I'd be really glad of some advice.

We have a 18 month old minature poodle who is suffering from Addisons Disease - the vet has be great and she has been stable ( touch wood!) for 12 months since her original addisons crisis.

She had her fisrt season at just over a year (probably delayed becuase of the addisons and about 6 weeks afer it finished she started to show sign of false pregnancy - carrying toys/making nests etc. The vet injected her to dry up her milk and saw her 2 wekks later a week before she was to be speyed to inject her again. ( she was being speyed on the basis that a pregnancy would be more dangerous to an addisions sufferer that a managed speying, and the facat that we wouldn't breed from her anyway).

A week after her speying she again showed signs of false pregnancy - again the vet gave her an injection and said it was usual but not unknown.

A month on she is having antibiotics for a small cyst, having her ears dosed with Thornit ( picked up as a recommendation from this site - thank you) for an ongoing ear problem, which I beleived started the whole addisins thing following a dose of steriods being given to a young pup (5 months) and is showing signs agin of false pregnancy - toys and nests - allbeit not as badly as previously and is swollen and red as per her having a season.

So sorry for all the backgound but is the consensus that we should sit it out or go to the vets who will no doubt inject her. Its not the cost but just the thought of her being pumped full of more stuff.

Oh, your poor girl! :( I can't help you, but maybe someone else can make some suggestions. Good luck!

Have no experience of this with my lot, but have read about some Homeopathic vets treating this type of thing very effectively. Perhaps a referral might be possible from your vet, or someone on this list might know of a vet who other Homeopathic specialist?
Gwen

Sorry to hear about your girl, Hypoadrenocorticism (Addison's) being a hormornal problem, may well be conected with her other problems and her spaying will again cause a hormonal inbalance. I'm sure it will all settle down in time but you may have to wait a while before she is back to her normal self, the usual treatment for 'Addison's' is to give a course of the missing hormone and that can mean taking steroids or corticosteroid type treatment. There are a number of reasons why a dog will develop this disease and 'Addison's' can be caused by stopping a course of corticosteroid suddenly and this sort of medication should always be gradually stopped over a number of days, sometimes weeks. I know that vets can be expensive but in your girls case I don't think you have any option as you will have to get your girl in hormonal balance. It is I think possible that your bitches adrenal glands may start to work properly again but you will have to ask your vet about the prognosis. Hope things soon get back to normal all the best Ja:)kie

Hi Guest,
My sympathies to you concerning your puppy. Addison's Disease in humans is a difficult thing to manage, in a dog it's even more so. Because it cannot tell you when it's run down or over stimulated in the adrenal glands.

My mother purchased a beautiful little schnauzer bitch puppy in the mid 1980s. By the time it was a year old, she was diagnosed with Addisons. She had her spayed for the same reasons as you + she had a dog present in the household. We did have her spayed before her first season, so she never had any difficulty there.

I'm sorry I can't help you out. :( But her schnauzer did have ear/skin/heart problems for the rest of her life. My mom swore that the Addison's came from being "over played" and pushed as a very young puppy by a certain individual. It is possible, since findings have shown that dogs that have this disease "cannot cope with stress."

It looks from the various sites that having a dog with this disease has become a bit easier than 15-20 years ago. It was heartbreaking to her to have to put Kyrie to sleep when she was only 4 years old, but she was just not responding to any more of the treatments and she was really beginning to suffer.

These sites have some good information that might help you out a bit. If you do a search on Google for "Addison's Disease" Dogs it comes up with many more possililities.
all my best for you and your puppy.
Sara

Addison's Disease and treatment
Canine Addison's disease

Hi Guest

It is possible for a vet to leave a miniscule amount of ovarian tissue within a bitch when spaying and this can also cause seasonal hormonal changes.

Sounds like it is more likely to be the Addisons though

Christine

Hi guest, can`t really help with your problem but would like you to know they are doing a survey on Addisons disease at Queens Vet Hospital Cambridge. If you put C.I.M.D.A. into a search engine it will give you all the info. Jo Tucker is the lady at CIMDA & she is very helpful. Also in America they are doing D.N.A. research & poodles are one of the breeds they are interested in but I will have to look for that site for you.
Christine2