Addisons - injection treatment???

Re: Addisons - injection treatment???

Birte Toft — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 00:53:27 GMT

I used Percorten-V on my own Addisonian dog which never stabilised on fludrocortisone. It worked amazingly well. I would suggest starting lower than the recommended dose, and monitoring electrolytes until you find the right dose and dosing interval that for your patient. Lowering the dose is generally a better approach than extending the interval. Percorten can be given subcut, which is probably easier for owners to do at home if that is an option. Changing over from fludrocortisone is easy, you simply carry on the fludrocortisone for three days after the first Percorten injection. Changing back again is more complicated and requires closer monitoring.

The dog will need glucocorticoids as well, I probably wouldn't use depo-injections for an Addisonian if I had a choice, but it has to be better than nothing.

Getting the special treatment certificate from the VMD was easy enough, but the problem was sourcing the drug. This was a few years back, so things may have changed, but Novartis US would not export it to the UK. Novartis Canada would, at a higher price, whenever they decided they had enough stock, but their supply would dry up intermittently. (Some Canadian dog owners would rather order their Percorten from US online pharmacies than pay Canadian prices and rely on Canadian availability.) Novartis UK will be able to tell you what the current situation is.

For me it worked out cheaper than Florinef, but only because my dog was on a ridiculously high dose of Florinef and stabilised on a low dose of Percorten. Of course, if you're doing it for a client and charging for time spent doing the paperwork, that will add to the cost, as will your injection fees if the owner isn't able to inject at home.

Re: Addisons - injection treatment???

David Mills — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:12:35 GMT

I agree with John re expense vs tablets, but if you're going injectable only route, you could give percorten and methylprednisolone by depo injection (i.e. Depo-med) q 2-4w initially, latter to give your glucocorticoid effects, so wouldn't need to stay on oral preds. Long long ago we had a dog managed like this.

Re: Addisons - injection treatment???

Andrew Kent — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:18:28 GMT

Hi Tamsin,

There is a drug in the USA called percorten which can, if indicated, be imported under license.

However it has no glucocorticoid effect and so dogs on this drug have to stay on oral prednisolone - which I guess means it may not help with what you are looking for.

Good luck,

Andy

Re: Addisons - injection treatment???

John Flynn — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:17:26 GMT

DOCP injecatble can be improted from Novartis Canada (I think it is?), drug is moderately expensive, but by the time you add on export charges, import charges (esp UK), any regultory bureacracy etc is going to be cost-prohibitive (or at least expensive enough that owner will suddenly discover that tablets really are manaeable after all )

Re: Addisons - injection treatment???

Utlendigur — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:15:29 GMT

Think it's called Percorten. Never used it though so can't help you on that score.