Potential MMM in vizsla

[Tim.243]

2 weeks into the steroids.
More loss of muscles in his face. Full jaw bone can be seen all the way into the head. He has lost his muscle on his body as well. But only really noticed it when we put his collar on from 4 weeks ago.
Mood has changed. He is a lot less lively. Doesn't play with the other dog anymore.
Lost his young play and sleeps a lot more. Zones out at times when sat too.

He now drinks loads and obviously pees a lot more. I'd say toilet every 2 hrs and it's a big one too. This is all night as well . Poo is generally soft as well. His appetite is huge and constantly looks for food. Which isn't like him.

His mouth is working and he can carry things again. So this is a great improvement. Kind of hoping that it keeps work as we start to reduce the dose in 2 weeks time. Along with him needing to pee less. This would be a welcome event for me.

Keep going I hand fed chip for 3 weeks and gave him water through a syringe when he had an infection and 2 genral's in a week to drain it then stich the hole left by the dead skin.. He is back bouncing around like a mad ****er.

 

[Buchan]

Good to hear that there is progress. Don't be too worried about the impact of the steroids, many dogs live totally normal lives on maintenance doses, and while the side effects can be a problem, I've seen more positive than negative outcomes. Good luck

 

[Gm81]

Keep going I hand fed chip for 3 weeks and gave him water through a syringe when he had an infection and 2 genral's in a week to drain it then stich the hole left by the dead skin.. He is back bouncing around like a mad ****er.

We do feel lucky that he is able to function without us having to do that. I got my fingers crossed. For the same outcome as yours.

 

[Gm81]

Good to hear that there is progress. Don't be too worried about the impact of the steroids, many dogs live totally normal lives on maintenance doses, and while the side effects can be a problem, I've seen more positive than negative outcomes. Good luck

He is on 20 mg twice a day at the moment. Then drops to 10mg twice a day then 5mg etc. I'm not sure if this is a strong dose or not.
I think the target is to reduce to zero as a final goal. The idea being it's broken the cycle or cause of his muscle loss.
It's a bit beyond me to be fair. As a mechanic things are black and white. But in life things aren't at all.

 

[Buchan]

5 mg is a decent dose for maintainance and I've plenty of animals on 5mg daily without any reall ill effects. Minimising those is best done with an alternate day dose and giving the tablet in teh morning (a dog's natural steroid high). But his condition may be better on daily dosing. I've not seen one of these cases, so over to @srvet

 

[Gm81]

5 mg is a decent dose for maintainance and I've plenty of animals on 5mg daily without any reall ill effects. Minimising those is best done with an alternate day dose and giving the tablet in teh morning (a dog's natural steroid high). But his condition may be better on daily dosing. I've not seen one of these cases, so over to @srvet

Thank you for your input and honesty. Our local vet is quite big now (woodwood vets), it was quite alien to them.
Dovecote (castle donnington) the vet/specialist was pretty confident.
As I said it's rare and hard to diagnose as it's so unusual and symptoms are differing day by day.
I also think that by the time we got a test our results were not conclusive. Specialist agreed test timing is hard. These results and timings helped his hunch.
After 2 weeks we are clear of an infection cause I would think.
I will keep updating every couple of weeks. We had/have lots of questions, so I will put our real world process up.

 

[Selous]

5 mg is a decent dose for maintainance and I've plenty of animals on 5mg daily without any reall ill effects. Minimising those is best done with an alternate day dose and giving the tablet in teh morning (a dog's natural steroid high). But his condition may be better on daily dosing. I've not seen one of these cases, so over to @srvet

Immunosuppressive doses of prednisone are 1-2mg/kg so the current dose of 40mg/day would fit into that category. If that is reduced to 5mg/day that would reduce the dose to 0.2mg/kg assuming a body weight of 25kg which would be an anti inflammatory dose. The most common cause of treatment failure tends to be using inadequate doses and trying to reduce the dose too quickly. It often takes many months to taper off the dose to nothing and some dogs suffer relapses when the drugs are withdrawn so need a low level of pred for maintenance.

 

[Gm81]

Immunosuppressive doses of prednisone are 1-2mg/kg so the current dose of 40mg/day would fit into that category. If that is reduced to 5mg/day that would reduce the dose to 0.2mg/kg assuming a body weight of 25kg which would be an anti inflammatory dose. The most common cause of treatment failure tends to be using inadequate doses and trying to reduce the dose too quickly. It often takes many months to taper off the dose to nothing and some dogs suffer relapses when the drugs are withdrawn so need a low level of pred for maintenance.

The reducing in dosage plan will be over about 6 months I think. I'd need to check with the wife as it's on email with her.

Should I worry about letting him swim in water and him being out in the field as his immune system isnt what it should be?
He loves swimming and it's good exercise in this heat.

 

[Selous]

If the water is clean then there shouldn’t be a risk but the trouble is rivers and lakes can have all sorts of muck in them. Personally I would avoid it.