Please don't worry - it's not that we have to remove all stress from their
lives. It's just that a non-Addisonian's adrenals would respond to stress by
releasing more cortisol. (And that's what the ACTH stimulation test
measures - the body's ability to respond to stress by releasing more
cortisol.)
Anyway, we have to either anticipate stress, or spot the early signs of
stress, and supplement with a little extra medicine - specifically prednisone
or hydrocortisone or one of the other synthetic glucocorticoids.
The experience of the k9Addisons list is simply that bad stress - injury, illness or
something that's very upsetting like, for some dogs, a trip to the vets or
the groomers or a thunderstorm tends to show up quickly as a need for more
glucocorticoids.
But happy stress - a big play date, a house full of company, a joyous vacation
racing around - may also deplete their reserves of cortisol. It just takes a
little longer to show up. So if you see your dog on Monday is turning up its
nose at food, or is especially quiet, or the eyes don't have their normal
sparkle, usually you can look back and see something in the past couple of
days that caused the dog some form of stress - either happy stress or worried
stress. And that's when a small boost of prednisone is in order to bring
things around.
Some people automatically give their dog a little extra pred before a day at
the groomers. In our case, we always gave some extra pred on the day of an
Agility trial (generally just an extra 1 or 2 mgs was sufficient). If it was
a two day trial and there was also a long drive and nights in a motel, we
might have to give that much extra pred for two days in a row.
I just cut up lots of pills into tiny pieces with my handy-dandy razor and
carried them in a pill box in my purse. That way I could give a tiny boost
whenever it seemed appropriate, without waiting until the symptoms became too
pronounced.
(courtesy Mary Ann)