Canine Bladder Cancer (tcc)

Sorry guys, it's been a cruddy day.

My first post should have included pats for for all the good pups out there... and hugs for all the great moms & dads too. It's taken most of the night to read through all the posts... great therapy. Thank you all.

Jeff 

Hi-

So sorry to hear about your baby. your post caught my eye because I have a Sheltie- Brannigan and have many messages on the board. Some may be useful to you.

Brannigan continues to do fairly well 1 full year since diagnosis of TCC. It takes her a long time to pee as it just trickles out. Accidents are becoming  more frequent. We have devised her favorite spots to lay down with plastic and towels. Lots of laundry but worth it. She is 14 1/2 years and continues to enjoy life with us. We treat every day as a bonus day, as our vet gave us 3 mos, a year ago now. We have a second healthy sheltie who is almost 13 yrs. It is enjoyable to see the two still play together!!

Piroxicam has worked wonders for Brannigan, she also takes graviola and Amoxil (antibiotic) 2 X daily.

Continue to have hope....it goes a long way. When the time comes you will know.

Good luck! 

Allana, Darren & Brannigan 

Thank you so much. Brannigan and you (all of you) are inspiration for us. Just so awesome that she's hanging strong.

We started Piroxicam Friday and I will check into Graviola and/or other suppliments when I talk to my vet either today or Monday.

Again, thanks to everyone posting on this board for the great information. I will try to return the favor.

On 2/4/2005 Nannyno wrote:

I have a Sweet sweet sweet, ten year old Rhodesian Ridgeback named Diva. She is fighting the big fight right now, Tranitional cell carcinoma, in her bladder(4cm x5cm). She was diagnosed a month ago, and is asymtomatic except for bloody urine. She is in no apparent discomfort. I am giving her Piroxicam, an nsai, and have been for one month. Her regular Vet. insists it will see her through the major discomfort down the road...until she can no longer tolerate it. Without an operation, we want to shrink her tumor and slow it down, (irradicate would be BEST) with Graviola. Don't know how much to give a 75 pound girl. Does anyone out there have any experience with giving it to a dog? SO Gratefully Yours, Nannyno

hi Nannyno I don’t know if this will help with a your dog but I was  talking to a follow cancer patient a few months a go he had  bladder cancer. and was on a Catheter Bag he got so fed up with the cancer that at the time that he said he would try any thing he heard about cellular Zeolite he took it and after  a few  weeks The disposable catheter bag got fill if some foul smelling liquid he said after that his doctors told him look like the cancer was gone they dont know why I have prostrate cancer I taken cellular Zeolite the only thing it did for me is help me get over CFS and lower my psa from 9.8 to 7 Iv seen him a few times he looks happier. As I said it work for him it may work for your dog Take Care and God bless Ray   

On 7/5/2008 jkdallas wrote:

Thank you so much. Brannigan and you (all of you) are inspiration for us. Just so awesome that she's hanging strong.

We started Piroxicam Friday and I will check into Graviola and/or other suppliments when I talk to my vet either today or Monday.

Again, thanks to everyone posting on this board for the great information. I will try to return the favor.

Just like me to repsond to my own message.

Talked to our vet today, and while she was very sweet and sypathetic, the talk triggered my sadness stage, I guess. We don't think an holistic vet is going to help us much at this point, and I don't want to put Elie through any more vet appts than necessary.

We've started Piroxicam, now we need to adjust diet. From what I've read, low or no carb and high protein is best for this cancer, well really for all dogs.  Not sure why it took me so long to figure out that grains and sugars are not really what our puppies should be eating.

I'm leaning towards the EVO by Natura mostly because it's locally available plus comes in dry, canned, and treats. Anyone have experience with this food or have advice?  I also wonder about switching our other two shelties to this diet?

Hi Jeff!

I'm sorry to hear about your pup and I KNOW you are freaked out right now, trying to read everything you can about this disease.  If you've already made it though just these 700 postings, you are amazing!

Believe me, I am the most optimistic person on this board and I feel that everyone should do whatever they think is going to work for their pet, so pick and choose whatever advice sounds good to you. I have Annie on the Innova food and I thinks she's been on it for about six months now.  I switched her over after the dog food scare.  I don't think she likes it as much as the old (believe it or not ) Purina food she used to get--it was for fat dogs, I think--or maybe senior. I'm not sure, my husband used to buy it and he would know better.  And even though, I try to eat well myself, I don't know if the change of diet did anything for Annie, either for the better or worse.

On the other hand there are a ton of postings by very smart people who describe what foods they now give their dogs and how it has helped them. Decide for yourself what will work. 

Right now Annie is just getting over a HORRIBLE infection that had me convinced her time was up.  The antibiotics kicked in and we are good to go (for now) She HATES her antibiotics, so I take bread, soak it in spaghetti sauce and wrap the pill in that and down it goes.  I would feed her ANYTHING to make sure she took her medicine.  The only other thing Annie takes is her piroxicam--once wrapped in  melted cheese, then dipped in peanut butter, currently in cream cheese.  

If you read the statistics and look at the numbers, they are bleak, but they are just that--numbers and statistics and,in the end, mean very little to one little dog.  So--here's my advice. Take a deep breath, be brave, try not to worry--it won't help--and enjoy every second you can spend with your dog.  After a bit, you'll see the computer has no answers; all you can have is faith and hope for the best.

And that is exactly what I wish for you--good luck to you and your baby. 

Marty

PS One last thing of this too long letter; I DO believe there are tests you can have done on your other dogs for early detection of TCC (you might want to check out the Purdue University website) and if there are, I would consider having those tests for my other Shelties. Just a thought

Thank you Marty, those are wise words.

You're right that I was cramming too much information into my head at the first, but I have arrived at the same conclusion: do what we think is right and spoil her as long as we can. Still, I did find a lot of good advice and experience here and elsewhere.

For now, we're going with:

Nutrura EVO diet: dry with a little canned EVO mixed in for fun. Piroxicam 3mg/day plus a pepcid a/c in the morning. Omega 3 caps (Nordic Naturals) morn and night feedings. Whole Body Support powder (Standard Process brand sugguested by our vet) sprinkled in food morn and night. EVO treats at night.  She loves it all.  I think we're switching our other 2 shelties to the EVO. May as well make it simple.

Also, lots of love and attention. Plus we're taking her to work now so she can really get spoiled by our employees!

Let you know how it goes,

Jeff

I have not posted in a while, but thought I would update on EG our 10 yr old Sheltie. 

She was back to vet up check up this week.  Urinalysis and blood work all came back normal except BUN which was elevated - was elevated at last reading.  She is continuing on Piroxicam with addition of Pepcid and Cerafate (sp?).  She has been getting really fussy about eating - she has always been a eat first and worry about it later kind of dog, now will barely touch anything.  We started her ot on Wellness in March.  That lasted about a month before she started turning her nose up at it.  We add cottage cheese - she ate the cottage cheese, not the food.  We added sardines to the cottage cheese.  After a month she stopped eating the cottage cheese, we changed to yogurt and sardines.  Again after a time she stopped eating the yogurt, then stopped eating the sardines.  We switched to cooked chicken breats.  Again lasted a while, then stopped.  We happened to have a packet of "Little Champions" food, she ate it right up and has been eating well for the past few days.  She has lost two pounds (down to 11 from 13), so we kind of think the Pirox is causing soem stomach problems.  Hopefully the Pepcid and other stomach med will help.  She was acting real sluggish until the started eating again the last few days.

When she was diagnosed in March she was peeing little spots about the size of a quarter - she is now leaving spots about 6 inches in diameter.  Also up until a few weeks ago her bladder was so full constantly that it was bulging and rock hard.  It is now back to normal size.  I can live with the constant pee spots knowing that her bladder is emptying out. 

 She still seems happy - really wants to go out with the other dogs to play, but we have found after a round of running after the tennis ball she really struggles the next day.  We just keep her close by, give her lots of hugs. 

 We just got our next month's script of Pirox so on we go. 

 Connie

YAY for those big pee spots!!!  I had read somewhere here that a dog needs to pass 2 1/2 cups of urine a day (I now realize that can't be for any size dog) so I tried to measure by throwing water down on the floor to see how much Annie was passing at a time--it was something like less than 1/8 of a cup!!!

I just wanted to let you know that over the course of time Annie has had this blasted cancer, she has had a LOT of changes in her urination and eating habits--sometimes for the worse, but sometimes for the better.  Very far along in her diagnosis, the tumor must have changed shape or direction and she had a couple of months  when her peeing was exactly like that of a healthy dog--it was great.  That time has passed again, but who knows??

And I have been scared on more than one occasion when she started eating less, but I seriously feed her anything she wants. Spaghetti and pretzels are current favorites.

Good luck

Marty 

Spaghetti and pretzels?  Awesome. Annie's playing you like a fiddle!  I'll save that for future reference.

Big puddle today on the hardwood hallway by Elie. I'm thinking/hoping that was mostly because of our friend coming over and the other 2 dogs getting all riled up.

Transitioning to EVO food for all 3 shelties.  We have had a few cases of "ugly butt", but it's been better now.  I notice much smaller stools, and that's to be expected.

Main thing is Elie likes it, and the 2 boys will eat anything.  Our 14 year old Teddy is getting over-weight and I hope the EVO won't make that worse... but I have been told that once he adjusts to the low carb/no grain/high protein diet that he should actually start to lose weight.  Sounds like BS, but maybe the metabolism change would have that effect. Anyone have experience?

 Go, Annie, Go!