Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
Join The Tripawds Community
Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:
Instant post approval.
Private messages to members.
Subscribe to favorite topics.
Live Chat and much more!
Register
Log In
Members
Add Topic
Offline
Hello All,
I thought I would throw this out ...Tahoe has done 2 treatments of Lomustine (CCNU) with both treatments having low WBC (neutrophol #'s). Results from his 7-day post chemo #2 treatment, CBC results showed a elevated iver enzyme (ALT). We re-tested today and found not one but now two liver enzymes elevated. ALT is up about 50% from last week, and now ALP is elevated. Both our vet and onco are very surprised, even though Lomustine is know for liver toxicity.
We are on SAMe daily and doing daily homeopathic remedies as well. Am waiting word back from the onco as to what her thoughts are ...
Has anyone any thoughts on possible options to consider to minimize liver damage beyond what we are doing or to improve liver health? The balance with chemo treatment is to achieve maximum cancel cell kill while minimizing organ damage from the chemo drugs and quality of life. Other than the elevated liver #'s, Tahoe has responded really well to chemo, with very few side effects.
Thanks,
Stirling and Tahoe
"Tahoe" - Our Amazing Superman and Best Friend.
Dec. 01-03 to Aug. 19-14
Diagnosed with Periarticular Hystiocystic Sarcoma Feb 14-13; Amputation March 18-13, and diagnosed with STS April-14. Tahoe touched so many people while visiting us, leaving a massive void in our lives. Always Missed, Never Forgotten!!
Milk thistle is renowned for it's liver-protecting/healing abilities. Perhaps look into that. Do either of these tests indicate that the chemo dose is too strong? Too weak? Not effective?
Yikes! Keep us posted! But, I'm so glad to hear he's tolerating all the doses so far! That's superb.
~ Katy
ACL tear in right hind leg 12/5/12 and scheduled ACL repair surgery 12/21/12. Pre-op xrays revealed osteosarcoma. Amputation 12/28/12. Chemo (carboplatin) started Jan 10, 2013 and ended on April 5, for a total of 5 doses. He handled carbo like a champ! No side effects. We started metronomic therapy at his third chemo and have been also doing some holistic treatments. He's a lively, playful 10 year old huskie-boarder collie and a very proud member of the Winter Warriors! Our love. Our funny little guy!
I agree, many folks use Milk Thistle here (including Dr. Pam) to help manage the liver enzymes during chemo. Here are some posts that discuss its use:
Hang in there, this is only temporary. It's good to hear from you, I was thinking about Tahoe the other day, how is everything else going?
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
The best product to use for dogs is denamarin which contains milk thistle as well as SAM-E and other vitamins. You can also purchase the drugs separately but not all SAM-E is created equal so check your sources. My dog Kona was on metronomic CCNU for a small intestinal tumor and even though I started her on denamarin right away she eventually had to stop the CCNU because of high liver enzymes. She still lived over 1 1/2 years before the tumor came back. She had leiomyosarcoma so your dog's tumor type and situation are different and your oncologist may be able to find a different drug if the denamarin does not help.
Pam
Hello Katy, Rene, and Pam,
Thank yo for your thoughts and suggestions. Good idea about the denamarin and straight milk thistle. I have posed those two suggestions to our onco and vet.
Tahoe has done very well so far with amp recovery and two rounds of chemo, beyond the liver enzymes. We are not sure how many rounds of chemo we will do, as this may be dictated by the liver enzymes. His interest in walks have dropped significantly, with our vet figuring that the front elbow is painful, likely result of osteoarthritis.
All in all, our boy is very happy and back to old self.
Thanks again for the suggestions and support.
Regards,
Stirling and Tahoe
"Tahoe" - Our Amazing Superman and Best Friend.
Dec. 01-03 to Aug. 19-14
Diagnosed with Periarticular Hystiocystic Sarcoma Feb 14-13; Amputation March 18-13, and diagnosed with STS April-14. Tahoe touched so many people while visiting us, leaving a massive void in our lives. Always Missed, Never Forgotten!!
An update from the "trenches" ...
This damn disease is sure relentless ....
I had thought we turned a corner a few weeks back as both liver enzymes (ALT, ALP) dropped slightly from their highs, but the last two blood tests, including today, show that ALT is up 35% from last week (530) and the ALP is up slightly (360). We were hoping to do our 3rd round of lomustine today but with these numbers we held off in order to speak with the onco, to get here feedback and suggested next steps.
We are still doing daily Zentonil (Sam-E ) and milk thistle, plus K-9 Immunity , Transfer Factor, Homeopathy remedies (Dr Loops), plus 8000 mg fish oil, multi-vit. I feel at a loss as to what todo next. My vet (who is administering the chemo) under the guidance of the onco, is at a loss as to why the liver enzymes continue to go higher given everything we are doing to protect the liver.
My vet is suspecting there is something else going on with the liver, not as a result of the lomustine. Worst case, is this damn cancer has mets in the liver. Should we ultrasound the abdo/liver next? Pros/cons?
Has anyone had these results with using CCNU (lomustine)?
Thanks everyone.
Stirling and Tahoe
"Tahoe" - Our Amazing Superman and Best Friend.
Dec. 01-03 to Aug. 19-14
Diagnosed with Periarticular Hystiocystic Sarcoma Feb 14-13; Amputation March 18-13, and diagnosed with STS April-14. Tahoe touched so many people while visiting us, leaving a massive void in our lives. Always Missed, Never Forgotten!!
Hi Strling,
I'm sorry Tahoe is having problems. As you know Maggie got 7 doses of CCNU over 6 months (alternating with vinblastine) and she never had liver issues that showed up in bloodwork. I did not have her on any liver protecting supplements either.
Maggie had several abdominal ultrasounds as part of her check ups, mast cell tends to met to the liver and spleen, they had always been clear. At one point I decided that we were not going to pursue and more aggressive treatments (no more surgeries to remove tumors). She was 10 and had been battling mast cell for 3 years or so. We did do an abdominal US at her check up and it showed suspicious lesions on her liver. I was not willing to put her through a biopsy, and the onco was not recommending more treatment without a biopsy. So I just got to worry about the US results for awhile.
The moral of my long story is that if the US results would change what you are doing, or you need it to decide what to do, then do one. Knowledge is power, even if you get bad news. In my case I had already decided we were not doing more, so the US results just weighed on my mind.
BTW, a year later when her second cancer was diagnosed we did a US and the suspicious lesions were still there- maybe scaring from the chemo, I'll never know.
Karen
Hey Stirling and Tahoe! That Tahoe likes to keep you on your toes.
Karen seems to be a good source on info. for you. The fact that her Maggie survived over a year after her liver "challenge" is quite encouraging.
It certainly could be related to the chemo and is just taking awhile longer to balance out...maybe even scarring could be messing around eight the result numbers.
It still maybe taking the over supplement sat ad longer to kick in. Hang in there!!
How is Tahoe's appetite?? How 'bout his attitude?? Still a happy tail wagging' dog?
Sorry he has arthritis in his leg and that's slowing him down a bit. But I'm sure he doesn't mind laying around more and getting tummy rubs, kisses and cookies:-) 
Try not to worry (yeah, easier said than done) and REMEBER TAHOE IS. OT WORRIED AVOUT A THING:-) He's enjoying all the loving and spoiling and just being pre net in the moment!! No stupid liver number is going to rob you of one second d of the bliss you and Tahoe have by being together!!
Please keep us posted. Hey Stirling...--we haven't had a photo of Tahoe in a long time...---and we don't like that:-)
Sending you a all sorts of positive, healing energy,Sally and Happy Hannan
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
I'm so sorry you guys are getting a bad hand with this stupid disease. Ugh!
I agree with Karen; knowledge is power. An ultrasound isn't a painful procedure, at worst they just have to sedate Tahoe, but that one procedure can give you the information you need to go from there. You have a great medical team, so I don't doubt that they can figure out what's going on. I have no idea if Tahoe's issues are even remotely connected to Spirit Rusty's but I thought I'd share this post with you. Rusty was having a lot of trouble with his liver and eventually his vet figured why it was happening:
"Dr. Macy said that Rusty “flunked” his liver tests. Rusty has a “mild portosystemic liver shunt”, which are abnormal veins that enable blood from the intestines to bypass the liver. The effect is ammonia and other toxins are not metabolized or removed from the blood. The majority of portosystemic shunts are congenital. Rusty’s shunts are not serious enough to require surgery; we can offset the effects of the liver by feeding him small high protein meals several times a day. No large meals!"
Who knows if this is why Tahoe is having issues but I thought I'd throw it out there.
Keep us posted OK? We are thinking of you.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
1 Guest(s)
