AUTO-IMMUNE DISEASES and CORTISONE

(Agility Australia Nov 7 2000)

Prednil is cortisone, a steroidal anti-inflammatory. It will have quite a wide variety of effects and MAY effect agility performance. It's main medicinal purpose is to reduce the effect of the immune system - either to reduce allergies or, as in your case, to reduce an auto-immune response.

A direct side effect of this is that is makes the patient more susceptible to other infections, so if your dog gets a respiratory infection, tummy upset or similar, it is likely to have a greater effect that a dog that is not on cortisone.

One of the other major effects of cortisone is involved with protein metabolism. When a dog is on cortisone, the dog is more prone to break down protein into glucose and it is then turned into fat. Dogs on cortisone tend to be fatter and have a pot belly, due to weaker stomach muscles. To compound the obesity, the dogs tend to have an increased appetite. Also, if the dog is injured, due to the reduced protein metabolism, healing is much, much slower.

Due to effects on the kidneys, the dogs tend to drink and pee a lot more. This is just an annoying side effect.

Being an anti-inflammatory, cortisone also reduces the pain associated with inflammation in joints - especially in arthriticky old dogs. However, it may be associated with further ongoing damage to the joint, even though the dog does not feel the effects of the worsening joints. This is why, with acute joint injuries, we tend to use non-steroidal anti-inflammatories

Cortisone can also make a dog feel better - in some cases it can have quite a dramatic effect on the dog's mood, usually making them brighter and happier. But the occasional dog becomes lethargic and lazy. No hard and fast rules on this one.

For auto-immune problems, the dose of prednil often has to be kept quite. There are other effects of auto-immune diseases other that the obvious external changes you see, so really, we should keep them under control, despite the potential side-effects of the pred. Just make sure you keep your dog well exercised to maintain muscle tone as the best possible, and do not let get overweight. If you can do this, she can still have a good agility career.

Now all you have to do is let me know what her new medication is, and I hope I can give you some information about that too.

Hope this helps,

Le Hammer BVSc ( wearing my vet's hat this time)