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[mhitesman]

We are in day 4 and have reduced the Itra to ever 12 hours.  We continue to give prednisone and timorol eyedrops and tramadol every three hours round the clock.  Eating dog food is a problem, but I can coax him to eat food we cook for him.  Longer term I am concerned this is not healthy for him.  Any suggestions  He has to like it...he likes steak, chicken breast, rice ...  I sneak a little dog food in once in a bit, but he is likely to refuse the whole thing in that case.  I also give hiim his Missing Link Supplement in that food.  I am feeding him three to four times a day -- soup dish sized portions.  Any suggestions please?

He is drinking ice water but not enough.  Yesterday he felt pretty good for a few hours and seemed more alert and walked around some.  This afernoon, it is just the opposite and he is not moving around much.  He does hold his head up on occasion.  Mostly he wants to lay and be comforted.  The swelling around his blind eye appears to be abated a bit, and I think the pain from that is somewhat lessened as a result.  He had a 102.9 temp yesterday, but normal a little later.  This afternoon is was up over 102 again.  I am not sure it has gone down, but I dont think its higher either.  I have not taken it for hours in an effort to quit poking on him so much.  The house temp is cool, and we have fans we use on him when it seems he wants it.  I have been told to expect ups and downs.  The UPs are not as high as the DOWNS are low, though. 

Any advice would be appreciated.  We are so afraid for him.  His breathing appears normal, and he is not panting or raspy (never was).  His eyes (both) are usually open except when it looks like he is sleeping.  He is calm and does not appear to be in distress.  But he has no energy and is definitely not feeling at all well.  Should I expect him to be worse a couple hours after his Itra when it reaches its peak?

At what point, do you think, we can determine if the meds are working to kill the fungus?  Is there a magic turning point number?

[Jen]

I would say not to worry so much about what he's eating.  You're feeding him good food, even if it isn't dog food.  He'll need the calories and water: Starving is worse. DB got down to maybe 40 lbs, and we were so afraid she'd starve to death before she got better.  I couldn't find the link where I saw to give them a little fat with Itra bucause it is a fat-soluble medication (Lisa explains this very wll in another post), but we gave her a spoon of butter with her pill.  The fat helps metabolize it.  Pedialyte sprays and Ensure Plus also helped.  Bottle feeding is the pits, but it was absolutely necessary.  We didn't give her a choice. She's gone back to regular food, but I really think the starving left a mark on her.  She never wants to be hungry again, so she tries to hog up everything in sight-  now she's HUGE.
   I stopped getting my hopes up until we were over a month into treatment because she took so many ups and downs.  There's no way to predict.  We also had fevers for months.  It's not uncommon.
Good luck-
jen

[mhitesman]

Thank you Jen.  We are holding steady with heartbreaking ups and downs.   We had to discontinue his 3X daily TruSopt drops in his bad eye because it has caused incredible inflammation.  He sees the Dr again tomorrow afternoon.  I am not sure what we are checking, exactly, tomorrow but I think it might be a decision regarding wether to remove his right eye.  The Dr knows it is important to us to try to save it, but ...

He seems to feel better after he eats, which is not always a simple thing to entice him.  By better, I mean it is obvious he is alive.  He slept next to me on the couch last night for a couple hours, laying on his back with me lightly caressing his belly which is completely shaved as a result of his ultrasounds.  We noticed, this morning, that his penis has what looks like it could be a fungus on it.  It looks a little dried like maybe it is dying.  I don't know if it was there before or if this is new.  The vet has been very thorough, so I am thinking it is new(er).

We are not to force feeding.  In your experience, does it mean anything that we are able to entice him to eat now?  I mean, did your dog require force feeding right from the relative start of Itra? 

The vet also says we may switch to fluconozole as it penetrates the eyes better.  From what I have read, it does not treat the overall infection quite as effectively or rapidly or something, but it is better for eye infections.  The vet did not believe any other organs were involved, but she does not maybe yet know about his penis -- if that is the fungus.

Thank God for this site and your responses.  It is the only place I have to go where I can get the understanding and daily support advice we need.  People mean well, but they are just like we were ...thinking that a few moments of tail wagging mean he is out of danger and will be out chasing squirrels in a few days or weeks.

[buddyawi]

My Buddy dog is doing much better but it takes a lot of perserverance by the owner too!  You may want to result to assist feeding your dog. I had to do that from the time Buddy was diagnosed.  He lost his appetite before he ever started the Itraconazole.  My friend at the vet showed me a really awesome way to do it.  I use the A/D by Science Diet. It's a canned food and you mix it with water. Then you suck it up in a syringe.  I had my daughter or husband or however was around hold him in place and I would open his gums a little and stick the syringe at the back of his mouth right inbetween his teeth and he ate really well for me.  I was doing that 3 times a day.  Plus I also learned how to do IV fluids myself.  Otherwise I was running to the vet every other day to have fluids done.  It's really not that bad to do it on yourself.  Plus it saves you money. I'm sure your vet office would show you how to do it.  I really think that the assisted feedings and the fluids all the time are what saved Buddy. 

Good luck and hang in there!

[mhitesman]

Thanks for the info.  Does it have to be A/D Science Diet or might this work with other good quality canned food?  I keep Canidae on hand for the dogs, and I prefer a holistic food.  I don't know anything about A/D Science Diet; it might be just fine.  Comet sometimes suffers from mild allergies like ear infections, hot spots, conjunctivitis, ear hematoma, etc, until I switched to Canidae.  Then, of course, he got blasto so go figure.

We are not to the assisted feeding yet, thankfully.  I want to be ready, though, to handle anything that comes up so we can get through this.  Thank you so much for the quick response.

We have discontinued all eye drops until he sees the vet tomorrow.  ALL of them hurt him so much that he just cries, and I cannot bear it.  The drops were to try to reduce the pressure in his right (blind) eye, and the pressure has abated some as of yesterday anyway.  Pick your pain, I guess.  I think the drops were also for us -- in holding out some hope that we could save the eye maybe?  In any case, one night is not going to make a difference except to let him get some rest.  He is resting now.  I have been feeding him small meals every few hours, and he needs to be coaxed but eats them.  I think he has gained a pound or two, which is not bad at all since he has always been slender due to strenuous training and daily exercise regime.  I am hoping that his great physical condition going into this gives him more power to fight even if his immune system was suppressed by the high steroids from the misdiagnosis.

[Jen]

I don't know if it means anything, but it's great that you're able to get him to at least eat a bit.  After about a week we were force-feeding, but she always seemed to drink well.  She would ALWAYS eat one of the Little Cesar dinners, but that was all, just one, and those are barely a mouthful for her.
  We finally went to the convenience store on the highway, and they saved her the leftover breakfast sandwiches.  She would always go for those, it's how she gained weight again.  She still comes running to sniff around for sausages whenever I come home. As skinny and poor as she was, I didn't care what she ate, as long as it was full of calories. 
   There was no tail wagging for a long time, and she didn't care enough to scratch or groom herself.  Seeing the tail come up and the scratching start again seemed like the first real turning point.
Best wishes-
jen

[Wilson3]

hang in there things will get better
i have posted a lot of things i did for wilson he was pretty bad on page 7 of the main page balsto and animals i listed everything i did for wilson he is still doing wonderfully
take care

[evayola]

As far I have known, the A/D stands for annorexic diet and it is loaded with calories and good stuff to help put on weight. We had Marge on it for a while and then she decided she didn't want it anymore. We bought one of every canned food at our local Healthy Pet and Marge was so picky that we threw out soooo much food. We would have given it to homer but he has irritable bowel disease so he can't have her leftovers! I know exactly how you are feeling right now because it is the EXACT same way I felt when Marge was first diagnosed. DB and Wilson really helped me out big time! Marge also went on Fluconozole because of her eye involvement. When Marge was on Itra she was not doing well at all. She also didn't want to eat at all. She refused all food. It didn't matter what it was - we had to force feed her and I know she was so mad! She didn't want to get up or anything. It was so miserable. We changed our work schedules so that one of us could be with her 24/7 just in case. We slept in our family room on the floor for almost two months. I know it is going to be sooooo hard but remember that it does get better. Like you were asking, yes the disease still can spread. marge didn't have any eye involvement at first but then a couple days into treatment it attacked her eye. We went on with the eye drops even though the eye is blind. Marge will continue the eye drops until the opto says no more because the vet can still see active blasto in her eye. It took marge a while to finally come around and when she did it was like a kid on Christmas morning- me and Dan were so excited we cried. We would buy her all of her favorite toys just to cheer her up. One day she grabbed her ducky and went shuffling around the house with it. She was very very very weak and thin in her rear legs from all the laying around. her rears looked so gross because of the loss of muscle. Just like Jen said, don't worry about what he's eating just as long as he is eating. My vet told me to feed marge whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. We were giving her pills in fig newtons just to pep her up. She ate a lot of peanut butter and steaks and chicken breasts. We actually are still feeding her chicken breasts everyday. Two a day. If she doesn't get them she will lay down and refuse to get up. We are not going to let her go on a hunger strike at this point as it is way too important to have that food in her tummy but she does eat regular dog food as well. The vet is concerned Marge may have an ulcer which is scary. We have her on meds for it right now. If you feel like you need to cry then cry because I know that I did a lot of crying to Marge and begged her and begged her to stay strong and make it through. It was the hardest time ever especially with the passing of one of our cats which I think was all stemmed back to the blasto. Keep your head up!