Well hoping for the best news you can get at this point! At least its a Monday and you have a full week to do test and not have to wait over a weekend again. Are they going to hold on to her or can you pick her up now? Glad she was on her best behavior for the vet.

I just picked her up. They literally didn't need to give her anesthesia! LOL. She's such a good dog. She was just content to lay on the table and get a shave and a "belly rub" with the scope. Haha.

I love this vet too. I'm not sure why, but he gave us $145 off the $240 procedure! I asked if it was for the lack of anesthesia and he said not really, and blushed and said don't worry about it. However, the comprehensive urine culture was $141, so that might have been why too? In any case, he's really good to us and I really like this guy. (He also doesn't charge the "walk-in-the-door" fee either, which I appreciate!)

UPDATE: Good news is when we spoke after I picked her up, he did confidently say she did NOT have kidney failure There is still potential a big problem with her kidneys, but he didn't believe it to be fatal and if it's not an infection, but the kidneys are causing the issue, it's just a matter of a supplement to help in their functioning.

So-- we're either looking at decreased kidney function with supplements (and we'll look into holistic supplements too) or diabetes insipidus.

For those interested in the technical stuff:

Dr. Elson showed me photos of the ultrasound. Her left kidney was measured at 6.35" in length and 4.5" in width, while her right kidney was only 3" in length and 3.35" in width. There was a bright white line in the center of her right kidney (in the ultrasound, the kidney looks like the inside of a sliced tomato--one of the interior lines of the "tomato" was shiny which indicated the inflammation).

I love good vets glad you found one, also helps when u have good dogs to! Glad he ruled out failure! Hope u can get her on the mend after the test come back. Now go take her for a yummy treat

Glad things are looking up.. Give Hailey and hug and a treat for being a good puppy.

Just in case you need this info:

The dose for the desmopresson for Storm was .2mg per tablet and we gave half a tablet...so .1mg for Storm's size.

Thanks, Claudia! I think we can get the pills online or from Canada at a much cheaper price. Especially if Storm only needed .1mg, Hailey probably only needs half that

Moral of the story is that it looks like her treatment will be manageable no matter what the problem

Yay!!!!!

I'm so happy to hear that!

Urine culture came back negative.

Now we are looking at Stage 1 Kidney disease, which is apparently just the name they give to the condition and isn't as bad as it sounds.

Two places to go from here:
1. Test for Addison's Disease with another $90 blood test. The results of this will likely be negative but it's to rule out something else.
2. Start treating for Diabetes Insipidus.

We can skip the Addison's test and go right to step 2, or we can do both. The doctor said it didn't matter much either way. Thanks to Claudia, he's looking into the pill form of the medicine instead of the eye drops. Not sure which way we are going to go on it, but I'm leaning towards just starting the treatment for DI.

Also-- random thought, but does anyone have any thoughts on whether or not switching to a raw diet would help or be worth trying? She's on Earthborn Holistic, but was also on TOTW before this and had the same symptoms, so I doubt it's actually food related unless it has something to do with the fish... but it's another avenue I've debated wandering down, just not sure how much merit it has.

Thanks for all the support everyone!

Well, that seems much better of a diagnosis right? I mean, if you have to have one at all... I know how it is, Chili's "liver disease" was a step up from Lymphoma that they suspected.

We switched the Chillster to THK (btw, recall on some old batches right now for bad parsley, I knew Parsley was evil!). He's on a liver cleansing diet and it seems to help bring down the liver values. I wonder if a Holistic vet or pet nutritionist can recommend something to help once you have a solid diagnosis. I scoured the web for help on Chili's liver disease and found many positive stories of diet helping to slow the progression or even halt it. Many of the liver disease pet parents recommend this nutritionist, and she is well regarded here in the LA area, too. She does phone consults:
http://www.askariel.com/Default.asp

This looks like a good starting point:
http://dogaware.com/health/kidneydiet.html

I also found some liver disease specific forums/sites and breed specific forums where liver disease affects the dogs disproportionately, like dobermans and yorkshire terriers (they have different forms, but many of the remedies are similar).

The vet of course recommended Royal Canin prescription, which I promptly declined. I was surprised to hear that she was open to home cooked feeding if I met with a nutritionist from UC Davis, which is pretty progressive for a vet to be open to! We ended up doing a few weeks of home cooking followed by THK, since many of the liver pet parents had success with it and it has all the vitamins and minerals he needs without me having to figure it out while feeding him 12 pills a day.

Koda wrote:

We can skip the Addison's test and go right to step 2, or we can do both. The doctor said it didn't matter much either way. Thanks to Claudia, he's looking into the pill form of the medicine instead of the eye drops. Not sure which way we are going to go on it, but I'm leaning towards just starting the treatment for DI.

Also-- random thought, but does anyone have any thoughts on whether or not switching to a raw diet would help or be worth trying? She's on Earthborn Holistic, but was also on TOTW before this and had the same symptoms, so I doubt it's actually food related unless it has something to do with the fish... but it's another avenue I've debated wandering down, just not sure how much merit it has.

Thanks for all the support everyone!

We skipped testing for Addison's because it was a remote possibility Storm had it but Dr. M wanted to let me know that a few of his symptoms pointed to Addison's but there were symptoms that were also missing that are usually present if it is. Dr. M also noted that if we went the route to treat as DI, we would see an improvement, and the symptoms that did point to Addison's would go away. (Which it did).

I don't know if food can have an impact on the pituitary gland which is what isn't functioning quite right in the case of DI. We did not change Storm's diet and he is on mainly fish protein based food (THK Zeal which is fish and Orijen Senior which is chicken and fish.

Just thought I'd share the following links in case you haven't seen them or in case they may be of help to you with regard to your curiosity about whether or not raw might help.

Kidney Disease In Dogs

Raw diet for woofer with diabetes insipidus

I did a bit of reading around the internet and ran across a number of sites indicating that a raw diet can be beneficial for dogs with kidney disease or diabetes insipidus (DI). I'll try to put things simply and succinctly here. In the case of kidney disease a raw diet would be beneficial to have the unprocessed protein free of unnecessary fillers you'll find in kibble. In the case of DI a raw diet would be beneficial in that it provides a water heavy diet (raw meat can be 70% water) which will help a dog whose need for water is already high, more than a dry kibble diet which will only exacerbate the need for more water consumption. Homecooked is also beneficial in the same ways although not quite as beneficial as raw. FWIW, even if completely switching to a full PMR diet is not feasible I would expect at least some raw meals would be more beneficial than a kibble only diet.

Not saying you should give up kibble or anything, just thought I'd throw those tidbits out there to be considered at least. I have heard of many amazing things resulting from raw diets so it would not surprise me in the least if it helped. And even if it doesn't help with Hailey's condition it certainly would not hurt to try.

UPDATE

We've been on the Desmospressin for 3 weeks and while it seemed to be working, this weekend we had two accidents. So... I don't think it's Diabetes Insipidus.

I have a call into our vet, but he doesn't get in until tomorrow. However, I was talking with John and his cousins this weekend (all science/nerdy people). The one constant is that this happens in the winter and almost always around when it snows. We just got DUMPED on this last week (another foot of snow here). I was saying how Hailey just almost religiously eats snow. Our cousin Becca mentioned that the snow was probably just making her eat more of it. Apparently, snow is formed around tiny dust particles (I did not know this-- I suck at science). If you are trapped in the wilderness, they actually tell you not to eat snow to survive because it will simply dehydrate you.

I'm thinking that the cause must be her eating snow? I still have to talk to the vet about it, but if her eating snow makes her drink more, that would account for why it's so much worse in the winter. The only meds that DID seem to work were in the incontinence meds. Thus, I'm wondering if it isn't a two-part problem? Slight early incontinence combined with poorly functioning kidneys (because we do still have the dilute urine issue).

Will hopefully know more soon.

Koda wrote:

Apparently, snow is formed around tiny dust particles (I did not know this-- I suck at science). If you are trapped in the wilderness, they actually tell you not to eat snow to survive because it will simply dehydrate you.

Huh! I didn't know that either! I knew the part where eating snow dehydrates you but I thought it was because your body has to work harder to absorb to it to hydrate you, not because of the tiny dust particles!

But I think you're onto something, and that it's not DI. Storm's symptoms are VERY similar, but the patterns are completely different. And with Storm, there was a definite improvement within the first week on desmopressin.

Sounds like you're getting closer to figuring this out.

Yeah... and she's on the same dosage of the Desmopressin as Storm was, Claudia. .1 mg a day. I give it to her in the morning.

The only other thought is that the Demopressin runs out and she needs a higher dose because her accidents are always either overnight or first thing in the morning.

However... that wouldn't account for her getting slightly better before we ever even went on the Desmopressin.

snow idea might be something.... hope the vet has some ideas for ya.
Sierra was peeing just about every day this past summer before we got home, it was driving us crazy but we blamed it on how hot the house was and her drinking way more water then normal. as soon as it cooled down she stopped having accidents before we got home from work.
maybe with spring around the corner you can test out your theory.

Believe it or not, I have ANOTHER update on this. The vet and I think we have it figured out...

When we did the ultrasound on Hailey, it showed that one kidney was abnormal. One of them was about half the size of the other. We weren't quite sure how that played into things (if it was a cause or an effect).

As soon as it started to snow, Hailey started having accidents again. Nothing in her sleep this time, but I left for 2 hours the other day and she peed in the house again (I had JUST let her out before I left because she'd been having accidents again).

Thus... the vet and I think that it's two-fold. When it snows, she eats the snow and that will dehydrate her and stress her kidneys. The added stress when one is already malformed, causes the urinary issues. It would explain why Hailey doesn't have the problem in the summer and only has it in the winter when it snows.

We're starting her on Proplyn (sp?-- the incontinence meds) to help support/strengthen her urethra and bladder muscles. We are hoping that this will help. Then when it gets warmer, we'll take her off the meds and wait until the following snow fall/winter.

I'll keep you all posted if this works through the winter!

good luck with that! we have the opposite issue with sierra, she drinks so much during the day in the summer cause the house is warm so she pees on the floor, now that its cold out she is not drinking so much and we have less accidents in the house.

Good luck!
I hope this is what's going on with Hailey so you can now manage it!

Good Luck, Tori!

I know you have looked into a lot, but Dog Aware has an awesome page on incontenince and some information about herbal remedies that can help (maybe in conjunction with the meds to keep the kidneys, urinary tract, etc. functioning well?).

http://dogaware.com/articles/wdjincontinence.html#herbal

Good Luck! I hope all the best with Hailey.

Hailey hasn't had a SINGLE accident since we started the meds!  She also seems a lot happier/more comfortable.  No more whining to go out as often and just a general energy boost overall.  So happy we may have FINALLY found a solution and it's nothing too serious.  The medication is very reasonable and we may not even need to keep her on it all year round.

HUGE sigh of relief in this household!

ETA: Thanks for the links Megan! I'll check it out for sure

That's awesome, Tori!