I read Dr. Plechner's book, "Pets at Risk - From Allergies to Cancer, Remedies for an Unsuspected Epidemic" several years ago when I was trying to find something to help Pookie's sister. Dr. Plechner developed a protocol to correct hormonal imbalances in pets that were causing or, at least, contributing to allergies, aggression, epilepsy, viral diseases, gastrointestinal problems, vaccine reactions, cancer and other illnesses. He uses low-dose cortisol and usually thyroid medications to balance the hormones.
Let me be clear: he is not talking about the large pharmacological doses that most vets will prescribe. The doses he recommends are to bring the cortisol level back to normal. So for example, let's say on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the normal amount of cortisol produced by the body, your dog or cat only measures a 6. Instead of giving a large dose of cortisol, Dr. Plechner would prescribe just enough to bring the level back to 10.
His book doesn't really address Addison's, which is why I created a separate thread for him. But the information in his book may be very helpful to people who's pets have other chronic illnesses. He also has a website:
http://drplechner.com/ and it includes what your vet would need to test for. Dr. Plechner had retired, but came out of retirement due to demand, so if your vet isn't open to Dr. Plechner's protocol, you can have your vet do the bloodwork and then you (or your vet) can consult with Dr. Plechner.
I haven't completely explored his website yet, but I can tell you in his book that while he is somewhat open to raw feeding, he prefers pets on his protocol be fed a cooked meat diet and/or hypo-allergenic diet. I didn't get the impression that he understands how a grain-based diet can contribute to at least some of the health problems we see in pets.
Personally, I think that feeding a species-inappropriate diet causes stress to our pets' systems, and that may contribute to the kind of hormonal imbalance that Dr. Plechner is treating. His book discusses those issues mostly as a result of breeding, along with toxins, etc.
Please, visit his site, read through it. Perhaps there's something there that will ring true to you, and it might be worth looking into if your pet has health issues that haven't been completed resolved by changing the diet. You can always have the bloodwork done, finances and pet permitting, and then make a decision if you want to pursue the protocol.
One other note: in his book, he finds that his protocol doesn't usually correct food allergies. That's what I thought was going on with Pookie's sister, so I didn't pursue using the protocol. But he does find that the protocol does work very well for other allergies, e.g. environmental, etc. He has also found that every pet with cancer has this hormone-immune imbalance, so this protocol might be helpful in preventing health issues down the road as well as correcting existing ones.
I hope this helps!
http://drplechner.com/http://drplechner.com/learn/miscellaneous-articles/prevention/