Sunday, October 13, 2013

Senior Center

With Lyric's seventh birthday all of our pets (not including rabbits and one pig) became "seniors."  Granted a lot of them are "borderline" but still, it's a bit depressing.  Although the only one that is really geriatric is Zodiac.  And for the most part he seems to be doing well.  I had recently started him on Previcox as he seems to be having a little trouble getting up and stairs continue to be a bit of a challenge.  I had hesitated to do this as I think the Rimadyl had previously given him an ulcer.  But we tried anyway.  He seemed to be doing well on it but I happened to have him at work after a week of being on it and decided to run his senior panel and it again showed evidence of an ulcer.  I can't be sure but it seems the most logical cause for the bloodwork abnormalities.  And I'm not really willing to do a lot of invasive diagnostics on a dog that feels fine.  So we stopped the Previcox and started Prilosec.  We will just have to muddle along with Tramadol, Dasuquin, and j/d for now.

The other two will get bloodwork later this year and Icy in the spring.  Good thing I'm working so much to support all these old folks!

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Have you thought about trying Adequan? We started my almost 14 yr old Lab on it about 3 months ago with some pretty amazing results beginning about the 3rd week of the loading doses. I lucked out and my Vet still had some and it is back on the market now.
My girl went from not being able to get up on the dock, bed or couch to jumping up on the dock and diving off again over and over. She no longer uses the steps we put by the beds and couch to help her get up. No idea how long this will keep up but she sure is doing great and I am happy about it!

Nicki said...

I had, but the inconvenience and back order situation was part of my hesitation. Also we are not sure how much is joint vs spinal related.