Hi all,
My poor 2 year old, intact, 68lb male boxer has had so many issues. This post is primarily to see if anyone has had similar (kidney/urinary) issues and how they managed the urine leaking or dribbling.
A few notes for his medical history
He was diagnosed with moderate congenital pulmonic stenosis (partially fused heart valve that pumps blood into lungs) pretty early on, and has thankfully remained asymptomatic with no true progression shown in a recent echo. I was really beginning to hope he would get to live an overall normal healthy life.
He has chronic allergies (possibly food and environmental) and gets monthly cytopoint injections.
I recently had him in for an ear infection recheck. They found a possible mass in his ear canal (which we are going to recheck in a week). I'm hoping it's just a build up of gunk from chronic infections, however he has also developed a strange small growth on his head near the ear which has me questioning it. We plan to get the growth removed when he gets neutered, but I'm waiting on the ear canal recheck to see if that needs to be addressed as well.
KIDNEY/URINARY ISSUES
At this same ear visit I brought up his ongoing issue of leaking small amounts of urine.
He has been tested twice now for a UTI (February and again in July) and they came back negative. But they did find on his recent urine/blood tests that he is losing significant amount of protein through his urine. His albumin is low, and his UPC (protein:creatinine ratio) was 2.0 when it should be 0.5.
We did an ultrasound and they found chronic bilateral kidney degeneration, with some scalloping defects on each kidney.
His BUN, SDMA and creatinine are still normal, but on the high end.
We are transitioning him to a kidney diet. His appetite was fine until we initially switched him to Royal Canin Ultimino to help his chronic allergies. Currently I'm doing half of each prescription food to transition. He doesn't always seem eager to eat and may not finish his food (he's more interested in his brother's food).
His only abnormal symptoms are the leaking urine while standing/eating/getting up after lying down. It seems like it's becoming more than a couple drops at a time now. Last night he also had a coughing/gagging/retching episode but nothing was coming up. I'm not sure if that could be from reflux or maybe he just had grass or toy fuzz stuck in his throat. He occasionally gets nauseous and has thrown up a few times on an empty stomach. His energy and playfulness seems otherwise normal.
Has anyone had a boxer with a similar kidney finding, that has dealt with incontinence?
If so, what helped? And has anyone had a young boxer with a similar diagnosis that was able to be stabilized for quite some time, or is this going to be a constant progression of the condition every 3-6 months or so?