December 31st, 2017, 2 years ago today, I discovered my little farm dog had renal carcinoma, aka kidney cancer. I want to share this story because its amazing to me and today marks an important milestone.
2% of canine cancers occur in the kidney. Its rare. Quiet rare. Our vet and no specialist around us has seen this form of cancer in a dog.
It started with him losing weight. He has cushings disease and if you know anything about cushings you'll know that a cushings dog will eat pretty much everything. So the weight loss was quiet surprising and the first sign to me that something was wrong. He was losing weight and he was refusing to eat.
I took him to our trusted vet who has become a good friend over the years and she felt confident it was just age. He was 13. He has bad teeth and his time was near.
I like dogs but I am not a massive dog lover. But I love this dog. So I insisted she give him a whole body scan. Its amazing what is hiding on an xray or ultrasound. Being around animals so much I have learned this the hard way many times. And that is when we found it. He had a tumor twice the size of his kidney attached to his kidney. We did a biopsy and ran more tests to find out what we were dealing with. A few days later it was confirmed he had a very aggressive form of renal carcinoma. I took him to a small animal oncologist and she told me nothing could be done. He was in kidney failure. Surgery or chemo was not an option and he was 13. His urine was no longer concentrating and he was borderline malnourished because he was not eating.
So I did what I always do and googled the crap out of kidney cancer. Talked to some people on some health forums that were fighting it themselves and tried to give him a good couple months before he passed away. I wanted to know what they felt like, why they weren't hungry etc. Most said, stomach ache. "I feel nauseas all the time"
The average life expectancy of a dog with this form of cancer is 1-3 months. The longest dog our vet could find on record who had no intervention lived 18 months.
So this is what I did.
I gave my dog a double dose of CBD 2 times a day (twice the recommended amount). It didn't seem to help much and he still wasn't eating. So I switched it to THC and CBD. That got him eating again. I also gave him small doses of gabapentin but only when he had food in his belly. I stopped feeding him dog food. I started feeding him whatever he desired. I have quiet literally ordered my dog a 4 piece nugget meal from McDonalds (his fav). I continued this for 6 months. Then I weaned him off slowly over a month. His appetite came back and never went. He started acting normal again.
It has been over a year since I have given him any medication other than CBD and THC. He has continued to lose weight slowly over the 2 years. He was 14lbs at diagnoses, he is now 9lbs. But he is alive and his fatal kidney failure has actually improved a bit. He still has cancer, the tumor slowed from rapid growth to slow growth and he is STILL ALIVE.
I don't know if I will get another year out of him. I really doubt it. But I may end up with them having to update the medical literature as he has now surpassed the longest dog living with this disease on record we could find.
The use of CBD and THC in veterinary care is something I've been spending a lot of time learning about the last few years. We also tested it out on a horse. Our family horse was on his death bed. He could barely walk and was losing weight. This was 3 years ago. I have been giving him a big dose of CBD everyday since the vet told us to put him down. He no longer limps, he is no longer lame and it completely blows my mind. The normal dose calls for 50mg to a horse of my size. I have been giving 250mg daily.
I haven't had a situation yet where I have needed to use it with cattle but I plan to. It will be interesting to see if it is effective and provides any help with pain or feeding issues. So far I have only given it to animals that were said to be fatal and I will keep with that until more research is done. But...if it does work you better bet ill be putting a product out to market.
2% of canine cancers occur in the kidney. Its rare. Quiet rare. Our vet and no specialist around us has seen this form of cancer in a dog.
It started with him losing weight. He has cushings disease and if you know anything about cushings you'll know that a cushings dog will eat pretty much everything. So the weight loss was quiet surprising and the first sign to me that something was wrong. He was losing weight and he was refusing to eat.
I took him to our trusted vet who has become a good friend over the years and she felt confident it was just age. He was 13. He has bad teeth and his time was near.
I like dogs but I am not a massive dog lover. But I love this dog. So I insisted she give him a whole body scan. Its amazing what is hiding on an xray or ultrasound. Being around animals so much I have learned this the hard way many times. And that is when we found it. He had a tumor twice the size of his kidney attached to his kidney. We did a biopsy and ran more tests to find out what we were dealing with. A few days later it was confirmed he had a very aggressive form of renal carcinoma. I took him to a small animal oncologist and she told me nothing could be done. He was in kidney failure. Surgery or chemo was not an option and he was 13. His urine was no longer concentrating and he was borderline malnourished because he was not eating.
So I did what I always do and googled the crap out of kidney cancer. Talked to some people on some health forums that were fighting it themselves and tried to give him a good couple months before he passed away. I wanted to know what they felt like, why they weren't hungry etc. Most said, stomach ache. "I feel nauseas all the time"
The average life expectancy of a dog with this form of cancer is 1-3 months. The longest dog our vet could find on record who had no intervention lived 18 months.
So this is what I did.
I gave my dog a double dose of CBD 2 times a day (twice the recommended amount). It didn't seem to help much and he still wasn't eating. So I switched it to THC and CBD. That got him eating again. I also gave him small doses of gabapentin but only when he had food in his belly. I stopped feeding him dog food. I started feeding him whatever he desired. I have quiet literally ordered my dog a 4 piece nugget meal from McDonalds (his fav). I continued this for 6 months. Then I weaned him off slowly over a month. His appetite came back and never went. He started acting normal again.
It has been over a year since I have given him any medication other than CBD and THC. He has continued to lose weight slowly over the 2 years. He was 14lbs at diagnoses, he is now 9lbs. But he is alive and his fatal kidney failure has actually improved a bit. He still has cancer, the tumor slowed from rapid growth to slow growth and he is STILL ALIVE.
I don't know if I will get another year out of him. I really doubt it. But I may end up with them having to update the medical literature as he has now surpassed the longest dog living with this disease on record we could find.
The use of CBD and THC in veterinary care is something I've been spending a lot of time learning about the last few years. We also tested it out on a horse. Our family horse was on his death bed. He could barely walk and was losing weight. This was 3 years ago. I have been giving him a big dose of CBD everyday since the vet told us to put him down. He no longer limps, he is no longer lame and it completely blows my mind. The normal dose calls for 50mg to a horse of my size. I have been giving 250mg daily.
I haven't had a situation yet where I have needed to use it with cattle but I plan to. It will be interesting to see if it is effective and provides any help with pain or feeding issues. So far I have only given it to animals that were said to be fatal and I will keep with that until more research is done. But...if it does work you better bet ill be putting a product out to market.
