random high potassium ?

Hi - hoping somebody here may have an idea as I'm googled out. Doug-Doug has to go under to have a cyst removed on his eyelid. The cyst has been there for years and is benign, but about 2 weeks ago it 'morphed' and is now rubbing on his eye ball so needs to be taken off. Of course we did pre-op bloodwork and DD usually gets a thryoid test done every year with his usual panel (he's super skinny so as he ages we keep an eye on thyroid) so we threw that in too. Everything normal except potassium which was high - we re-did test in case it was a bad sample (it wasn't easy to get the blood) and again, high. So his sodium/potassium ratio was off and vet's suspected Addison's.

We did a cortisol test - even though no signs of Addison's - perfectly normal. So he's not diabetic, no thryoid issues, no other issues...but still high potassium. Anyone ever been through this and have any ideas? Since everything else is normal and DD's not showing any signs of anything, we're going to go ahead and do the surgery.

I'm waiting for senior vet to give a call back tomorrow in case he's got any ideas, junior vet is stumped. Any help is appreciated

Tyson has Addison's Disease and the only way to confirm the diagnosis is with an ACTH Stimulation Test-is this what you mean by a cortisol test? Unfortunately most ADogs are diagnosed in the midst of a crisis when the symptoms do finally show up.

ETA: If you did have the ACTH test done, if Doug Doug is currently on any type of glucocorticoid, like prednisone, this could produce inaccurate results.

Hi Becky - we opted to just do a baseline cortisol test vs. the stimulation test initially. I'm pretty familiar with Addison's because of a dog in rescue and we went with baseline only for a couple reasons:

~ DD will be on 13 in a few weeks, well past the typical age of diagnosis
~ I do blood work every 6-8 months and last time (and all previous times) all normal
~ no clinical signs

I do watch my gang and their clinical signs pretty closely as I try to stay on top of anything that changes. If he had any of the symptoms I would have just done the ACTH test right off the bat.

I still may do the ACTH test - will discuss with vet tomorrow. Better safe than sorry after all. But was hoping maybe someone had at sometime had a pug with a random high potassium level (that didn't involve binging on bananas LOL).

Out of curiousity - do you do the shots Tyson or oral meds? If oral, do you go generic or compounded? Trying to get more info for the dog in rescue and wanted to have a couple opinions 'just in case' for DD...I'm a bit of a neurotic Jewish mother

Thanks!

lisamak wrote:

Out of curiousity - do you do the shots Tyson or oral meds? If oral, do you go generic or compounded? Trying to get more info for the dog in rescue and wanted to have a couple opinions 'just in case' for DD...I'm a bit of a neurotic Jewish mother

Thanks!

Tyson gets a shot of percorten every 28 days (0.38ml) and a daily dose of liquid prednisone (.07ml). Through blood work and trial we were able to reduce his doses of each down to the lowest effective dose, hence the reason for the use of prednisolone and not the tablet form of pred.
I know some dogs do well on the florinef, but we've had Tyson on the percorten ever since his diagnosis and have never had any issues. From what I've read, florinef can be a little bit more difficult to control dosage wise while keeping electrolytes in check.

I have a wonderful contact who is incredibly knowledgeable about all things AD who has helped me through this whole thing. If I can at all help with any questions regarding the dog in rescue I'm more than happy to, and what I can't answer I know Elizabeth can.