their uses, how to use them, etc. https://www.aromatools.com/Modern_Essentials_Fifth_Edition_2013_p/1... If you have any other questions you should ask Sarah K. She's been using them for a lot longer than I have. I definitely recommend the brand of essential oils that we buy from the company DoTerra. I only wish I had known about the therapeutic uses of essential oils a long time ago.
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Comment by Jane Christensen on November 5, 2013 at 8:58am
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Thank you Sarah. I am in favor of doing everything I can the more natural way. I do use herbs and oils but not to the extent that I could!!!!!!
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Comment by Linda on November 5, 2013 at 6:45am
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Sarah....I think the vet is right, being bred to heard cattle makes them tough little guys. Max had to be in pain with his neck for quite some time and when he began to show less desire to play his favorite game I chalked it up to him getting older. Then he made that one jump up on the storm door to greet my husband and went right back down on all fours. He would not go up on his hind paws, he wouldn't bark and he kept his head down I knew something was wrong. He had calcification in his neck. After exhausting all meds (I could not afford surgery) I tried acupuncture.
Maybe you could talk to the acupuncture vet about giving Winston something that would calm him before going in for a treatment. I understand about a dog that is fast to bite because of pain and then very sorry after. I had a mutt that was like that who managed to not only bite us but also injure 2 of our cats who only wanted to cuddle with him. I wish someone had suggested acupuncture back then because I never thought about it as a treatment for a dog in pain. But that was a long time ago and I doubt it was readily available for animals then.
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Comment by Sarah K on November 4, 2013 at 11:14pm
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Jane, I use doTerra oils and am able to get them at wholesale because I'm a representative. I've used a variety of oils on Winston over the last year. I studied a website everythingessential.me which offers differing protocols for oil usage & I have 2 oil 'encyclopedias on my shelf here too. The doTerra sites offer tons of information & I've spent hours & hours studying. mydoterra.com/skalbach is my site & you can research there too. I start low on dosages & work upwards until I get a good outcome or decide that it's not working. A great majority of the info is about human usage...so interpolating into canine world is interesting--but I have a good friend that uses them on a variety of livestock (including her 5 corgi's) so I often call her to bounce ideas around.
Linda, Winston is a biter...he is always sorry but he is quick as a whip and nails ya. We never understood why he was that way until the hip diagnosis. Every bite has been related to handling his feet--it's a wonder he hadn't hunted us down & murdered us in our sleep for the crap we disciplined him for, while not knowing he was in pain. I asked the vet why he'd not shown signs or symptoms--he replied, 'you have to be one tough little bastard to be 12" tall & bred to work cattle." So...the thought of acupuncture makes me cringe...and count my scars. But I know it could help.
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Sarah...I agree with your decision about the bone marrow aspiration. Truly, it it's not going to help then why put Winston thru that pain. Like you, I would keep him as happy and comfortable as possible and you will know when the time has come. As for the acupuncture...talk to the vet about how he/she would handle a dog that was less that cooperative. Most of the time Max is good but if you've had acupuncture you know that when a pathway is really blocked it feels like an electrical jolt and he lets the vet and me know it.
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I am so sorry for what you and Winston are going through. Although I don't have any info on the therapy, I do believe that sometimes "less is more" meaning that if the oils are working for now...great.
I do have some experience with taking my Bella off all her meds she was prescribed though. She was tested for a bowel obstruction and did not have one...after giving her about 7 meds a day to keep food down she quit eating all together, she had meds that told her brain to not due something, meds to take nausea away etc. I quit them all and within 2 days my Bella was better. The only thing I do now is add warm water to her food as she is not a big drinker. I just couldn't watch her be on all those meds and refuse to eat and just looked like she felt horrible. I also used kefer.
I also would like to know if you had a book or where you got your oils info...I truly believe in the least intrusive treatment as possible. Good luck!
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Another Facebook Corgi friend of mine has a dog with degenerative myelopathy who's using wheels now and doing great with them, but he also recently had several sessions of acupuncture and she said the affect of it was amazing. Sarah, I can understand your concern about getting Winston "into position" to have acupuncture, but for dogs that can, it's pretty amazing. Fortunately the frankincense and marjoram combo and others are tremendous for pain. A lot of pain is caused by inflammation and the oils are exceptional anti inflammatories.
Seriously, vets are so frustrating because most of them just aren't on the same page as we are, and it can be very difficult to work with them when all the can do is run tests and prescribe drugs.
Sarah, it's interesting that Winston actually belongs to your son. Our Winston technically belonged to our daughter Sarah and we also called him Winnie.
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Joyce, you've understood my point of view exactly with the bone marrow aspiration. My son, who's Winnies official owner & personal boy :) has also agreed that we're not going to do it. It will only cause pain...lots of it. And, for a fact, it's only to give potential answers to nerdy vets, which is understandable, but not helpful to the animal.
Linda...I've considered acupuncture. I'm not against it (I've gotten relief from it myself) , but Winston is one of those dogs who has teeth at both ends....I don't know if it's worth the stress of muzzling him & holding him down to make it work.
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I don't know anything about using oil for what you are facing with Winston. The only thing I can suggest is since you stopped the meds that can control the pain that maybe you should look into acupuncture for that. I've seen first hand what it can do in pain management for my Max and for myself. Without it I would have lost Max 2 years ago because I could not afford $10K+ for suregry but I could not let him suffer the pain he was in. The difference in him is like night and day. It's about the safest non-chemical treatment you can do to help control his pain.
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Hi Sarah, As soon as I saw Winston's picture I remembered that you and I have "talked" before. I forget how our path's crossed but it was awhile ago. You're doing everything you can for Winston and he sure is blessed to have you for his Mom. I'm quite certain that had Winston been my dog I would have gone down the same road, speaking specifically of the treatments he's had up until now. The infection in his neck had to be treated with antibiotics and when it wasn't resolving, it's understandable the vet recommended starting steroids. As hard a drug as they are on a human or a dog's system they can work really well. Now, looking back, it's quite likely that his immune system may have "reacted" and much of what he's dealing with today is probably a result of that. Maybe not. Vets know how to diagnose auto immune conditions but they often have no clue how to successfully treat them. I have a Facebook friend whose one year old corgi has immune mediated polyarthritis. They've ruled out everything they can think to test for, so of course the diagnosis is "idiopathic" immune mediated polyarthritis. The vet prescribed Doxycycline while waiting for test results. His thinking was if he had septic arthritis he wanted to treat that with an antibiotic and at the same time the anti inflammatory aspect of doxycline was addressing the inflammation in the joints.. He was fine while he was on it, but not long after it was stopped (with no recommendation of a probiotic from his vet) he relapsed. Now he's on prednisone and doing great, but it's pretty certain that when it's stopped he'll relapse. I want to suggest that she try Frankincense and Marjoram. I know her vet would freak out, but I think she's to the point where she'll try anything. She has money from a recent fundraiser so she has the money to buy them. How did you decide how much of the oils to give Winston ? I recently purchased this book: Holistic Aromatherapy for Animals: A Comprehensive Guide to the Use... However, I've been really busy and have only had a chance to read a few pages. Maybe you have it or another helpful book. I do know that dogs are very sensitive to oils (in a good way) so a little bit goes a long way. Last but not least, I'd like to add that I don't think you should consider treatment with essential oils as a last ditch effort. They may very well be what saves his life. I realize that without intensive testing you can't possibly know what underlying disease processes may be going on, besides the ones you know of, but just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a great job. Might I add one thing, and I'm really overstepping my boundaries here . . . if you determine he has leukemia, but there's no veterinary treatment, why bother ? He's had two previous negative tests ? How long ago were they ? Maybe the biopsy would be too invasive right now ? Just a thought. You know what's best. Let's stay in touch.
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