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Prednisolone


Yonjuro
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Hello

I had to take my 5 month sibe puppy into the emergency vet 11pm last Wednesday night. His bottom jaw has swelled up to a frightening size. Apparently we were the 4th in that night with bee stung dogs. Anyway they couldn't find the sting but the anti-histamine did reduce the swelling somewhat in a short time.

It didn't go down as quickly as the vet wanted and she couldn't locate the stinger after a few goes. So we left with Ronin and some Prednisolone. Directions were 1 tab twice a day for 3 days, then 1 tab once a day for 3 days, then one tab every 2 days for 4 days.

I am now onto the second day of one per day, but I wonder if I need to continue this. He is panting quite a lot and we have to take let him out for a wee every 2 hours during the night which is not ideal.

As far as the initial swelling , the mouth swelling was gone the morning after the incident and the loose area under his jaw was gone by the following day (last friday)

Can I just stop giving this medication, he seems quite tired on it and the panting, drinking and weeing are not happy things.

Any advice would be great, I don't think this warrants a visit to the normal vet to find out?

Many thanks.

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I've always heard you have to be careful stopping Prednisolone so I would follow the vet's instructions with the dosage and not just stop it. If still in doubt could you phone the vet to clarify? I hope your pup continues to improve.

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Go back to the vet or at least phone them. You are not supposed to stop it but its only a mild dose so may not do harm. Ask.

It can affect the waterworks, I had to come off it for that reason one time. Made me go 17 times in 24 hours & they had no idea why & ran heaps of tests instantly. Stopped it & it stopped too. A few months later I had to have another short course & it was fine.

A phone call for advise can ease your mind & no one here can advise you what is safe really.

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Many thanks for the help.

I took your advice and called the vet, who basically concurred with what you have all said. He did say that I could speed up the weening off slightly, so today half a tab instead of 1 and same tomorrow and then half every second day for 3 more doses.

Happy to learn something new today.

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Many thanks for the help.

I took your advice and called the vet, who basically concurred with what you have all said. He did say that I could speed up the weening off slightly, so today half a tab instead of 1 and same tomorrow and then half every second day for 3 more doses.

Happy to learn something new today.

That should help :)

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Yeah, it is seems to be a pretty full on med. He is recovered from the bee sting, it is just now the side-effects of the meds to contend with for a few more days.

Bloody half dormant bees at night - I never would have though them to be about and cause such a problem.

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The vet also may have given a higher dose than usual because the sting could not be located, and they were concerned of extra venom?

Quite possibly but I obviously know little about this med or strength, it is a 20mg tablet and Ronin is 19.3kg.

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20 mg is a lot. The max non-hospital dose for an adult human is 50 mg per day.

You cant compare humans to dogs when it comes to pred dosage as dogs can tolerate higher doses. Also weaning is related to the amount of time the drug has been given. A quick burst for a couple of days is very different to long term dosage. This is not a drug to mess around with, you can see that from the side effects your dogs is experiencing, so ALWAYS seek veterinary advice before stoping or altering the dose.

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Quite possibly but I obviously know little about this med or strength, it is a 20mg tablet and Ronin is 19.3kg.

The blue ones? Louis (10kg) was on two of these a day for a while and the side effects were awful, panting, drinking, constant peeing, muscle wastage etc. but they saved his life while other drugs kicked in. It took months to wean him off but it was done slowly and gradually.

Just grabbed this from the first google result, but this is the reasoning behind tapering off the drug.

http://www.vetinfo.com/how-to-taper-off-prednisone-dog-dosage.html

Reasons for Gradual Discontinuation of Prednisone

The discontinuation of prednisone dog treatments should be gradual and performed over several weeks, because if this procedure is not respected, the dog may be affected by hyperadrenocorticism (commonly known as Cushing's disease) or even adrenal gland insufficiency. This is due to the fact that the cortisone will stimulate the adrenal gland and if the treatment is suddenly discontinued, the adrenal glands may either fail to produce the needed amounts of hormones or produce these hormones in excess. The adrenal glands have to get accustomed to not getting prednisone, by slowly reducing the amounts of prednisone the dog gets.

During the discontinuation process, the dog will have to be monitored. The activity of the adrenal glands is important and if there are any abnormalities, the dose of prednisone may need to be increased, until the dog no longer displays symptoms of impaired adrenal gland activity.

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Yes, they are blue, hopefully the advised short tapering is only because he has only been on the 20mg x 2 for 3 days?! Boy oh boy what a nightmare from a bloody bee sting! :(

Edited by Yonjuro
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They are a steriod which is why they work so well but with side effects.

Did the vet give the dog an injection??

Depending on how bad the swelling is you can simply use an anti histamine .

My boy reacts badly so is a vet job or we use the injections we have.Normally for our bad cases they have simply had a jab & thats it & ice .My boy can take 3 days for the swelling to go

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Treb is on 20mg (they are blue as well) for his Addison's and he is just shy of 50kg.. so that is a pretty heavy dose for a young dog. The excessive drinking and weeing can be a side effect of the drug though and from what I have been told by the addison's dog people on the facebook groups I am in you need to wean dogs off it pretty slowly as they can get a bit of ragey when the withdrawals hit.

--Lhok

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