NFT: Cushing's disease in dogs

And, TBH, once it was caught, it was a pretty rapid decline once he was diagnosed. He was 16 at the time and made it to 17, but it wasn't without a big physical change. He was skin and bones at the end. You could see his ribs and spine prominently through his skin. As you've probably seen, the treatment is steroids, which also will impact the dog and contribute to a more rapid decline given their effects on the body. My wife would have put him down earlier if it was up to her, but my in-laws didn't really want to see the obvious decline in the dog's quality of life until he was too far gone.

Wish I had a better experience to share with you, but figured you prefer the straight talk.

I guess I was writing hoping for a miracle "Oh, my dog had Cushing's but once it was treated everything was great!" That kind of thing.

The more I read about it, the more I understand what's been going on with her for a while now. It's probably the underlying cause why she almost died from a severe liver infection a year and a half ago, why she hasn't wanted to walk further than a couple of blocks down the street for a while, why she started developing severe dandruff a month or so ago. She doesn't seem to be suffering on the surface - even hobbling around, she doesn't whimper or cry or anything - but apparently there's been a lot of bad things happening under the surface. It seems her time is very short.

She was diagnosed at around 10 or 11 years old. Spent about a year getting the dosage right, but then she went on to have a fairly normal life for 6 years. Medication (Vitoryl?) is not cheap, but we were able to find it at an online vet place for a more reasonable price.

Hoping for the best.

had cushing's. as a complication ended up with diabetes and required regular medication and other injections. the poor dog lost most of its body weight, had frequent seizures and was incontinent by the end. sorry to hear this, I'm sure you will make the right choice based on the risks/prognosis.

Flaking skin, weight loss, coarser fur, lethargic, can't drink enough water, wakes me up to pee multiple times every single night, hardened abdomen, etc.

We put her on Vetoryl, but not long after, her liver enlarged and she had raging pancreatitis. She wouldn't eat, wouldn't get up for much, tail always down, vomiting yellow water everywhere, seemed very unhappy.

The week before Father's Day, we hospitalized her for four days or so. We were pretty sure we were going to have to put her down. But we stopped the Vetoryl, have been giving her daily IV saline treatments ($35 a bag! Ugh!), some other meds, and have her on a low-fat gastrointenstinally-gentle diet. She's largely back to her old (bratty, loudmouthed) self, except she still drinks a ton of water and pees a lot.

I told my wife not to tell me what the vet bills were, because the cost has been likely astronomical. But we just put our other dog down in May, and we couldn't deal with that again a mere month later. She's a large-breed dog, so we don't expect her to go much further than 11, but we're so glad we got her through that horrible stretch in June.

It's very hard to give advice on this kind of thing to other dog owners, because cost makes it really difficult. The Vetoryl does seem to work, but you just have to watch closely for bad side effects. If you do decide to treat the Cushing's, it's for life.

Good luck. This part of dog ownership really, really sucks.