Vet visit 5/14/2009

There's good news, then there is bad news.

The good news is that after a week on 10 mg per day of Pred, Janine's ALT is lower, platelets are still normal, and RBC and HCT are coming up, closer to normal than before.

The bad news is that Dr. K. checked out her back, and thinks she has a slow response (proprioceptive defect) in her left rear leg and pain around L2-3. Likely a disk. We did not do any X-rays as she is a very poor surgical candidate right now, anyway. She's already on Pred and can't take any NSAIDS because of her liver, already on SAM-e. So he gave me Tramadol and Robaxin to make her feel better.

He said that although steroids are used to reduce swelling, they also have negative effects on all the other tissues, and even something as simple as her muscle loss could have precipitated the back issue. Hopefully if that's the case she could improve once her muscle builds back up.

My gut feeling is not to try to restrict her activities. She already isn't jumping (her choice) and since her life expectancy is already probably limited, I can't see making her spend it in a crate. I'd rather let her run and be a corgi and if her back goes, it goes, we'll deal with paralysis if we have to. (Probably a better bet than risking her life on surgery but I suppose if her ALT is normal and RBC is back to normal at some point, I might reconsider that.)