- Thread starter
- #21
Krich2683
In the Brooder
He's on 4 medications including the ones you mentioned. The pimobentin we get from Wedgewood pharmacy online, it's about $100 for 100 mini pills including shipping, so def much cheaper than the vetmedin at the vet's office. We noticed him coughing one day, and I was affraid he got water in his lungs from swimming the day before so we did a bunch of research once we set his vet appointment and realized that it could be DCM as the fda had just released their study on the corelation of grain free diet and DCM. So vet did the x-ray saw that it was DCM, gave us some meds and wished us luck. We took him to a cardiologist and got all the tests there, they added and adjusted meds. We followed up and they checked liver, kidney and whatever other organs to be sure those were handling the meds and all that was fine so we've been on that regiment since last July. I took Alpha to our regular vet for his yearly in March and I asked her to x-ray his heart just to see if it was worse or the same and it actually had shrunk! Not completely of course but it had gone down in size. Which is what indicated that the diet was at least a leading factor. Had it been just genetic, no amount of medicine would have "repaired" the damage (which isn't really accurate but I can't think of how to phrase it). He still has DCM and it will eventually take him out but we caught it quick so hopefully that works in our favor. In my opinion it was the genetics that set him up to get it, but the grain free diet caused it to happen so early (he wasn't yet 3 when he was diagnosed). Our vets have submitted his case to the FDA to include in their study, and I also had them send it to Taste of the Wild, who strongly disagrees that food has anything to do with it, but it is what it is. We are now purina pro plan plus fans and he's certainly doing better than we had thought when it all started.
Welcome to BYC!
