I'm looking for any suggestions for my eldest, Shadow.  Shadow will be 7
this winter, and has been living with insulinoma for about a year and 9
months.  (She had two surgeries for it early on, one by our regular vet, one
by an expert in another town - neither vet found anything, so we're assuming
its too diffuse, or hiding in the liver -- regardless, it doesn't seem to be
treatable surgically).  The problem, however, isn't the insulinoma --
between proglycem and pred her blood sugar levels are fairly steady, and
she's not having any seizures or hind-end weakness.  The problem is that
everything else seems to be falling apart as well.
 
Shadow had her left adrenal removed a year and a half ago, after which her
hair regrew, she had more energy, etc.  Now she's showing signs of right
adrenal problems - massive hair loss, vulvar swelling, thin skin, muscle
loss, etc.  But far worse are all the other "little" things -- a month ago,
she started having some bleeding ulcers.  We got that stabilized, but now
she's having sneezing fits (even gave herself a bloody nose a few times),
and her skin is incredibly itchy - she has scratched herself raw (not hard
with thin skin, admittedly), and the majority of her waking time is spent
either scratching or sneezing.  (For what its worth, she also has an
enlarged spleen, and has been quite lethargic.  She's eating and drinking,
but is down to only a pound, which is quite low for her - mostly muscle
wasting, I think.)
 
Allergies don't seem to be the problem - with a quarter tab of pred a day,
she should be getting enough steroids to prevent an allergic reaction.  We
did just move, but the sneezing and itching started a week before the move,
so it isn't the new house.  She's been on amoxi for a month, and we're
switching her to clavamox, in case there's a skin infection.  Plus, the vet
just gave her a shot of ivermectin, in case her weakened system just
succumbed to a parasite the others aren't having problems with (everyone
else is healthy).
 
Is there anything else we can do?  I don't think she's strong enough to
survive adrenal surgery, and I don't think thats really the primary problem
anyway - its more like everything else is shutting down.  But the itching is
making her miserable enough that we're beginning to think that its time to
say goodbye.  I don't want to just add more and more long-term meds - she
hates all the ones she's on, and waking her every few hours to give her more
meds doesn't really increase her quality of life.  But if anyone has any
suggestions on how to keep her from itching so much, I'd really be grateful
to hear them.  At the moment, we're giving the new antibiotics and the
ivermectin a week to work (and we'll be spritzing her skin with lotion 2x
daily as well) - if we're not seeing any improvement, we'll have to start
seriously considering whether she really has any quality of life left...
 
Rochelle
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[Posted in FML issue 2031]