Got to bounce some ideas off of y'all. Let's just say that if I go to that group, they're going to blame it on "a high dose of prednisone" like they do with everyone that has issues with lowering it.
We've been working on lowering him. This week was SUPPOSED to be the first week of nothing but 3.5 mg every day. However, during last week when rotating 3.5 and 4.0, we began to notice some odd behavior in Vlad again:
1. Barking at the least little thing.
2. Jumping at every little noise--then barking like a maniac.
3. Not playing as much with Barkly outside.
4. Being clingy and over-wanting attention.
So, I called his vet this morning and asked if prednisone had something to do with psychological health as well as physical health. He said that he didn't know that it would, but anything's possible. After talking a couple of more minutes, we decided for me to move him back up to 4.0 mg a day. Because suddenly I don't have that confident, calm BRT again, and 4.0 was the last dose that he was on before the symptoms started.
Keep in mind that there have been NO physical symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea to indicate the dose being too low.
Now, after looking all day, I still can't really find anything concrete on low cortisol and behavioral changes in dogs. BUT, I've found some symptoms on humans--I guess humans can verbalize what they're feeling when dogs can't.
On this page
https://blog.udemy.com/low-cortisol/ it lists several things that have to do with psychological health and low cortisol, and these are the ones listed about those issues:
1. Mental and psychological ailments such as depression
2. Emotional hypersensitivity
3. Inability to cope with stress
4. Social anxiety
5. Anxiety and jitters
So, my question is. . .Do you all think that the way Vlad was acting indicates that lower than 4.0 is too low for his body and personality's needs? (
And he's been better today after 4.0 again--since yesterday was supposed to be his last 4.0 day so that he's had 4.0mg for 2 days in a row.)
I'm really torn here b/c there's a lot of people out there getting away with 1 to 1.5mg for dogs the size of Great Danes. But they all talk about physical symptoms being what you go on to find their proper dose. None of them have dogs that have the same intensity and drive that a BRT has. The other person with a BRT with Addison's was just fussed at about 2.5 mg prednisone being too high. My telling them that the personality issues didn't start until I started lowering isn't going to help. They're just going to blame everything on "such a high dose."
And if this really is such a high dose, then do we just drive ourselves crazy living with a psycho dog in order to get him to a lower dose that only covers his physical needs? Neither one of us really like Vlad when he's acting the way he did last week. In fact, hubs was relieved when he came home from work today, and Vlad wasn't acting like a wild thing.