katie4469

How long on average does it take for a dog to get better from having Low Thyroid once received medication? I won't go into long explanation but I was dumb and my breeder told me that when I got my boy that he "might not even have low thyroid as we haven't seen any changges." So I took him off the pills assuming it wasn't serious or he didn't even have it. Anyway he lost a lot of fur very fast. He doesn't have any other symptoms but the hairloss. We took him to the vet to get his levels checked and get more pills and they told us it will take about a month for us to see changes. It has been almost 2 and we see no changes yet. We have been told by others that its supposed to take 2 weeks... and someone else said 3 months. So which is it??

I don't know I'm not very knowledgable on this whole thing!

Any advice/concerns/opinions helps!

Thanks!

alan j.

it is a rate that is given based on regular testing. Your dog will be monitered by your vet and the amount is determined. I would concern myself with test results before looking at the external results

katie4469

He was tested and he does have the right dosage, I'm just concerned as it is taking a long time to see results. Maybe I'm just over paranoid and need some patience. lol.

StarlightDobe

With a low thyroid dog you need ALOT of patience, and you have to be vigilant on the meds and testing. My girl would often regulate, then once in a while go off so I would have her tested again just to make sure there were no changes in her levels. How old is your boy? If he is still growing his levels might take longer to adjust. Mine was already full grown when we discovered her problem. Also it is not as common in males but Id have him checked for Addison's Disease as well. Mysti had both.

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Amelia_

To my knowledge, any behavoural changes tend to subside within a couple of weeks, however fur loss can take a lot longer, some people I know have said 8-12 months for their dogs.

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Lady Kate

katie, don't forget, the meds will be an ongoing thing.. just because his tests come back 'normal' that only means the dosage is correct and you will give him the meds for the rest of his life.. Although it's not serious. low thyroid is a chronic condition. After having his panel ( a full panel) run, see what else you can do for his thinning hair.. Try some Omega 3.

Adara

They should be testing every 30 days or so until the dosage is right and normals are level. I'd ask the vet about how long to see the hair growth come back. I had a dog years ago who was very very very very low. I think it took us almost 4 months to get him to a low normal and it took him 8-12 months to get a good coat back.

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Colleen
Flirt, ADAMAS All the Girls Do It, OA, NAJ, CL2-F, CL2-H
Gabby, Ch Gold Run's Token of Rumor, JH, NA, OAJ, NF, NJP, CL2,CL3-H, CL3-F Vizsla
Havoc, GCh HRQ Guess Who's In Trouble, JH, OA, OAJ, CL2-H, CL2-S, CL2-F Vizsla
Envy, Kizmar's Bailey HotShot of Adara, Vizsla

MeadowCat

Shanoa's only symptom was hair loss on her ears. It took several months to see improvement and maybe six months until the hair was back.

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dobebug

If you are trying to judge by the regrowth of the lost hair Meadow Cat is spot on.

The sequence of events is basically--symptomatic dog sees vet--gets tested for AT LEAST T4 (hopefully also for free T4 aka T4 by ED) or even better gets a complete thyroid panel run.

Vet computes how much thyroid meds to put the dog on based on a formula in general use. Writes prescription and has it filled, gives instruction on how much and when o medicate and says to come back for retest in four to six weeks.

You call to make appointment in four weeks--the person making the appointment tells you you should be giving the am thyroid meds four to six hours prior to the time of the appointment for the blood draw for the retest.

Dog is retested--vet calls owner to advise if dog is still low and needs a higher dose, or too high and needs a lower dose or is fine and won't need to be retested for six months or a year unless you see further symptoms.

Depending on where the dog is in a normal shed regrow cycle when you start meds you may not see hair regrowth for anywhere from 3 to 6 months.

If the dog had other common symptoms--weight gain--you might see weight loss much sooner than more hair. Or if the dog was very cold sensitive (some hypothyroid dogs are) that symptom might disappear quickly once the dog's thyroid level is corrected.

Bottom line answer is--it depends on a bunch of things.

Once one of my dogs goes on thyoid meds I recheck every six month at least half of my hypothyroid dogs have been fairly difficult to regulate and needed to be checked more often than the more common once a year.

lestat1978

Ivan is coming up on four months and I might be finally seeing some improvement in his coat. When Ivan was retested (initially 6 weeks and then will be every 6 months thereafter) he was at the low end of the therapeutic range. Depending on what his next round of results are, I may ask to have his dosage increased. I'm not sure we're where I'd like to be.

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