He's doing a lot better with this latest reduction. His sodium was a bit high at 162, but his K had gone up too to 4.7 which is still midline, and it makes the ratio at 34 which is better.
We only lowered him to 3.0ml from 3.15 because it's so close to that 31-32 ratio I'm looking for, and we really have to be careful now that his K keeps on going up little by little.
I really hope his blood is still good on day 28, because this dose makes him back to the old Vlad. Personality-wise, he's been no different since this last shot from where he was at day 27--and that's NICE. We've been having to watch him really closely for a few days after his injection because he was getting a bit too aggressive during play with Barkly.
He's nowhere near that "low dose" plan for a dog his size, but with his K continuing to go up every decrease since his first shot that was 3.75, we really can't go down a lot more.
His vet said that if it goes up again, he wants to go back to 3.15 with him, but if it doesn't go up over 4.9, I'm going to ask that it remain at 3.0 for at least one more round and see again the next 28-day period. It's just too nice to not have him turn into Mr Hyde right after the shot no matter how short of a time-period it is.
If he has to remain at this high dose, it will never pay for me to give him his shots. There are 4.0 mls in a vial. A vial is $170.00 from mail-order. He's getting in the 3's, so I'd only get one and a part of a shot out per vial.
But at the vet, I'm paying $58 for a shot for a dog that's 80-100#. He's not charging me by amount of Percorten like most vets do. So, there's no way it would pay for me to do his shots myself--especially when he said that if we want to go somewhere and the shot was due during that time-period, he'd just give me the medicine and I'd take it with me--after he teaches me how to give shots IM.
I know sub-q, but the thing is, I've seen statements about "the only time the Percorten didn't work when given sub-q is when the dog wasn't hydrated enough."
Ummm. . .on a trip? When you never know how they're going to act and might not drink "enough." (What's enough anyway?) No. Just no, and that's what I told his vet.
I'll probably start working on lowering his Prednisone in October or November.