RENAL DYSPLASIA
&
our MAGNUS - just 3 months & 20 days
JUST 3 MONTHS & 20 DAYS
Since Diagnosing to Last Bye.
Rest in Peace
We Love You.
Gone from our Sight, but
never
from our Hearts
JOURNAL :
One day you think you were just about ready with your little star to go for his first doggie show and the other day that all was gone.
The day when we got diagnosed, we were at the doctor office and all I could remember was that something tragical happened.
After leaving, if somebody would asked me what I was told, I would not be able to repeat it.
Needles, pills, subcutaneous fluids were piling on us. It was awful.
Magnus did not like it and we hated that.
The picture of making our always very pampered boy uncomfortable was something we could not swallow.
We were entirely crashed, only what was holding us was the fact that at the beginning the doctor instructions worked.
But let's not skip the time and let's go day by day.
JOURNAL:
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5.6. 2021
It was clear something was not right. Magnus was 4 months and 7 days old, when we noticed light brown (brown mark picture) marking toward the end of Magnus's back. Later, it was on his paws, chest, and top line. His coat lost shine, became wavy and dull.
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5.11.2021
First reaction of a vet was that it could be an allergy. However by Monday 5.11.2021discoloration was all over his body, mainly around his neck and top line. He did not show any real signs of being itchy - just here and there. After visiting a vet, we got:
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Gentamicin Betamethasone
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Cephalexin 500 mg 2 a day
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Comments: Discoloration on Magnus's coat was not just the only sign. Magnus was very thirsty, but as it was always like that and his brothers were acting alike (from nine puppies - later we found out - five of them were affected by Renal Dysplasia), we though it had to be normal. He drank a lot, from a shower, a toilet, a hose... He very quickly learned how to drink from a bottle - simply where water was there Magnus was. Magnus was a very intelligent puppy, he learned in quick time a lot. We considered it as one of his additional trick. We - even for a second - would not be thinking our boy could be sick. He ate, played, was socially very active.
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Today, I can say he was bit slower and more sleepy than healthy puppy would be. His games were bit shorter, but we though, it was because, he was our little chunky boy. He was indeed chunky and beautiful. Strong little fella. Shining star.
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5.20.2021
We were back at doctor with vomiting, excessive drinking, losing drastically weight - sometimes around 5.4.2021 Magnus's weight was 47 lbs. and on 5.20.2021, he was 38 lbs. Magnus lost his appetite. Spots on his body became infected.
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Comment: Today I would say as his number were rising, the spots were spreading and became infected.
Magnus got a Cerenia injection, and we were waiting for completion of his blood work to see if results could show something more than questionable allergy.
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5.24.2021 THE DAY OF DIAGNOSIS
The day of the phone call: Magnus's blood work results - numbers were absolutely terrible. We got even questioned, if there was a chance, he ate something, what could poison him, that bad the numbers were. We were making a decision, if to take Magnus straight to hospital or we could manage it from home. I really did not want to leave him at hospital with strange people, who would be injecting him, handling him in the way he would not be certainly comfortable with. Magnus was not used to be alone, all what he was used to was to be next to his mommy and daddy. Not being alone, just always nearby.
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Comment: Today, I would say, think twice about leaving your doggie in hospital. If it is question of applying subcutaneous fluids - you can do it at home, no need for hospitalization.
We decided to go with treatment as an outpatient from home. We had an amazing veterinarian, who was hands on, showed us how to apply fluids, did the first run with us and was available if we would have any issues. Knowledgeable, straightforward approach but diligent enough to get us up to speed. We were lucky to contact DVM. Elliott Grossman. From day one, there were not comments like: go to the specialist, I do not know what to do with you guys, you will need more help. The approach was more like: let's investigate it and look for something we can do and team up with specialists.
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OBSERVATION: Do not get your hope that renal dysplasia can be detected by results of blood work panel or by scanning kidneys early enough, so it could be used for selecting a puppy without being ever worried your puppy will not have RD (Renal Dysplasia).
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Magnus's first blood work was done on 03.31.2021 - he was 3 months old:
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his Creatinine was 0.5 mg/dL & his BUN was 19 mg/dL
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(perfectly healthy puppy according to blood work)
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JUST ONE month and something later
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his creatinine was 4.6 mg/dL and his BUN 128 mg/dL
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Unfortunately, as we were fighting our battle to find out what was happening to our sweet boy, we got additional terrible news - news never come as one - other two puppies from the same litter had to be put down for the same symptoms as Magnus were experiencing. The tragedy was becoming unbearable. Magnus came from nine puppies - 5 of the puppies ended up with Renal Dysplasia. Absolutely terrible outcome. It appeared all of them started to experience their symptoms in similar age but in different scale. All these puppies were puppies of absolutely outshining quality - the litter of your dream.
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Our breeders - as painfully it had to be - were the anchors to come to ask for help. I would be hesitant to choose different pilots. There was no avoiding the situation, as tragic it was, I appreciated all effort, which came from them to find out what was happening and if there was something to save the situation. I appreciated how open minded they were and how much they were trying to seek for any information. We must inform ourselves, and we have to share these outcomes, so we can learn.
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To my believe our breeders were an example of not only character, but also reputation which we should learn from. The nature can be cruel and may not give us what we were asking for, but we must stand up, eliminate the errors, and move for better tomorrows.
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We were unprepared for something like that to happen. As many articles I went through, as many times I ended up sleeping on my keyboard to seek for solutions, as many people I reached to, it seemed to me, the more I learned, the less I was able to say I could help - sometimes I felt like a keyboard warrior, who was not seeing a way out.
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Our breeders did Biopsy on Magnus's brother and it confirmed unfortunately undesirable renal dysplasia. We did a renal dysplasia gene test on Magnus and the result came as homozygous. We officially were in trouble.
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This disease is most likely genetical, apparently can be in some instances environmental.
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There is a genetic test to find out if that come from parents. However, there are some questions to validity of the test.
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Our boy gene test was probably correct.
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It would be absolutely disgraced to breed on animals who may produce puppies with renal dysplasia
as we have no 100% evidence at this moment that the parents truly did NOT spread the disease.
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As tragical it may be, for sake to save the new families, we must acknowledge that breeders no longer breed just a puppy, they eventually sending to the world a child. I would not be shy to say the puppy is an equal member of family and we treat them as our children.
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Puppies with renal dysplasia are going to die in terrible pain and discomfort.
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It is only a question of the time when the owners of these brave little guys will have to throw the towel for sake of saving the puppy from more pain.
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There is no question in my mind that as minimum sire and dam of these puppies should be immediately eliminated from breeding, till we - as society - find a test or way to confirm that the sire and/or dam have nothing to do with this disease.
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Watching a little pup to go down with seizure, vomiting, starving themselves to death, excruciating diarrhea, ulcers in mouth and stomach is NOT worth of any potential champion who could come. Even a little chance is still one TERRIBLE chance to happen. We should automatically eliminate animal from breeding producing disease as such.
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There is NO VIRTUE which would overcome the PAIN of this disease.
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5.24.2021
Magnus was officially diagnosed with RD. Magnus got 500 units of Subcutaneous Fluid, Azodyl Capsule, Phos Bind 500 mg, Cerenia Tablet.
Dosage was as follow:
* Phos Bind 500 mg 3* a week
* Azodyl capsule: 2 capsules in am and 1 in pm
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Comment: I never got to believe that Azodyl helped. Just a fancy probiotic. It would agree with finding within the study of Dr. Polzin.
* Cerenia Tablet 60 mg - if he would vomit
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Comment: later we swapped Cerania to Ondansetron 8 mg.
He was also on vitamins:
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Biotin 5000 mcg
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Fish Oil 2500 mg
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AstraGalus 3000 mg
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Glucosamine 1500 mg
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Probiotic
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Colostrum 900 mg
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Dyne - High calorie liquid supplement - 4 spoons a day - Magnus actually liked the taste
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5.25.2021
Magnus started to eat ! I mean he ate a lot & his weight was going up! He was 42lbs. by night.
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5.26.2021
Magnus weight got to 44 lbs., appeared to be happy and playful, though very easily tired.
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5.27.2021
Magnus weight was 46 lbs. In the am he was still a bit tired, skipped breakfast. For lunch got small pieces of chicken, in the pm managed even his walk - he was vomiting, just a foamy residuum. "Acidic Reflux". He appeared tired after short walk. We gave him a Cerenia tablet for his nausea - I would say within an hour, his appetite was back. He was not very keen to go for dry food or can food (We had Hills Canine dry food and RC Canine Renal Support 13.5 oz. can). In pm hours Magnus got 500 units of Fluids. Relief was pretty much instant.
RD diet... for some reason, no matter what we put into his renal diet, he just walked away.... We noticed that once we dropped into his food Phos Bind, he did not eat it. I tried to put Phos Bind to capsules and made Magnus to swallow it. However, to reach the amount which he should be getting, was nearly impossible with this technique.
We ordered Epakitin Phosphate binder to maybe swap the taste of the binder? It was success, he did not mind the taste of Epakitin. There was a risk with Magnus's already higher level of calcium, it would go even higher - 11.5 mg/dL.
From 06.01.2021 till 06.21.2021 Magnus's blood works were improving, we had some bumps on the road, but it looked we were managing. The belief of "MIRACLE HOPE" was unstoppable. Around 6.20.2021 - Magnus stopped to eat, had bloody diarrhea and his skin on front paws, around chest and on his top line got again reddish - like infected.
ONE MONTH INTO RENAL DYSPLASIA
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On 06.21.2021 - ONE MONTH INTO RENAL DYSPLASIA
Visit of NC State veterinary hospital - hope for some explanation.
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We were able to see ultrasound of Magnus's kidneys - to our surprise Magnus's kidneys were regular size 7 cm and 7.13 cm.
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Comment: till these days I see Magnus as the only puppy who came with having Renal Dysplasia and having REGULAR size of kidneys. Some of the doctors, who we were able to meet, just commented that was something what normally did not go along with RD.
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Our doctor Dr. Metzere Bierlein checked on our boy. Evaluation is available here. We discussed E-tube procedure, but we opted out this alternative.
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We started adding Entyce - it appeared to be a significant help for Magnus's appetite for few upcoming weeks
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Only during this period Magnus actually enjoyed RD diet and ate 3 - 4 cans of Renal diet a day. On 7.07.2021 he was 60 lbs. - we were static.
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During that time, he had RD wet diet for breakfast and lunch, but not always for dinner. It looked having RD wet diet three times a day was too much. Magnus preferred some change for dinner - like an organic chicken, turkey... You could find plenty of ideas on internet. We were counting phosphorus, calories, and protein.
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We went by:
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Phosphorus: 20 g per 1 lb.
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Calories: we were trying to aim somewhere around 1,500 - 2,000 Kcal - Magnus was 6 months old
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Protein : our target was 1g per lb.
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COMMENT: I can tell you - these targets were just something we became to carry only in back of our mind, as Magnus was slowly - regardless of what we did - losing appetite.
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He did not care for dry food - it was accessible to him, but he walked straight pass by it.
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It appeared that when I ate with him - he started to eat.
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During that time, (since he was born till 07.09.2021) Magnus had full access to goat milk... he was used to drink 2 cups of goat milk a day... Not sure if that was wrong or right - I read plenty of articles and the opinions were not well settled on goat milk topic. As thirsty these guys were - goat milk was working for us a great source of calories which we so needed for our boy, but it had some down falls in regards of the others ingrediencies within goat milk.
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From 06.21.2021
I would bet a lot that Magnus was really improving, he was energetic, still gaining weight, engaged in his activities - his coat improved. I was keeping him on Zyrtec, not sure if he had some reaction on something or it was part of issue related to kidney disease - his beautiful coat never came back to where it was.
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07.09.2021
I believed on 7.09.2021 we would see super improved blood work results, but it did not happen. Magnus's blood work turned the other way around. We were told that progression of his disease was too fast.
Magnus's calcium level was 12.01 mg/dL. It was time to look for different binder. Maybe Renvela ? We ended up to purchase Savelamer Carbonate (an authorized generic form identical to Renvela). We started with one tablet with a meal (1-1-1).
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Comment: as of 08/10/2021 we stopped to use Savelamer Carbonate - not sure if that was because Savelamer Carbonate or combination of anything or everything - Magnus got terrible diarrhea.
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07.17.2021
I thought we were going to lose our warrior. He did not eat breakfast. For lunch he ate just a small piece of sausage - which he would probably not get, but at that moment… I did not care too much … just please eat at least something my little boy.
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We noticed during our time with RD, that sometime to help with eating, we ate straight in front of our little man. It made him curious and eventually he turned his head towards what we had for dinner. OR we dropped a tiny pieces of his food on his mouth, which made him to lick it and eat it.
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Little tricks like tiny bit of BBQ pork just slightly over the top of meal, or tiny pieces of grill chicken skin, or oil or anything and everything that you may find. Lot of these ideas did not work, but some of them did.
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Quite common for RD parents was to mention that the taste for certain food comes and goes. We tried to rotate his meals. I would say it should be the last thing you should be doing to a doggie. But not that you would have too many other options with these guys.
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On 07.17.2021 Magnus again got terrible diarrhea towards the end of the day - it was serious fecal incontinence.
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Magnus got Metronidazole and Charcoal capsule + one tablet of Ondansetron 8mg.
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He got an additional SubQ throughout that night. We were told in episode of vomiting/diarrhea - Magnus should get extra fluids, even if not due that day.
TWO MONTHS INTO RENAL DYSPLASIA
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07.23.2021 - TWO MONTHS INTO RENAL DYSPLASIA
Next blood work and next disappointment - on 07.23.2021 we were so hoping, we would see at least some success. Blood work results were big disappointment. We no longer took it personally, it was a part of our journey. We had to deal with it. Magnus was very mellow and sweet. Loving little sweet boy. Although! Do not get yourself fooled - he was no longer a little boy - he was 66 lbs. heavy handsome 6 months old puppy. Just a gorgeous boy.
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If anything - what I remembered from 7.23.2021 Magnus's doctor visit was a sentence of our vet: "We do not treat a blood work, we do treat the animal and Magnus looks great."
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Savelamer Carbonate - Magnus's new Phosphate binder helped with increasing calcium level, however his Phosphorus level did not changed.... Maybe our plateau was around 9? We were not sure what was right. Unfortunately, it was not just us.
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As much as we were hoping for Stem Cell Therapy - unfortunately we did not find any confirming source, work, studies where IV transplant of Stem Cells had the results behind and would be something we would like to let our boy go through. We found the total opposite. There was a lot of sites, where stem cell procedure could be done, but as soon as we asked for results behind the procedure, communication stopped. It was not about quantity but about quality of life.
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08.07.2021
Doctor visit on 08.07.2021 - we hoped for miracle to happen while we were waiting for blood work results. Magnus had some difficulties, but overall, we felt like we did at least something right.
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AND results were there... what! The numbers were worse than on 07.23.2021 Did it make even sense to do something with diet or it was lost game? Magnus lost weight - he was 66 lbs. on 07.25.2021 -> we dropped to 57 lbs. on 08.07.2021.
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We got Clindamycin 300 mg and Dexamethasone S P injectable 4mg/ml (to help with infection - again the marking and again it got infected.
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We were more as long as Magnus was happy - we were happy. Very frustrating and incredibly sad that we could not find anything, what we could bring on the table to help our little guy. He was so loving and the look in his eyes could not allow us to give up.
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Magnus's reds cells count was alarming as well.
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08.09.2021
If 08/07/2021 Saturday morning was scary - I was very naïve - the night of 08/07/2021 through 08/09/2021 was something I could not imagine even in the worst nightmare. How come our puppy could be dragged through so much of pain and misery - where the fairness was? Sometimes I felt guilty to have Magnus still around, but who was I to end live just because I felt like? Or was that what responsibility was equated to? All these doggies who were in ending part of their life, there had to be something, what got the person/owner a sign that enough was enough. I did not know - I probably would always feel guilty, for either sending him over the rainbow bridge too early or too late. I was sure, I would never find the right moment without having doubt about timing. Magnus's eyes were so deep and dark. I could not seem to find the answer for any of these questions. I was ready to cheer him up and stay by his side as long as he would be able to, but I tried to spare him of terrible pain which renal dysplasia went along with.
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As we were fighting with Magnus for his battle with Renal Dysplasia, I could not ask for anything more than, let's try not to breed on the dogs who are sick or carry disease. It doesn't matter, if the dog carries renal dysplasia, LAD or you can see trouble with hearing, heart, eyes or just incorrect mouth, allergies or anything and everything.
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As much we hope, it may not happen, there is going to be a puppy, which is going to be sick or/and being crippled and is going to die in painful, miserable conditions, you would probably not wish to anybody, but yet you helped to bring to this world for sake of chasing the dream of champion or trying to make some extra penny or believe that the bitch has to have puppies, or the guys has to have bitch to make them what? I do not know. We must learn say no to temptation, when something is off.
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If you do not know the lines of the dog pedigree - do not breed.
Let's work through perfection not the other way around.
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We have in these days science and techniques to mitigate errors - let's use them.
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To answer if something is going to be wrong - I can guarantee, there is going to be the time, when situation will not be fine - without knowing the pedigree - you may never be able to find answers and correct the error.
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Just a small, tiny chance is one big chance to deal with, when it comes to dying puppy.
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Behind every disease is a healthy puppy who was used to enjoy his/her life.
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Let's not forget about the parents of these little guys, who suffer not maybe physically but mentally and financially as well.
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08.07.2021
Oh that belly! Magnus started to have diarrhea on 08/07/2021 and by end of the night his diarrhea became fecal incontinence. It was unbearable. With every single cleaning, I felt that our puppy could not hold any longer - his eyes still full of love were terribly tired, he had challenging time to catch breath, still reacting on my voice. You could see how we were losing him.
Our giant and gorgeous puppy once a beautiful and full of life young boy - was slipping - and all we could do was just watch...
We gave to Magnus metronidazole, black active charcoal, SubQ - you could name it, as that helped last time, but nothing was changing - Magnus started to vomit. We added his nausea pills as well. Magnus was losing his weight just in front of your eyes - hour by hour. All the sudden I was holding in my hands just a very skinny, fragile tiny puppy, his ribs were peeking through, his once white and shiny coat - was covered with marking all over his body.
But ! Magnus was drinking, and he was eating - which was miracle - that made us believed, we would still have a chance. There was something holding us not to finish our fight. His kind and deep eyes were looking at us for 2 days.
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08.09.2021
We made it. On Monday 08.09.2021in the afternoon, our boy started to run - was chasing his toys and ate and a lot! He was hungry. I was exhausted, but absolutely stunned to see our boy being back with us.
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Magnus still loved to play & chase his toys - even though he was much slower, and he missed and skipped here and there his meals. His naps took a bit longer. He was no longer as fast. His body got some serious punches by this disease - He looked like a skinny lizard, but he was our beloved skinny lizard. We adored him.
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Renal Dysplasia patients are having very acidic belly. I read many posts about what to feed these guys with and what not. We were still counting calories, phosphorus, and protein. However, at this stage - they eat so little. We were helping Magnus with Entyce (an appetite simulant). Entyce was immense help with Magnus's appetite. It was recommended to us not to serve Entyce every day but give him a break. We usually went 5 days and 2 days off. It appeared, whenever we stopped, Magnus's body was more sensitive to Entyce, and he started to eat a bit more.
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Magnus loved attention. His walks were no longer as long as they were used to be, but he still loved to go out and sniff and pee everywhere - he was 7 months old and just starting to lift up his leg... Oh mine - too funny - he could not really stay still and finish his whole process of peeing within one try - but slowly and surely, he was becoming and an expert .
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I was aware, we had probably a few weeks left - I did not know at that time that it was just four. I could not notice how all these little steps which he was going thought - as he was slowly becoming a big teenager - how memorable these moments were to me. He totally had us wrapped around his fingers. We were supper worried - probably I would not be checking on him, if he was comfortably covered at night while he was sleeping in our bed and if he would briefing while he slept, but knowing that the time, we had the privilege to have Magnus around was limited, made you not to want to even leave him.
These puppies are special puppies, and we must treat them like that. Their love is truly one of the kinds.
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STEM CELL THERAPY CLOSURE:
While back - I was thinking we can go for stem cell therapy to help our Magnus, however after reading tons of material, to my knowledge - stem cell therapy done via IV is not effective. The % of stem cells which are captured by lungs is so major that the kidneys would not benefit from this procedure. This part of this journal was written on 08.13.2021 - when Magnus was in stage 4 of RD and to my understanding - stem cell therapy was not effective for Magnus's case. As much as I was hoping we could help our boy and we were ready. It appeared - it would bring more pain than the result could ever justify.
THREE MONTHS INTO RENAL DYSPLASIA
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08.24.2021 THREE MONTHS INTO RENAL DYSPLASIA
We received a phone call from The Animal Medical Center, where Magnus had scheduled appointment to consult possibilities of Stem Cell therapy done with help of ultrasound - however during this phone call we were told that: with Creatinine of 8.7 mg/dL, Magnus would not be a suitable candidate for stem cell therapy.
The Animal Medical Center strongly expressed that stem cell therapy was only for dogs with creatinine levels no more than 4.00 mg/dl.
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09.04.2021
Kidney transplant - as we were realizing that our time with our little pup was running short - you were questioned by your mind if maybe kidney transplant could be the solution, you should look more into, even thought you were so against it at the beginning. There was a word to mention price tag with this procedure. Magnus was insured by Pumpkin Pet Insurance. Our insurance was amazing help to us. Great cooperation - easy on the processing part and quick on reimbursement.
Unfortunately, the more you looked into it, the faster your found out, the risks ware terrible, and rate of success was miserable.
Per our doctor from NC State Veterinary Hospital, Dr. Bierlein as of 09/04/2021.
"Hello,
I am currently unaware of facilities doing kidney transplants in dogs. It is my understanding that Auburn university used to do them but the program has since shut down.
In general, dogs do much worse with kidney transplants than cats. A more recent publication from 2012 looking at cases of canine renal transplant showed a median survival was 24 days with a probability of survival to 15 days of 50% and the 100-day survival probability was 36%. Overall the procedure has a high morbidity and mortality rate and is not recommended at this time."
Of course, with an answer like this, your hopes were depleted. Is it 100 days what the statistics are known and after 100 days - the percentage is just that bad that it was not worth of publicity? The idea that Magnus's last 100 days would be at doctors and in excruciating pain, which certainly goes with any surgery, halted that option as well.
I did double check the answers, I had the opportunity to question the possibility of kidney transplants with DVM Chad W. Schmiedt, from University of Georgia, cws@uga.edu and response was:
"I am very sorry to hear about Magnus. Kidney disease is heartbreaking. We do have an active program for renal transplantation in cats, and I am open to considering transplantation in dogs, but we have never done a case here. UW-Madison recently did a renal transplant in a dog and I believe would also be open to discussions about another case. By the way, that case was a mother dog that received a kidney from an offspring and lived about 3 months. As far as I know, these are the only two institutions that would consider it. The University of Pennsylvania has an active cat program, but does not do canine transplant and the other places that have done canine transplants in the past are no longer offering the service.
The outcomes in dogs are dramatically worse than in cats for a host of reasons. The three largest are a high rate of thromboembolic disease (or blood clots), difficulty in preventing acute rejection, and overwhelming opportunistic infections in dogs that are immunosuppressed. The last paper evaluating dogs with transplantation was from UC-Davis - they reported a 24 day median survival time with a range of 0.5 days to 4014 days. So long survival times are possible, but not common.
We do not have a source of donor animals, so that animal would need to be provided by you. Optimally, the donor should be a relative, at a minimum the dog should be the same breed. Screening for the donors and the recipients would need to be done to evaluate for common infectious diseases or other diseases which may cause a bad prognosis. The estimated cost of the surgery would be around $15,000 for the recipient and $6000 for the donor. The screening tests will likely be around $1500-2000/dog. Lastly the immunosuppressive medications can be expensive. I am not sure how large of a dog Magnus is, but the typical patient will require $500 - 800/month in immunosuppressive drugs.
I know this is probably hard to read and I do not mean to be at all callous, rather I am trying to be honest about the outcomes in dogs so that you can have realistic expectations moving forward. If you want to move forward with screening, please let me know and I can work with you on exactly what we need to do.
Good luck"
I also contacted University of Pennsylvania to see what response I would get from somebody, who should have an active program. Well, the response just shortly confirmed the previous statements. Per Dr. Lillian Aronson; email: laronson@vet.upenn.edu :
"I am so sorry to hear about Magnus. As you may be aware, the majority of our patients are cats because of some of the challenges we have run into with canine transplants. I have performed 3 canine transplants when I had a compatible relative as a donor but we still ran into some challenges with immunosuppression. We are currently discussing alternative techniques to improve our immunosuppression and long term survival for this patient population. Do you have access to any healthy siblings or other relatives? One of the other challenges currently is finding a new lab to run some of the testing for compatibility since the previous lab is no longer performing the tests.
I am currently working with 2 experts in the field of transplantation - one an MD and the other a DVM to figure out the best protocol for dogs based on their successful work in humans and in animals. I can keep you posted if you like. I would love to be able to help Magnus."
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09.05.2021
Magnus was getting his SubQ five times a week, somewhere around 550 ml. I noticed that applying SubQ was not as easy as it was used to be. It looked like his skin was creating barricades within itself for a needle to drip the fluids. Just the idea that SubQ could be in theory applied anywhere scared us.
Magnus's appetite declined a lot. Magnus's skin improved a bit, but only to the level which you can see on the picture here.
We used Dexamethasone SP Injectable 4mg/ml and Clindamycin 300mg for 14 days. The infections disappeared but not the spots. His weight fluctuated somewhere between 55 - 60 lbs. He would be one chunky dense bull terrier boy. His structure was so gorgeous, you could see not only beautifully shaped head, but his body posture was just something to look at.
Magnus still could and loved to go for walk but his speed and length of walks were certainly limited. We were leaving that up to him to show us when was time to turn and go back home. There was definitely a lot of sniffing as 8 months old boy, he was starting to realize that there were also lot of girl-friends living close by.
09.10.2021
I was reading an interesting article about Golden Retriever and his fight with Renal Dysplasia. What made me stop was the medication they used ! I rushed to find as much as information as was possible in the fastest time.
Was Kremezin® a key to delaying stage 4 ?
Not sure, if there was a way how to treat RD dogs but as tragic it was - current form of treatment of CKD leads these patients nowhere within just a few months. Let's please keep questioning & searching to keep information moving.
09.10.2021
We ordered KREMAZIN® - I did not have too much information about dosing for this supplement. This supplement supposed to help in ending phase of Renal Dysplasia with significant results mainly from Japan. This product was used mainly in Japan, but some studies were from USA as well. This was not for some reason a treatment approved for USA market - who knows why?
Time was ticking. We did not have the feeling we were walking toward the end of the Magnus's rope - we sprinted without us being able to step on the break.
Unfortunately, we have never gotten time to test Kremezin®, we run out of time.
OUR LAST BYE - OUR 110th day SINCE BEING DIAGNOSED
09/13/2021
09.13.2021 - Monday
Monday as any other day - you would be thinking - Magnik went outside to do his business - I could not overlook that he nearly slipped on the steps - he was very weak. He walked for a little bit around as any other day and came back to our bed to sleep. For some reason, he had little brown circle around his mouth - I really did not know what it was - I thought it was just reminder of food or something. Later we found out it was blood from his gums. At that stage Magnus's mouth had unpleasant odor. I would compare it odor of decay. That morning Magnus appeared more tired than tired - I knew that was not him. We rushed him to our vet.
By the time we met our vet - Magnus's vomited few times, appeared very tired, was visible sick, his gums were bleeding, had ulcers around edge of his tongue. Our little guy was not good at all. I still believed, it was just one of other situations and shortly we all would be at home.
How wrong I was.
Magnus's blood work came back, and it was absolutely nightmare. His number were out of range detectable by machine. Our guy was dying … was dying.
I would not EVER be ready - all I wanted was to be next to Magnus and never let him go - I was not ready - my whole world collapsed. Magnus's black eyes were looking to my eyes - they were so tired - they were slowly blinking and closing - our eight and half months old boy was barely with us. Magnus kidney shut down.
We lost our Magnus to RENAL dysplasia. As much as we would be willing to move mountains - none of that was at the end helpful - just 3.5 months. Once strong beautiful puppy died in conditions, we would not wish to anybody. This disease was so cruel and there was no treatment.
A thousand words won't bring you back, I know because I have tried; neither will a thousand tears. I know because I have cried.
# Rest in Peace
Your kindness was infectious - You will always stay in our hearts - It was absolute privilege to be around You.
Take care about Yourself our little boy and see You when our time will come.
Mommy and Daddy love you.