CathyA
4-5-12, 8:12pm
Suzi, our 8 year old mutt, has seemed extra tired recently. I mentioned this in another post awhile back.
We finally took her to our vet. Actually, its the vet's daughter who is working there now (as a vet) and she assessed Suzi. She said her heart/lungs/eyes/fur, etc. were fine and said we really didn't need any blood tests. I told her we wanted them, even though they would come to $200.
The chem profile was pretty normal.
They had to send the thyroid specimen to another lab.
The older vet called today and said he didn't quite understand the labs. He said they were sort of inconsistent. Well, DH and I looked at them and its obvious to us that she's starting to get hypothyroid. (Her T4 is low and her TSH is high).
Its always good to repeat an abnormal test, so we'll repeat it in 4-6 weeks. ($75.00 seems high).
Anyhow.........have any of you dealt with a dog who is hypothyroid? I'm a bit miffed at the vet. Well, I'm miffed at both of them. Maybe its just my medical training, but there was an obvious decrease in her energy and an unexplained weight gain. Seems like the younger vet should have believed me. Then the older vet (about 55) saying that the labs didn't make sense to him, when it was obvious what is going on.
I had really trusted the older vet for a long time.........but I had a cat die of hyperthyroidism and a year before that I asked the doc if we needed to check her thyroid since she was having symptoms and he said no.
Its a small town, so maybe they're just trying to save people money.......but still.
Anyhow.......for any of you who have had experience with dog hypothyroidism, I'd appreciate you sharing what you know.
I've been researching and it looks like a dog's thyroid can lose 60-70% of its function before obvious signs even show up.
We finally took her to our vet. Actually, its the vet's daughter who is working there now (as a vet) and she assessed Suzi. She said her heart/lungs/eyes/fur, etc. were fine and said we really didn't need any blood tests. I told her we wanted them, even though they would come to $200.
The chem profile was pretty normal.
They had to send the thyroid specimen to another lab.
The older vet called today and said he didn't quite understand the labs. He said they were sort of inconsistent. Well, DH and I looked at them and its obvious to us that she's starting to get hypothyroid. (Her T4 is low and her TSH is high).
Its always good to repeat an abnormal test, so we'll repeat it in 4-6 weeks. ($75.00 seems high).
Anyhow.........have any of you dealt with a dog who is hypothyroid? I'm a bit miffed at the vet. Well, I'm miffed at both of them. Maybe its just my medical training, but there was an obvious decrease in her energy and an unexplained weight gain. Seems like the younger vet should have believed me. Then the older vet (about 55) saying that the labs didn't make sense to him, when it was obvious what is going on.
I had really trusted the older vet for a long time.........but I had a cat die of hyperthyroidism and a year before that I asked the doc if we needed to check her thyroid since she was having symptoms and he said no.
Its a small town, so maybe they're just trying to save people money.......but still.
Anyhow.......for any of you who have had experience with dog hypothyroidism, I'd appreciate you sharing what you know.
I've been researching and it looks like a dog's thyroid can lose 60-70% of its function before obvious signs even show up.