My dog is starting on steroids today to try to help a nasty case of inflammatory arthritis in her knee joint. The vet advised that she will drink more, pee more and put on weight because she will eat more. Now I do know that steroids can cause weight gain but presumably she will only gain weight if I feed her more. I am guessing that the steroids will make her feel more hungry but should I feed her more to compensate or should I stick to her normal food? I dont want her to gain too much weight as I worry that it would put strain on her healthy leg.

You could give her some vegetables as extra food intake to compensate, it won't have extra calories to that extent? My old girl has just started on PLT's which contain a small amount of steroids ..................

I've had the occasional one of mine of things like Pred. but only short-term and to be honest, have never noticed any of the side effects you have been told your dog may experience.    I kept them on the same amount of food, and if I noticed any weight gain, dropped it back a bit.   I didn't notice any increase in hunger.  If she's on reduced exercise, which she should be because once she's feeling more comfortable and perhaps moving more freely, she could do more damage to the joint, she may well not need as much food (put on weight!).

I think your vet has told you what your dog might experience, not what she will!!?

Hopefully she won't need to be on the antiinflammatories for long in any case - the discomfort from an arthritic condition can come and go, depending a lot on the weather...... I know I'm worse during cold damp weather than when it's dry ad warm.   With those we had with this, in later life, we'd only treat them when they were having a flare-up.

Add  @ Jo...   PLT - wonderful.   This was a life-saver when one of ours went off his back legs (spondylitis).

One of my Chow's went on steroids and he had all the side effects. Chow's are born house trained but he couldn't hold on overnight and I had to get up in the night with him just like a puppy, his wee's were enormous. 

It also drastically affected his personality and he became very aggressive with my other dogs, had a pop at all of them, had my little pug man by the scruff and shook him like a rag. In between these outbursts he was very worried and upset almost like he couldn't believe what he had done. After a fight with my other Chow he had some quite bad punctures which got infected so he had to come off the steroids so he could be treated for his wounds and he was back to normal within a day or two.

My vet did not inform me of the aggression so I wasn't prepared for it.  Probably not all dogs get the aggression but if you have other dogs or children it may pay to have a separate area for your dog until you can assess the situation.

What dose are we talking about?  I've had dogs on very low, mid range and high and the effects have varied.  Predictably the worst has been the high range at 25mg a day, but the dog I had on 5mg for random pain and arthritis never showed any side effects at all, apart from a dramatic improvement in her mobility.

Sorry but I don't remember the dose, I don't think it was particularly high though. He was only on it about 5 days but it really affected him. Lucky that no one was badly injured or harboured any resentment over it.

I am hearing more and more good results from using tumeric for all sorts including arthritis.you might want to researsh it to use a long side mainstream treatment. if successful you may beable to reduce  the steroids etc

Sorry, that was meant for rubysmum :-)

Definitely try turmeric, outstanding stuff.

Hi Nikita, She is starting on Prednisolone 25mg/day and it will be reviewed after 5 days. The idea is to lower it as soon as the inflammation in her knee has settled down a bit. I have given her Turmeric (and do take it myself along with Bromelain. Cant remember but think I saw that recommended on here sometime ago) but stopped it as vet said she needed to be off NSAIDS for sometime before starting the steroids and I think the Turmeric is anti-inflamatory so wasnt sure if it could be taken with steroids?

Hi Lunamoona, Thanks for the warning. Ruby does spend a lot of time living away from the other dogs as she likes a peaceful life. I will watch for signs of her becoming more irritable. Thanks

One of ours on 5mg of prednisolone every other day -  occasionally been daily - & the only noticeable difference, I know the day he's has it from the lower level of their water bowl.

Turmeric is anti-inflammatory so I would be careful but, I have Saffi on it and the same dose of pred.  Hers is for immunosupression though so it needs to be high, and it's still the minimum dose for that purpose for her size - she's 31kg so she'll outweigh Ruby by quite a bit.  So Ruby's dose seems quite high and I would certainly expect side effects.  I don't have any direct experience of dosing for arthritis though - I've actually had four dogs on it, not three (I forgot Paige's little giant face episode earlier this year), but all of them have been for a different reason.

My dog is on daily preds for an immune condition.  I only notice the side effects when she is on a particularly high dose for her weight ( 25mg x twice daily for a cocker) and when she's on this she will swipe food and generally mooch off everyone.  I haven't noticed any difference in her temperment or drinking or wee'ing to be honest even though I was told of this side effect. 
When saff is 'hungry' with the steroids, I feed her loads of fruit and veg to fill her up without the weight gain.  She would eat ANYTHING when on these and all training she has had goes out the window and anything is fair game including disgusting things she can find outside.
Must be horrible to feel this way though and I always feel rotten for her at times like this so she does tend to put on a few pounds till the dose comes back down :)

>she's 31kg so she'll outweigh Ruby by quite a bit.  So Ruby's dose seems quite high and I would certainly expect side effects.

Rubys normal weight is 25kg, she is a bigger dog than Ren. Unfortunately with the lack of exercise due to her bad leg, last time I weighed her she had gone up to 27kg so have cut her food down a bit. She had the first dose yesterday, so far so good. She was restless in the evening and kept leading me to the fridge when ever I asked her what she wanted. I gave her a marrow bone with some liver pate smeared inside it and that seemed to help as she spent a while licking it.

Blimey, she is quite a bit bigger!  I've not weighed Ren in a bit but I think she would just about be at 20kg now.

I find that sort of thing helps with Saffi - we've got filled hooves tonight (with tinned meat and oats for filler).