Cushings Disease in Dogs

By: Alfred Patrick Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Did you know that Cushings disease, which is also known as hyperadrenocorticism, is a disease that affects hormone production in dogs. It can lead to a lot of problems for your pet, including bloody urine, anemia and total liver failure. So, if your dog shows any possible signs, like frequent urination or extreme thirst, you should take them to the vet and have them tested for cushings disease in dogs.

If your dog becomes affected by cushings, their body will produce too much of certain hormones. That, in turn, can cause them to have all sorts of medical complications, including frequent urination, hair loss, heart problems and liver lesions or liver failure.

Luckily, there are treatments for Cushings Disease in dogs. Before you consider traditional medication as a treatment, though, remember that many of them have harsh side-effects. In fact, your dog's Cushings might have been caused by medication that he or she was taking in the first place, as mentioned earlier.

Some of the other symptoms of cushings disease in dogs are lethargy and excessive urination and drinking. Also, though, your dog's stomach could be distended. A distended stomach, basically, is overly round, much like the stomach on a pot-bellied pig, except that the pig's stomach is supposed to look like that and your dog's stomach is not.

Another common cause is drugs (iatrogenic causes). Essentially, if your dog is taking any steroid medications for unrelated medical problems, it can cause the hormonal balance in their body to be thrown off, creating a case of cushings. So, if your dog is showing signs of cushings, you may want to examine any medications that they are on, such as prednisone.

The major cause of this disease by far and away is when an ACTH producing tumor forms in the pituitary gland, causing the body to produce too much cortisone. There have been some instances, although not near as many as the first example, where cortisone may produce a tumor in the adrenal gland, also causing the disease.

Cushing's disease is managed, not cured. Treatment consists of several options, but non-surgical treatment is the most common since both adrenal and pituitary types of the disease respond effectively to oral treatments. It is important for the pet owner to become familiar with this dreaded disease and to be aware of early intervention procedures that may prevent or facililtate the speedy recovery of your pet.

If Cushing's disease is left to progress without treatment it can lead to even more serious problems such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, failure of the liver and kidneys, and other problems like infections in numerous places on the body. These problems combined with Cushing's disease can prove fatal to your pet.

Iatrogenic - This type of Cushing's disease is caused by over use of corticosteroids for treatment of various ailments such as allergies, skin disorders and arthritis. Due to excessive corticosteroids in the blood, adrenal glands fail to produce cortisol and decrease in size.

Cushing's disease in dogs occurs when the adrenal gland produces too much of a body chemical called glucocorticoid. There are two conditions that can cause this to happen. The first condition is that there could be small tumors on the inside of the pituitary gland causing it to send the wrong signals to the adrenal grand, in turn causing it to produce to much glucocorticoid.