AFGHANS ARE US -HEALTH

HYPOTHYROIDISM

TINAH'S STORY

Tinah's story is reproduced here with the kind permission of her owner Gonny de Niet

Tinah was born on the 8th March 2002. She arrives at our home with her brother Jallah. Tinah was a happy healthy pup, different from her little brother. Jallah doesn't want to play, sleeps all day and if he has to go for a wee we have to shut him into the garden. 5 months old we have his thyroid tested on vets advice because there is a family history on thyroid problems. His T4 comes back 18 (19-46) which is extremely low fur such a young dog (Jean Dodds writes dogs under 2 years old should have T4 levels in the upper halve of the range) We decide to wait another 4 months before retesting him. 8 months old Jallah starts to show severe unprovoked aggression and after attacking me several times he bites a hole in Hans arm and tries to attack him in the face. We have no other choice than take him back to his breeder because she sort of forbids us to undertake any action what so ever. The breeder says its only naughtiness and an age problem, but it was much more then that really. At this present time the poor dog is still aggressive and shows lameness in his rear legs but the present owner refuses to test him...........

Tinah on the other hand still is a happy girl, but 9 months old she has her first season and a few weeks after she develops the worst phantom I have ever seen or heard of. Within 5 weeks her breasts are filled with huge cysts and lumps filled with fluid. She has enough milk to start a milk bar.

After 6 more weeks of hoping that it will sort itself my vet gives her Galastop to stop the milk production. It works but 2 weeks later she develops a vaginal infection. Loads of antibiotics and 2 weeks later problem solved. But the huge cysts do not disappear. They are still there 5 months after the start of her season. My vet contacts the University clinic in Utrecht.....They advise to never let her have another season again and to have her spayed or jabbed immediately. Tinah by that time is only 14 months old and we decide to jab her instead of spaying her so young. She already shows signs of coming in season again, just 5 months after her first season, so she is jabbed immediately. The jab stops her season, 80% of the smaller cysts disappear but 4 or 5 big ones stay where they are. She still phantoms and produces milk, but not as bad as before.

By the time she is 2.5 years old she starts gaining weight. We believe its because of the jabs, she still has a beautiful rich and long coat.......but it seems to be harder to groom because the texture changes to a sort of woolly coat that tangles badly. We blame the jabs for this as well as for the weight gain.

Tinah is almost 3 years old and becomes more grumpy lazy and fat every day. We cut back the amount of food, try to give her more exercise, but it doesn't seem to help a lot. She weighs 30 kilo's (65 cm tall Right after her third birthday I receive a phone call from a friend, who tells me Tinah's dad is diagnosed HT. His T4 was 2 (19-46). One of her sisters is diagnosed HT a few weeks later. That of course is the sign to have Tinah tested. Result is a T4 of 7 (19-46) and a TSH of 0.49 (<0.50) We start her on L-Thyroxine twice a day 0.4 mg.

After a month some changes are noticeable. She looses weight, very slowly but at least doesn't gain any weight. She plays a bit more but the most significant change is her coat. She drops loads of almost white dull hair, mostly her side coat, breast and upper part hind legs. More cysts disappear. Her breast finally go back to a sort of normal size instead of hanging down as if she had 5 litters. New dark red coat appears at the sides of her saddle. We realise she obviously has been locked in phantom since her first season.

3 months after the first test, beginning of June we retest. T4 comes back 11 (19-46) surprisingly low still considering the dose of L thyroxine she is on. All her other blood work come back perfectly ok. ( I want to add a note here: Its not common to do full panel testing in Holland and its a hard job to convince any vet to run full panel Thyroid tests) We decide to give her one tab 0.2mg more for another 2 months. Vet agrees on testing full panel next time to make sure nothing else is wrong.

Beginning of July 2005 I suddenly discover a weird lump attached to her footpad from her front foot. Off to vets again.......who thinks it could be a tumour. We think it's best to wait a few weeks in case it disappears spontaneously. That of course doesn't happen and by the end of July it grew a bit and starts irritating her. A few days later the tumour has been removed and send to lab to investigate.

At the same time blood has been send of to test her thyroid levels again.

Blood works return the following week, to my surprise only a T4 again. I am not amused to be honest...........The level thank goodness is lowly rising. Its 14 now (19-46) I ask the vet again why he didn't do a full panel thyroid test. He replied because he drew blood at same time as giving her her anaesthetics for the operation and we didn't give her her thyroxine before (op was to early to give her her dose 5 hours before) he decided it would have been throwing away money to do a full panel.

(NEXT TIME I WILL STAY AT HIS SIDE UNTIL SAMPLES ARE SEND AND MAKE SURE IT'S FULL PANEL, no doubt about that)

But at least her T4 raised even without her tabs 6 hours before test.

Tinah's dose hasn't changed yet, but we will retest a FULL panel in 6 to 8 weeks time.

The lab results from the lump came back negative for malignant cells, the wound heals slowly but nicely. At this moment it seems we win the fight. Tinah is a much happier and healthier girl now and we hope she will remain so for many more years.

Gonny de Niet 

14th August 2005

Update: Sadly Gonny lost Tinah in 2008