# incontinence problem (leaking bitch!)



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

Candy started leaking before she was 2 and she is now 7. Propalin has 100 percent controlled it mostly on one small dose a day. If she has leaked I have upped it to twice a day and the leaking instantly stops.
She has not been right recently and started leaking and upping the propalin did not work. She is now on 3 times a day on quite a high dose for her size and is still flooding at night and is now leaking more consistently in the day too. She has an auto immune disease which, among other things, gives her an inflamed tongue and throat which normally responds well to antibiotics. That is quite bad at the moment too and she is on her second course of antibiotics (a different one) with no response. 
The leaking is my main concern at the moment but as she is on steroids there is hope it will stop when she comes off them though the leaking had flared up before she went on them. 

Has anyone had a dog that suddenly stops responding to propalin and what the heck will work! My washing machine is getting worn out.


----------



## Guest (Mar 5, 2016)

I think the steroids are probably your issue. Even dogs without leaking issues end up having accidents on steroids - IME at least.

Can you line her bed with potty pads while you’re waiting for her to be done with the steroids?
Or maybe bitches britches stuffed with some extra absorbency pads? If she tolerates bitches britches that is...


----------



## Lilylass (Sep 13, 2012)

Sorry no useful advice but didn't want to read & not say anything 

You have my sympathies as Maisie leaks most nights - although just a little & not usually huge amounts 

Hope you find something to help


----------



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

She is on a waterproof bed with a sheet or vetbed so it is just a case of washing it. She was equally bad for 3 nights before she started on the steroids so worried it might not stop. She sleeps on our bed with her bed at the bottom. Once she has curled up to sleep she does not move but the other night she slipped off it and soaked our bed covers!
What do you use in the way of treatment Lilylass. I had a leaker before but it was just small amounts so though it was a bit smelly it was not wet. I really thought we had it permanently under control but I think she has had a real hiccup with all her health problems since she had a vaccination booster. She is not a happy little girl though she was playing with a toy earlier this evening.


----------



## Lilylass (Sep 13, 2012)

Touch wood its usually just small amounts & have only had floods when she's been on high doses of steroids / had a uti

Am going to mention propalin next time we're at the vet however going to try a couple of supplements to see if they help in the meantime

She had several litters of pups before I got her so often wonder if that's caused the issue for her


----------



## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

Blitz said:


> Candy started leaking before she was 2 and she is now 7. Propalin has 100 percent controlled it mostly on one small dose a day. If she has leaked I have upped it to twice a day and the leaking instantly stops.
> She has not been right recently and started leaking and upping the propalin did not work. She is now on 3 times a day on quite a high dose for her size and is still flooding at night and is now leaking more consistently in the day too. She has an auto immune disease which, among other things, gives her an inflamed tongue and throat which normally responds well to antibiotics. That is quite bad at the moment too and she is on her second course of antibiotics (a different one) with no response.
> The leaking is my main concern at the moment but as she is on steroids there is hope it will stop when she comes off them though the leaking had flared up before she went on them.
> 
> Has anyone had a dog that suddenly stops responding to propalin and what the heck will work! My washing machine is getting worn out.


Daisy had the classic leaking when resting or asleep originally and Propalin controlled hers for a long time, so originally there was a good chance that it was just the normal urinary sphincter incompetence. If she got UTIs though then she what have major accidents and leaking and the propalin syrup didn't then work, until the UTIs were dealt with. Later on in life the propalin started to not work very much at all, the problem then was that she had developed cushings disease, the body makes too much natural cortisol, which basically gives the same effects of being on high dose steroids. Having uncontrolled cushings also made her more prone to UTIs.
You can actually get something called iantrogenic cushings which is veterinary induced by giving steroids.

I notice you also said she hadn't been right recently anyway and if I have understood right that's also when the propalin stopped working and the leaking started. If this happened too before the flare up of the auto immune disease and the vaccination which triggered it, them I'm wondering if something was occurring medically that in turn caused extra urination and the leakage as well as some of the other things you meant when you said she hadn't been right for awhile. Did the vet do any tests to find out if anything was going on then?

If he has put her on steroids which I assume is for the auto immune condition flare up then normally the immunosuppressant dosage they give for auto immune diseases are pretty high too. Much more then the dose they would give for giving it for uses like anti inflammatory.

Only other thoughts what is the auto immune disease been diagnosed that she has actually got. Have you asked the vet if the condition she has can cause systemic things as well as the sore tongue and throat that could be contributing to the leakage in the form of urinary tract or kidney inflammation or something similar like that.
I know auto immune conditions like lupus as an example has a couple of forms discoid that affects things like skin nose and tounge and there is also a systemic form that can affect various other things like even joints, and kidneys cause anemia etc although what it actually effects system wise can vary greatly from person to person or dog to dog.


----------



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

SDH originally she was diagnosed with SLO which is a lupus (toenails fell out). As far as I know this can be stand alone but when she got the first throat infection (incidentally or not just after a KC vaccine) followed by a long period of a very inflamed tongue the vet took biopsies and discussed it with a specialist who thought it would be an auto immune problem. Once she is off the steroids (another 5 days of half every other day) and will also have finished her antibiotics which are not working either! we can assess the leaking and slightly excessive drinking and the vet said the next step would be to check for cushings.
She is also quite touch sensitive - not sure what that ties in with.
Did your dog stop leaking when the cushings was treated.


----------



## Sophie17 (Feb 16, 2015)

I'm sorry to hear that Candy leaking.
The steroids sure doesn't help. Have you ever try Incurin?


----------



## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

Blitz said:


> SDH originally she was diagnosed with SLO which is a lupus (toenails fell out). As far as I know this can be stand alone but when she got the first throat infection (incidentally or not just after a KC vaccine) followed by a long period of a very inflamed tongue the vet took biopsies and discussed it with a specialist who thought it would be an auto immune problem. Once she is off the steroids (another 5 days of half every other day) and will also have finished her antibiotics which are not working either! we can assess the leaking and slightly excessive drinking and the vet said the next step would be to check for cushings.
> She is also quite touch sensitive - not sure what that ties in with.
> Did your dog stop leaking when the cushings was treated.


Once Daisy got diagnosed with cushings disease then all the symptoms she had stopped, in fact she never needed propalin again for the rest of her life. The only time I had accidents was when a couple of times she got a urinary tract infection. Daisy had excessive drinking, excessive urination, panting, her coat and hair was terrible in fact hair wouldn't regrow when shaved. Prior to the cushings she was actually diagnosed with hypo thyroid which can also cause skin/coat probs and lack of hair growth, but unlike the others once treated for hypothyroid it didn't make any difference to the coat and skin. Once she was treated for the cushings all that resolved too.
Cushings does make them prone to infection too. steroid treatment does too, so if she is on high dose steroid I'm wondering if that's why the antibiotics don't appear to be working and the infection if present cant be got on top of. Only other thought is that the antibiotic she is on at the moment isn't the right type for the specific bacterial infection present perhaps?
As you probably know they need an ACTH blood test for cushings also used for addisons, and sometimes they do a low dose dexymethasone test too. I think poodles are on the list of dogs that can be more prone to cushings too btw.

You may have to await awhile to do the cushings test though, because if she has been on steroids, even though they look like they are tapering them off properly, steroids can mess with the norma naturall cortisol production and rhythmns


----------



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

Sophie17 said:


> I'm sorry to hear that Candy leaking.
> The steroids sure doesn't help. Have you ever try Incurin?


I actually cant remember if she had incurin before propalin, if she did it cant have worked but my memory is not that good! In fact it is getting terrible.

SDH, it is good to hear that the cushings treatment worked so well. Candy started drinking more at the same time as becoming lazy and miserable, all after her booster then started leaking about 3 days before I took her in to the vet though tbh she had been making her bed a bit smelly for a few weeks without wetting it.
I wish she had not gone on steroids but it seemed worth a try. I am a bit resistant to treating cushings in horses due to seeing a lot with bad side effects plus having a very bad experience with the drug (which is another story) but I do not know much about it in dogs. The only dog I have seen with it seemed to pee constantly and get fatter and fatter and that was on the medication!


----------



## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

Blitz said:


> I actually cant remember if she had incurin before propalin, if she did it cant have worked but my memory is not that good! In fact it is getting terrible.
> 
> SDH, it is good to hear that the cushings treatment worked so well. Candy started drinking more at the same time as becoming lazy and miserable, all after her booster then started leaking about 3 days before I took her in to the vet though tbh she had been making her bed a bit smelly for a few weeks without wetting it.
> I wish she had not gone on steroids but it seemed worth a try. I am a bit resistant to treating cushings in horses due to seeing a lot with bad side effects plus having a very bad experience with the drug (which is another story) but I do not know much about it in dogs. The only dog I have seen with it seemed to pee constantly and get fatter and fatter and that was on the medication!


Normally with auto immune disease or most of them then the treatment is immuno suppressive doses of steroid and sometimes other immuno suppressants are used, but that's about it there is no real choice apart from that, if they have something auto immune then that's what your are stuck with.

Daisy was on Vetoryl for the cushings, she must have been on it the last 3 probably nearer 4 years of her life and all the symptoms did disappear and she was fine on it. You do though have to have regular testing to check the levels about every 3 months even once its stabalised. What you do have to watch is that the vetoryl doesn't suppress the over production of cortisol too much and send them the other way into addisons. With Daisy I could tell, as she would go off food and start to pick and then would become a bit stumbly on walks when it started to be suppressed to much so I just tweaked the dose until that was fine again. Didn't happen that often anyway.

Daisy as I think I mentioned was both hypothyroid (diagnosed first) and cushings, They can sometimes come hand in hand I have hypo thyroid and a cortisol deficiency myself. Maybe with the dog you know about there was perhaps either something else going on as well as the cushings that's wasn't diagnosed and treated too, or maybe the cushings wasn't being controlled correctly that may explain it.


----------



## Guest (Mar 6, 2016)

@Blitz in addition to further investigating other potential issues, you might want to start her on a dose of MSM. I will try to find the article, but it is an excellent all around supplement to support correct immune function. It's ridiculously safe (rated the same as water) and won't interact with other medications or supplements. I give my guys the horse version (granules) but as small as she is, you could easily give her the human version.

It's basically crystalized DMSO which as you know has been used forever to help pull toxins and speed healing.


----------



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

that would be useful, thank you.


----------



## Guest (Mar 6, 2016)

This is not the one I was looking for, but it's a start:
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=24+1306&aid=1356

Edit, still not the one I was looking for, but a longer read:
http://www.flexquarters.com/getmsm/msm.htm


----------



## Ceiling Kitty (Mar 7, 2010)

My first thought was also a breakthrough due to increased urination. I work these dogs up for UTI and all the common causes of PU/PD (renal disease, DM, HAC, liver etc), but in Candy's case it could well be the steroid therapy.

Incurin might be worth a try? Not guaranteed but there's a chance it could be more effective for her than the Propalin. Is she spayed though, BTW?


----------



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

Ceiling Kitty said:


> My first thought was also a breakthrough due to increased urination. I work these dogs up for UTI and all the common causes of PU/PD (renal disease, DM, HAC, liver etc), but in Candy's case it could well be the steroid therapy.
> 
> Incurin might be worth a try? Not guaranteed but there's a chance it could be more effective for her than the Propalin. Is she spayed though, BTW?


She was drinking and leaking before she went on the steroids but because her throat had flared up and her feet were sore the vet thought it was a flare up of the auto immune problem. I took a urine sample in initially with her and that was clear and she had bloods done last week when there was no improvement.
She is spayed and started leaking a few months afterwards but she did flood occasionally when she was a half grown pup - all over me when she was asleep. And then she had a very bad UTI when she was in season and had crystals in her urine which have never recurred.


----------



## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

I spoke to the vet this morning as I was fed up with my soggy jeans and knickers! and she is going to try extending the antibiotics for her throat and tongue and starting her on incurin. She finishes the steroids in a couple of days so I will give her 3 weeks to get them out of her system then possibly test for cushings if she is still the same.


----------



## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

Blitz said:


> I spoke to the vet this morning as I was fed up with my soggy jeans and knickers! and she is going to try extending the antibiotics for her throat and tongue and starting her on incurin. She finishes the steroids in a couple of days so I will give her 3 weeks to get them out of her system then possibly test for cushings if she is still the same.


The steroids wont be doing you any favours at the moment. Mine have had loss of control and accidents when they have been given them in the past. when given them.
Incurin does work differently to propalin its hormone based and usually given for hormone dependant urinary spinchter incompetence so its worth trying. Like most things with dogs though its going to be try it/wait and see.


----------



## Sophie17 (Feb 16, 2015)

I hope that Incurin will work.


----------



## Sophie17 (Feb 16, 2015)

How is Candy?


----------



## Lilylass (Sep 13, 2012)

Lilylass said:


> Touch wood its usually just small amounts & have only had floods when she's been on high doses of steroids / had a uti
> 
> Am going to mention propalin next time we're at the vet however going to try a couple of supplements to see if they help in the meantime
> 
> She had several litters of pups before I got her so often wonder if that's caused the issue for her


A quick update - we've been using the CSJ supplement for a couple of weeks now and, fingers crossed, I'm not coming down to obviously wet bedding in the mornings / when she's been on the sofa asleep. Might be coincidence so we'll keep going for now and see how it goes (I realise this probably won't be enough for many dogs who have regular / large amounts of leaks but for those with small / irregular leaks it might be worth trying).

I also got some Dorwest Veg Tablets - but she's thrown up both times I've put them in her dinner - immediately

Not sure what's in them she doesn't like - and not sure whether to try crushing them and see if that helps, or whether to just give up on them!


----------

