Thank you for posting this, Sukie! It gives me a bit more faith to
actually see it "from the horses mouth" so to speak (I've been too busy
to check and see if any of the studies were published/read them etc).
My vet and I are currently discussing doing this with at least one of
my fuzzies.
Thankfully for me and my furkids, my vet's practice is primarily
fuzzies, so she always keeps up on the latest research, especially that
related to nutrition and pathology. We were just discussing this new
research about two weeks ago and are planning on trying this treatment
on at least one of my fuzzies (our 5-year old female, Stella and
perhaps my 3 year old female, depending on how things go with Stella)
to see how it pans out. From what I understand, the vet will simply
take the Lupron doses she has now and aliquot them into about 1/10 of
the dose. She'll give one shot in the spring and one in the fall (about
the period of their natural breeding cycles she says. I must confess,
I don't breed, so I don't read up much on that aspect of fuzzy
physiology, but I trust her expertise and advice.) She has assured
me that she doesn't anticipate much in the way of side-effects, but
*might* offer great benefit (I would be interested to hear opinions on
this, though...my vet is practically a goddess in my eyes, but being a
scientist myself, I know that even "experts" can sometimes have biased
opinions, etc, so I always like to hear "the other side of the story"
before I make up my own mind =).
Her usual method of preventing adrenal is melatonin implants. I am not
sure if we will proceed with that in the future or not while testing
the lupron-prevention method. Based on full blood chemistry panels,
etc, Stella is in tip-top shape (other than her respiratory allergies)
with no signs of adrenal or insulinoma, so we didn't want to do a
melatonin implant yet, kind of an "ain't broke, don't fix it" mind-set
I suppose.
I think we're planning our first injection next month and then again in
September (or some time in the fall at least). I'll be happy to report
to the FML how things pan out with my furkids.
--
Rachael Harrison
[Posted in FML 5554]
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