Canine waking us in the wee hours

[SheriS]

This is an elaborated version of a misplaced post from last week that only was seen by Dr. Jeff and Dr. Christina. (Thank you for your responses).

Fibi is a Havanese, 9 lb, female 14 3/4 yrs young. She gets acupuncture and laser on average once a month and responds well.

She eats part venison and part Bramble with every meal and additional supplements.

We've been splitting her dinner into two parts now: 1/2 at 7pm and 1/2 at midnight. When she wakes us up, at 3ish am (senility?) she's whimpering a lot, we are giving her 1/2 of her breakfast and the other half around 5am when she awakes again. She sleeps after being fed. She not crying to relieve herself.

She's on thyroid med and adrenal desiccated from Standard Process, Gabapentin, Lifewave X39 stem cell patches & CBD.

Her Beam is-

Behavior- Obsessed w/ food/treats but not interested in playing w/ toys or us much anymore.

Energy- Has a lot of energy around snuffle tasks and food. Otherwise, she sleeps a lot. We have not been able to walk her much due to cold weather. Though she gets up many times per day to see if there's food on her mat.

Appetite- Excellent! + Treat-centric!

Mood- Did I mention food makes her happy...? Engaged only when food is around or if she's just eaten she like to get massages. She has slowed down quite bit.

We will be trying Homeopathic Ignatia 30c shortly.



Fibi starts crying in the wee hours. We thought she was in pain so vet gave her Gabapentin bf bedtime but that has not helped with these early wake ups. She is relentless about us feeding her every morning at 4-4:30am! She usually eats around 6:30am or so.

We feed her dinner at around 7pm.

Is it possible she has low blood sugar? Her vet says that she's not hypoglycemic based on recent labs but really hasn't been checked at 4am. Not likely to be either. Or is it senility that's waking her?

We are sleep deprived as a result of her recent activity...



LAST RESORT: Does anyone have a suggestion for a gentle sedative that we can give her in order for us all to get some sleep around here? An animal communicator suggested possibly adding a very small dose of trazadone.

Thanks for any insight.

Sheri & David

 

[Dr. Jeff]

Thanks so much for reposting your message here.

I'm copying/pasting my replies from the other thread:

SheriS said:
Is it possible she has low blood sugar?
Yes, it could be hunger from hypoglycemia.
SheriS said:
Her vet says that she's not hypoglycemic based on recent labs.
Unless she's had a test at 4am there's no way to confirm this. Have you tried giving her Karo syrup or honey to see if that helps?

Are you working with a vet homeopath? If so, this may be a significant symptom which they could modify with a homeopathic medicine.
SheriS said:
Or is it senility that's waking her?
Possibly. Is she acting senile (lost, confuse, etc.) otherwise?

Senior dog dementia

Signs of mental dysfunction in your older dog appear gradually, making it more difficult to recognize. As dogs live longer due to advances in veterinary medicine and nutrition, we see more problems in senior dogs, and one of the most difficult issues to detect is dementia. Most signs of...

www.vet.cornell.edu

Does anyone have a suggestion for a gentle sedative that we can give her in order for us all to get some sleep around here?

Personally, I use a tiny piece of a children's chewable Benadryl. It works for me (and the pets I have used it for).

 

[Dr. Christina]

Especially when older animals are showing some concerning symptoms, it is critical to have a primary integrative/holistic veterinarian on your health care team. While there is much you can do and learn, until you have years of understanding how to carefully evaluate levels of symptoms and their responses to treatments, having a trained professional at you back is both helpful and reassuring.

Here at HA! we can give you lots of information, and suggestions, and we are not carefully tracking all the symptoms and responses. I would suggest homeopathy or excellent TCVM as your primary vet. Go to HolisticActions.com/select to find one. Then add other practitioners as needed to your team.

And keep reading and posting! check out the resource library - buttons on behavior, aging, brain, homeopathy may be useful right now.

Dr. Chambreau

 

[MauraF]

Could Fibi have Cushings Disease?

 

[Dr. Christina]

I will let @Dr. Jeff respond to the lab work indications for Cushings or not.

The symptoms you mentioned do not scream Cushings to me.

You go to an acupuncturist monthly - maybe you need to go more often for awhile as she is deteriorating, rather than improving. Or switch modalities to a homeopathic vet. Hopefully your acupuncture vet is doing pulse, tongue, checking all the meridians, asking about times of day (the night waking can indicate specific elements, eg) and treating all of Fibi, not just mobility.

Dr. Christina

 

[SheriS]

I will let @Dr. Jeff respond to the lab work indications for Cushings or not.

The symptoms you mentioned do not scream Cushings to me.

You go to an acupuncturist monthly - maybe you need to go more often for awhile as she is deteriorating, rather than improving. Or switch modalities to a homeopathic vet. Hopefully your acupuncture vet is doing pulse, tongue, checking all the meridians, asking about times of day (the night waking can indicate specific elements, eg) and treating all of Fibi, not just mobility.

Dr. Christina

Thanks for all of the input Dr. Jeff, Dr. Christina and Maura.
We are waiting on a senior panel (just had one run a couple of months ago) to rule out anything new.
Our vet, while she does acupuncture, laser and some other holistic modalities, she does not really go too deep otherwise with pulse, etc. We're trying to get her to acupuncture at least every other week now.
We also have an animal communicator on board...she's done a few recent home visits and will visit every other week for a while. She also does energy work which seems to help some.
Are you familiar with LifeWave Photo therapy patches? We're currently using the stem cell ones.
In addition, she gets two treatments per day of the Calmer Canine for anxiety.
None of this is preventing her from waking us twice per night now.

 

[Dr. Jeff]

Have you tried the Benadryl trick Sheri?

Also Dr. Wagner has a great Facebook group to help support pet parents using the LifeWave patches.

www.Facebook.com/groups/petswithpatches

 

[SheriS]

Yes to the Benadryl Dr. Jeff. I forgot to mention that we tried it for several nights. It didn't seem to phase her in the least.
It has been helpful when there's been an allergic reaction.
And great about the support group for LifeWave patches.

 

[Dr. Christina]

check this thread out on the forum: Doggie Dementia - Does your dog have signs?
LOTS of suggestions including a book by a member.
Dr. Christina