Long term steroid use in dog

[spacefaer]

I posted the other day about immune mediated haemolytic anaemia and was directed to a very good website. While I am waiting for my registration, I thought I'd ask on here if anyone had experience of steroid use in dogs.

My working cocker has been "signed off" by the vet as being stable with her anaemia, and we have been told to leave her on the steroids at the same level for the rest of her life.

Everything I read, suggests that we should be decreasing the drug levels, to the lowest possible. The vets haven't made any attempt to reduce the dosage.

She weighs just over 16kg and is on 35mg 2/day, which I believe is quite high.

I'm keen to avoid any steroidal side effects - already she has a rough, poor quality coat. She is eating and drinking normally (having been drinking massively and very hungry) but is slower than she used to be and not as perky.

Any thoughts?

 

[Bellasophia]

I'm not a vet but my last dog was on medrol ,16mg every two days,for the last eight years of her life.This dose did not increase her urination ,nor increase appetite...probably because she was low cortisone,although tests did not show this.
This dog was unable to fight her own gut bacteria,especially proteus and E. coli...so had repeated flares of 40c temps,gastric bleeds,diarrhea,skin ulcers( when the bacterium escaped from the gut into the circulation and colonized the mouth lining and skin layers) and so it went on....in the last ditch attempt to help her immune system the vet proposed medrol. This relatively low dose ,on my 20 kg dog,helped her turn the corner and go ahead.
the are several types of steroids so worth asking the vet if this one will be suitable..
It worked well for a friends dog who on the stronger prednisone was incontinent and gained a lot of weight...in her case she had mast cell tumors.

my girl also changed coat..she was a dark apricot and went almost cream...her coat started to shed heavily ( she was a standard poodle so not normal) ...the vet tested her thyroid and she tested positive for hypothyroid as well...so she took meds for that too which helped at once...coat got color back and regrew,and her energy levels increased.