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[doberkim]

so some good news and some not so good news.

bowie and mya had their rechecks with the cardiologists today.

bowie is doing well. its been 17 months since he was diagnosed with occult DCM, and at this point, there is very little, if any, progression of the disease. the only real change is that his ventricular wall is thinning a tad -- but his fractional shortening was actually a little better today, and his other values are just hovering around the same values. he threw only one VPC, and the cardiologist and i agreed that a holter probably wouldn't change anything we did with thim, and it's not worth it at this time since we already have a firm diagnosis of occult DCM. his murmur is a tad worse (II/VI systolic) and he also has some pulmonary regurg in addition to the mitral. his heart rate maintained around 80-90 in the exam, which is good. we agreed to add a beta-blocker to his regimine because it has shown to be beneficial in some cases, and if he tolerates the drug well there is little side effects. i was really relieved that he is doing so well, and the cardiologist agreed that he's done amazingly so far- since most dobes get nowhere near 17 months and still be in occult! i guess we caught it very early, and the drugs have to be helping at least a bit!

now mya -- the not so good news. the echo showed her heart is huge (which i knew), and she has severe mitral insufficiency. her murmur is IV/VI with a palp precordial thrill on the left which spreads to the rest of the heart, and a II/VI on the right side. her echo showed she has pleural effusion at this point, and her left atrium is HUGE. her heart rate is way too high, and she of course, was in total atrial fibrillation. based on all this, she is in early congestive heart failure, but compensated. she actually has some pretty good contractility when her heart rate slows down enough. weve added a beta blocker to her too (gotta keep them on the same meds) in hopes of slowing down her heart to peak out at 140, and were also adding furosemide for the effusion. they were amazed at the severity of her disease not correlating with her clinical appearance, and hell,she's already lived 2 months past how long we thought she would last! shes also got some azotemia we rechecked.

so thats the update - bowie's doing well and doesnt need another recheck for 6-8 months as long as he does well and tolerates the meds we are adding in. mya will recheck in 4 weeks to run more blood and check how her heart is, and if needed we can 1) up the enalapril 2) change to dig or diltiazem or 3) start her on pimobendan if needed - we can start her at any time since we have some on hand. both of them are CLINICALLY doing very well, and mya is MUCH more active than bowie and has little to no exercise intolerance! if i hadnt just made general check ups because i am a paranoid mom, i would have never known shes in congestive heart failure...

[flyndog]

Kim, I don't know what to say! In spite of their heart conditions, you have two very lucky dogs! I'll bet they know that, too.