It seems to run in my family.
My sister, my daughter and I are all afflicted.
Now there's one more family member to add to the list.
My 5 year old dog, Halle, was diagnosed a few weeks ago.
Beginning last December, we noticed little things about her.
1. In the beginning, she seemed a little stiff when she got up from her dog bed - not all the time though. She would walk it off and be fine in no time.
2. As the winter got colder, she would go outside to go potty and was back at the door within minutes to come back inside. She's a Finnish Lapphund, a snow dog. She always loved romping around in the snow or even just napping in it. This was strange, but she was eating well and otherwise acting normal.
3. Her eyes started running a lot. I was always wiping them. I thought she had blocked tear ducts and brought her to the vet to have them flushed. It did no good. Anti-inflammatory eye drops did not help either. But her eyes were not red either.
4. One day in February, I noticed she was limping while we were out on a walk. It was about the same time I noticed that she no longer ran up the stairs. She would plod slowly and deliberately up from one step to the next. Back to the vet we went. The vet prescribed pain meds to see if it would help. It didn't. X-rays showed nothing abnormal either. Lyme test was also negative. She had gained 10 pounds from lack of exercise.
5. The breeder suggested a canine chiropractor. I found one about 45 minutes away and waited 6 weeks to get an appointment. She found nothing out of whack with her spine. She was also a naturopath, and agreed that something wasn't right. She thought Halle looked somewhat depressed. She asked a lot of questions. One question she asked was if there were any autoimmune diseases in my family. I thought she meant in Halle's line, but she actually meant our human family. She said often a pet's illness is the same as a human member of the family. I assured her there was no one with an autoimmune disease of any kind. One thing she noticed, however, that we hadn't was a bald spot on Halle's nose. I checked pictures and it had not been there the month before. In addition, she had grown some funky white fuzzy fur on her legs that had never been there before. And the fur under her collar was coarse and dry.
6. I thought about the question the naturopath had asked about family illness. Loss of hair, lethargic, didn't want to stay out in the cold. Could it possibly be that her thyroid wasn't functioning correctly?
7. I took her back to my regular vet. She had gotten even weaker. I had to actually help her up the stairs one night. We decided to go ahead and do blood work to try to figure it out. I told him about my hunch about the thyroid, and he ordered a thyroid panel.
Sure enough, she was very hypothyroid! How weird is that? She's been on thyroid medicine for about two weeks now and she is now acting like a 5 year old dog once again! It will take longer for her fur to get back to normal, but she has already lost some weight and her eyes are getting less runny too.
These are pictures of Halle before her symptoms began...
And here are pictures of what she looked like when she was feeling sick...
Thyroid disease can be difficult to diagnose because the symptoms can be so vague at first. I believe I lived with it for many years until finally I diagnosed myself based on what I kinds from my daughter and my sister. I am so happy that we discovered the cause of Halle's problems relatively early and that it's so simple to correct to get her feeling better again!
