Coughing more every day

Dachuny's been coughing more each day.  It's been every day now the last 10 days and a few times a day the last 3 days, with each day more times 😞 

His abdominal ultrasound is in 2 days but now I'm thinking it's more important for him to have an x-ray.  I'm so sad.  Other than the coughing he's been ok. Still playing during our daily playtime though it's less energetic than a couple of weeks ago. 

Here are some recent pictures of him:

This is what I see when I'm putting my shoes on and he knows he's not coming with me.  Usually not longer than an hour and Ron is always home.

During his daily puzzle game

In the morning:

What I see every day sitting next to me

Some more updates

Dachuny was on LiverTune for 3 weeks, now I've moved back to Denamarin, as his poop has been soft/goopy every other day in the afternoons. 

I've also just brought back in his Liver Support Darwin's just for today bc he's been getting picky about his food and not wanting to eat it :\ 

I think I may just randomly bring in Darwins once in awhile, his little freezer is full of them.  

He's coughed in the evenings the last 3 nights, around 830-9pm :(  I'm still tracking 

Some worrying news

Dachuny's lost a bit of weight, even though he's been eating the same. Now he weighs only 12lbs, down from 12.6 😟

He had some bloodwork done a couple of days ago and his liver values are a bit worse, trending upwards and his BUN is worse 😓

He has an abdominal ultrasound scheduled in 3 weeks, and while the vet doesn't think it's an emergency, the more I think about it, the more I want him seen by a specialist sooner rather than later, esp with the loss of weight.  We had increased his dose of thyroid meds by double the last month, so I thought that it might be his metabolism kicking in better, but with the elevated liver values and lower cholesterol, now I'm not so sure. 

Here are some recent pics of him

Taking his blood pressure - it was normal

watching me this morning

Better last few days

Dachuny's had some better days these past few days.  No accidents (though I've been diligent about taking him to the right spot) but several times he went on his own which makes me so happy.  He barely coughs, maybe once a week now, at most twice, but so much less I barely notice.  

His skin allergies are flaring up though and I'm managing with Skin Soother and Duoxo calm shampoo (had to give in).  Stools after liver tune are starting to be better, though soft.  I've split up the dose in two to help with this and I think that's been working.

Here are some recent pictures of him

Dachuny Dachuny

Dachuny is doing ok the last week, when he's awake, he pees every hour, but is still sleeping well with no accidents during sleep.  He just started Liver Tune today at breakfast (soft stools at lunch but was expected), and that means stopping his Denamarin Advanced for now.  I'll do this for a month and see how his liver values are.  He still gets a lot of stimulation when we're out and about and he's people/dog watching.

He has skin allergies in full force right now, and am managing with Skin soother daily. 

What I see from above 

Ron told me he's the youngest looking old-dog he's ever seen.  I agree!  Look at this face 

Some still pics of him

 

New labs done - some new results

Dachuny got a rework of labs done last week, and I just got back the results.  His kidney values look like they are better but one of the liver values are higher and out of range :(  

The only thing I realized later is that I shouldn't feed him soon before the blood draw - it should be when he's been fasted 🤦

At least I'll know for next time.  In the meantime, I've added a liver supplement and increased his thyroid meds by 1.5x.  So will get him checked out again in maybe 2 months or so and see if his number have gotten better.  

It sure feels like a roller coaster of emotions whenever I get results now.  Half the time, I think he's ok, he's doing good and will be around for awhile longer.  Then the other half, I get the panicked, super sad thoughts of he may not be here this time next year.  Then I have to shake myself out of it and remind myself to just stay in the moment, and appreciate every day. 

The good news is the high triglycerides is likely from the recent meal, as well as the elevated BUN, but bc his SDMA and creatinine are low, his kidneys have likely improved from the Rhemannia 11 supplement and new home cooked diet from Dr. Judy Morgan's recipes (arrows in the first image below).  And ofcourse I added the values in a spreadsheet to track it over time since I've been using different labs/vets. Here's his results over the last 6 months. January's labs were just to test thyroid and liver values so it's not a complete set.  Red is high, darker red is very high, blue is low.  That crazy high Cystatin B could have been an early marker for kidney issues.  I should have started Rhemmania then :(  My vet didn't emphasize it and he is already on so much, so I didn't start it.   

The ticks below - indicate when Denamarin Advanced (liver supplement) was started, as well as when Thyroid meds were started (0.1mg - now increased to 0.15mg)

- T4 2.2 was taken around 4 hours after his morning thyroid pill, so it was a good value

-  T4 1.3 was taken 6 hours after his thyroid pill, so the vet told me this was ok as it fluctuates

- but T4 0.952 is now low again after 4 hours, which means he definitely needs to increase his dose

And here are some pics taken of him the last week.  His allergies are acting up again so I had to trim all his hair on his body close to his skin, which means he gets cold really easily so this is him in his grandpa sweater while his thermal pj's are in the wash.