Cushing's. Advice please.

[janedoe]

Our holistic vet has brought up Cushing's for Nikki twice now but I don't see the correlation between what I'm reading online and her symptoms. From pets WebMD, I get the following. The only symptoms that she has is her periodic incontinence which happens for about two days every couple of weeks. She also has back issues and seems to rest more than usual. Her senior blood panel came back normal in May. Should I get her checked anyway or does it sound like a random remark from our holistic vet (which I'm inclined to believe).

Symptoms

The condition mostly affects middle-aged and older dogs, and the warning signs may be harder to spot in the beginning.
You might notice your dog:

• Is thirstier than usual
• Seems hungrier
• Pees more often. Housebroken dogs may have indoor accidents.
• Loses hair or it seems slow to grow
• Gets a pot belly
• Has thinning skin
• Seems very tired and inactive
• Pants a lot
• Gets skin infections

[Maxx&Emma]

It doesn't sound like Cushings from what you are describing. My moms Cavalier has Cushings, she pants a lot, is very inactive, has the pot belly and drinks and pees quite a bit. Fortunately they are able to control it fairly easily, by diet and I believe one med. If you were seeing actual symptoms it would be one thing but I wonder what made the holistic vet mention it twice.

[janedoe]

It doesn't sound like Cushings from what you are describing. My moms Cavalier has Cushings, she pants a lot, is very inactive, has the pot belly and drinks and pees quite a bit. Fortunately they are able to control it fairly easily, by diet and I believe one med. If you were seeing actual symptoms it would be one thing but I wonder what made the holistic vet mention it twice.

First it was a weight issue which I was convinced was a borderline hypothyroid issue and sure enough, one test, she just fell off the cliff. So now she's on soloxine and it's working very well. Now the vet seems to think that the periodic incontinence that she can't resolve with supplements is indicative of something else so she's bringing up Cushing's again. I'm not really buying it but if there is such a thing as single symptom indicators that can't be resolved by other means pointing to the disease then I don't want to neglect the possibility. On the other hand, it seems far fetched to me. She certainly does not have a pot belly and does not drink a lot but when she's in an incontinence zone, she does pee small amounts a lot.

[JenC]

We were going to go down the path of testing for Cushings with Maddy, but it ended up being a brain problem and she declined so fast in 6 weeks...

and we started with these:
Is thirstier than usual
Seems hungrier
Pees more often. Housebroken dogs may have indoor accidents.

But it progressed to walking in circles, acting like she couldn't place where voices were, random falling over...

[Mudlark]

I can't be a lot of help, because the dogs I have known who have had cushings have been pretty obvious, including losing hair, pot bellies etc.