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back and constipation for diabetic daschund



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 7th 07, 04:05 PM posted to rec.pets.dogs.health
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Default back and constipation for diabetic daschund

Our daschund, Cisco, is 7 years old and has been receiving daily
insulin injections for the past year to treat diabetes. Over the past
month, he's been having extreme "spasms" seemingly in his back. Our vet
initially diagnosed it as a back problem, as daschunds are prone to
have, and we tried two weeks of Rimadyl. That seemed to mask the
problem, but as soon as he went off it, the pain returned.

His behavior during these "spasms" varies, depending on the severity,
but he normally has visible shuddering on his back and rear legs. He
grunts constantly and walks in circles. He also walks backwards a lot,
and seems to get some relief by lifting one of his rear legs. We've
also noticed that he likes to back into our feet a lot- not with a lot
of pressure, or in a sitting-down position, though.

Sometime during the second week, we also noticed that during severe
spasms, he would lose control of his bowels and have movements,
seemingly without much effort. The stool would just fall out, rather
than him appearing to move them himself. He grunts severely during
these episodes.

When we took him back into the vet, he got very nervous and had one of
these bowel episodes in the office. The vet was concerned about his
tendency to back up and hadn't seen that behavior before with a dog, so
she recommended X-rays. The results showed a very slight old injury to
the back that had since healed, but yielded a new surprise: his entire
back half appears to be filled up with stool. At that point, we
believed the problem not to be because of his back, but because he is
backing up his bowels. They gave him an enema on-site and we've been
giving him stool softener twice daily for the past four weeks.

About a week ago, we took him back in since he still seemed to have
spasms, though at a lower duration and intensity. Occassionally he
would have a very large one that was still concerning. The vet went
back to the theory that something was wrong with his back and
recommended we try one of two things: Prednisone o a visit to a
specialist in Indianapolis. She would have recommended the Prednisone
immediately, but it has the unfortunate side effect of throwing blood
sugar out of whack, which can be troublesome for diabetic dogs. We
opted to try the Prednisone and monitor his blood sugar level closely
for side effects.

He's been doing OK with the new treatment (Prednisone in the morning,
stool softener and insuling in the morning and evening), but has had an
inevitable return to his old ways of increased thirst and urinating in
the house. But last night he had a horrible spasm and this morning he's
acting worse than ever. He won't come out of his kennel voluntarily and
refuses to eat (it's been somewhat of a challenge during all of this to
get him to eat, anyway). He did go out this morning and had a small,
but what we would lately term "normal", movement that was fairly dry.

I think we're going to try and take him to the Purdue Veterinary
Clinic, which we've heard good things about from friends. They appear
to be the best nearby resource.

Has anyone else had similar behavior from their daschund or other
similar breed?

  #2  
Old January 8th 07, 01:26 PM posted to rec.pets.dogs.health
buglady
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Posts: 863
Default back and constipation for diabetic daschund


wrote in message
ups.com...
I think we're going to try and take him to the Purdue Veterinary
Clinic, which we've heard good things about from friends. They appear
to be the best nearby resource.

Has anyone else had similar behavior from their daschund or other
similar breed?


......It really sounds like there's something wrong with the nerves serving
his hind end and he can't eliminate easily. I think taking him to Purdue is
your best bet. Do a search on the web for back problems in Dachsies before
you go so you are familiar with their particular problems. There are a
couple of good sites that discuss back surgery and aftereffects.
Acupuncture might help is surgery isn't a recommendation.

Hope for the best for your pup
buglady
take out the dog before replying


 




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