German Shepherd Fistula
german shepherd fistula
My german shepherd was just diagnosed with perianal fistula. How effective is Cyclosporin?
I read that he may have this condition for the rest of his life. What are your experiences with this medication and this illness?
My Great Pyrenees/Samoyed mix had a peri-anal fistula. After researching everything, we went for the cyclosporine. We were told that our options were removing her tail & the anal gland causing the problem, as big dogs with heavy, hanging tails are prone to this, or cyclosporine. Removing anal gland CAN cause an incontinence problem, according to the specialist we saw, and we feel that removing the tail is cruel-plus we were told that isn’t a fool-proof way to help the problem. We went for the cyclosporine, & tho costly, it WORKED! We had one relapse that antibiotics helped, but the cyclosporine did the job and we’d go that route again if we were faced with this issue again.
has anyone had REAL success treating perianal fistulas in German Shepherd Dogs?
You really should speak with your vet about this issue. I am under the impression that your best bet is medication to treat the condition. However, the most common medication used (to my knowledge) is cyclosporin. With this medication, it is necessary in most dogs to continue cyclosporin continuously in order to treat perianal fistulas and prevent recurrences, and it wouldn’t be too surprising that you would find that withdrawal of the medication will often result in a return of the problem. Since this medication is rather expensive (especially with continuous use), veterinarians have begun to use ketaconazole and cyclosporin combinations, because ketaconazole enhances the effect of cyclosporin, allowing lower dosages to be used in some dogs (as little as a third of the original dosage of cyclosporin may be effective!). It is still best to test for cyclosporin levels in the blood stream when using ketaconazole, as a method of establishing the most effective dosage combinations, because cyclosporin is variably absorbed in dogs.
Alternative medications are other immunosuppressive agents, including prednisone and azathioprine, also usually used in combination.
Surgery can be helpful, but its drawback has been that the fistulas will often recur after the surgery. But if your dog is not responding well to medications, it is still a viable option. However, if medication does control the problem and it just recurs when you stop the medications, I’d avoid surgery, personally.
Although there are no conclusive findings about this, that I know of, there may be some value in using the new hypoallergenic diets (like Hill’s z/d, or Purina’s HA), for this condition.
Good luck!
Recent Comments