Mickey came to us as a rescue having been firstly ignored for 2 years, then abused as his new owner thought in order to train a big dog you used an even bigger stick! Bearing in mind he'd had no formal training whatsoever, had lived in a barn for these two years with another dog (his brother) and now he was expected to know what was required and live by himself in a flat, so needless to say, when he arrived he was broken both mentally and physically.

We spent the first year building up both his confidence and training, all went well albeit slowly but then he started to experience excess bile production leading on to nausea, sickness, anorexia and depression. We had to force feed him for 18 months, no amount of drug treatments helped. He was then put onto a drug called Cimetidine (Tagamet). Well if a dog could be suicidal then that was him after only a few days.
It was at this point we started talking about letting him go, he was only 4 years old and we were in a crisis however, our wonderful vet had one last card to play. He referred us to a colleague who was a Holistic Vet. She put him on a remedy called Lycopodium to settle his tummy nerves, it worked, but more of that later.

At roughly 5 years old ... things started getting worse if ever they could. Mickeyfell and injured his knee badly enough for our original vet to rush him in for xrays. Luckily his ligaments and tendons were intact but his knee was very badly damaged which led onto our first introduction to Rimadyl.
His knee was giving him endless problems so he was on Rimadyl on and off for a couple of years with gradually worsening results as unbeknown to any of us the Rimadyl was going to be the end of him literally.

In amongst all this we then went on to develop auto immune skin allergies which also responded to the now not to be trusted Rimadyl! Off course this gave us more problems as he was also IBS by then (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) which we now believe to have been a lasting side effect of the Rimadyl.

To bring you up to date, we were dealing with excess bile, anorexia, knee problems, skin problems and ever increasing Rimadyl side effects. Things weren't looking good and he was just 6 years old by now.

On the Rimadyl Mickey was fine to begin with, no problems at all as he was on them in the winter for his knee and we managed to wean him off them in the summer until the skin problems started. Then he went back on them again for that. We went on like this for a few months whilst trying to wean him off them, only to have to go back on them for either his skin or his knee, one big vicious circle! Every time he went on them he was getting more and more side effects until eventually, just a couple of pills sent him into what we called a "crash," which got more and more serious each time. His worst being when he was given it by mistake when our own vet was on long term leave.
These crashes ranged from bowel and tummy problems to begin with, leading onto a regularly enlarged spleen, liver and kidney damage which has to be monitored every 6 months or so.

Now years down the line, he has "NOT TO BE GIVEN RIMADYL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES emblazoned on his notes, he also cannot be prescribed Cimetidine, or Synulox, Tribbusson and countless other medications as he has now got liver damage due to the drug abuse he's suffered. He has to endure regular blood tests to check his organ function and gets through life on Prednisolone which luckily helps both his skin and his knee. It's not the nicest drug going and has some nasty side effects of it's own, but without it we'd have to give up.

Over the years we look back and think it's not been easy, but thankfully our Holistic Vet is very good, will not give up on him and has kept him going the last 6 years. Had it not been for her, we would have had to say goodbye .... as he couldn't have survived without some sort of medication, medication he's allergic too!
As for the future, well we know he can't have the majority of the old age drugs available. If he starts having an adverse reaction to the Prednisolone then we've run out of options as we've tried most Holistic Meds and are quickly running out of them too. As for Mickey, he's lovely big chap, not a bad bone in his body, very sensitive, very loving and to look at him he hasn't got a care in the world!!!
He's now also having problems with his rear legs which is standard for a GSD as well as muscle wastage which sadly is a side effect of the long term use of Prednisolone. So again we're fighting yet another battle but at least we were lucky, we quickly noticed the link between his crashes and the Rimadyl, we were very lucky.

Liz