Incontinence

[Meisti]

Max (who is now fifteen), was recently a little ill and stopped eating for a while. He also got very weak and couldn't get up for a few days. We managed to remedy all this and nurse him back to health. However, he now sufferes from a little incontinence. It seems as though he has no idea that he is peeing but on occassion, he loses pee while sleeping. Have any of you experience with this? Advice on what to do? How to make it better? Oh, a vet is not really an option for us since we live fairly remote in the Costa Rican jungle.
Thanks.

[erdog3]

Are you sure the illness hasn't led to a bladder infection. incontinence doesn't usually occur because of an illness, it is caused by lack of muscle tone, kidney stones, bladder infection etc. so unless the illness was such to cause that it will be from another problem.
How long ago was his illness?
Can you catch a sample of urine to send off for testing?
If it is truely incontinence then it can be treated with hormones.
You will really need to get in contact with a vet, I'm sorry.

[HeartSong]

I think it is a good idea to search for the reason why he has incontinence following ellierat's advice. If it is something that can't be helped or until you can get it treated, you can get pads to put on his bed that will soak up the urine so that he won't have to lay in so much. They're also easier to clean up cause you can just throw them away and put another one down.

[Dax]

I would try to help prevent the problem expecially based on the age of the dog & the remoteness of your home.

No water after 7 pm and first thing in am & last thing before YOU go to bed - outside for a pee. This might help lessen the problem until he has a chance to recover from any lingering affects of his illness.

You can usually smell if something is wrong with the urine. It can smell musty or mushroomy - it can be off color - very dark. If any of those symptoms are also occuring - a trip to the vet's for anitbotics is necessary.

Ariel suffered some pee leakage after her spay which the vet thought was pain related. My shepard had leakage due to the medication she was on. And Dax also had a bed wetting problem when she was diagnoised with a thyroid condition.

YOU would think my house would smell more like urine with all these incontinent dogs? LOL.

[Meisti]

We simply don't know what caused his illness nor if the bladder problem is actually connected with it. I was away for several days last week and Max has always responded to my absence rather strongly - even to the point of self-mutilation. When I returned after four days, he had barely eaten anything although he was with my spouse 24 hrs a day. He suffered from several symptoms that point at all kinds of different incontinence problems but again, he is old and has been through a lot. Thus, part of me could see that some of his symptoms would point toward hyperadrenocorticism (Cushing's disease), but he doesn't fit the complete profile for it and thus, I can at this point only assume that it is something less severe. He also does not show symptoms of a bladder infection, e.g., peeing is quite easy and painfree for him, not excessive, and he also does not drink more than usual. My best bet at this point is to treat him with Phenylpropanolamine, Diethylstilbestrol (DES), or Imipramine - only after confirming with a vet of course and conducting a urine test (we found a vet about two to three hours from here that might work for us, i. e., he speaks some English). From what I understand, hormone therapy wouldn't really be an option since testosterone would need to be injected several times a week for quite a while - unless I were to give the injections myself (these things work very differently here!) this really isn't feasible. In terms of pads, again, we are so remote that they are simply not available. Fortunately, Max hates to sleep on anything really soft (such as a bed) and prefers to sleep in the grass or on tile (it is in the 80-90's here at night and the tile is very warm) - his peeing doesn't really bother us too much at this point and it is easy enough to clean up. However, we are worried about long-term effects resulting from sleeping in urine as well. We will try to reach a vet (any vet, to be frank) on Monday and schedule an appointment.

[Meisti]

Hi again - it seems DaxAriel's Toy and i posted at the same time. Let me respond quickly: Our house is always open and Max is free to go in and out whenever he pleases (and he takes full advantage of it, believe me). As i have done for the past fifteen years, Max always gets a walk with me before I go to bed - we still do this and he does pee without problems.

I also have been fortunate enough to have had to manually expell his bladdder every day for three months straight when he was completely paralyzed (that is, while he lay on his side) - in other words, it is safe to say that I know what his urine usually smells like more than I would ever voluntarily admit to. Who know that would ever come in handy? Fortunately, his urine smells completely normal and also looks normal although we will have to test for blood if we manage to get a test here. Today, he only lost a few droplets and overall, seems to be improving. I do feel very uncomfortable, though, leaving something potentially serious untreated for so long.

[Dax]

Sometimes the treatment at that age is worse than the disease. I don't think a little urine is going to harm him too much. If it did no puppy would make it to 6 weeks. A little rinse with the garden hose in the am might lessen any of those affects.

Based on the fact that he just recovered from illness and might have some separation anxiety issues, I wouldn't worry too much.

It might be a good idea to have a vet check him but don't you worry about the long car ride to get there?

Hope he feels better - poor baby. He's lucky to have you for a mommy.

[erdog3]

It is possible to give the hormone in tablet form, I always thought it was oestrogen that was given?

The problems of lying in urine is it is so strong that it actually burns the skin in the end causing a nasty rash, then infections, so you will need to keep him clean.
My old remedy for drawing away wetness is to place newspaper under his blanket etc, it works a little like a disposable nappy. It also works to keep them cool, I use it when I have puppies, I just wet the newspaper for them to lie on.

Just because his urine is not smelly doesn't mean he doesn't have an infection or stones to come to that matter.
If it is stones or kidney infection you can normally see a small amount of blood in the urine, but not if it is a bladder infection.
Excessive thirst is not a symptom, so he may still be drinking normally, but still have any of the above.

I was clipping a dog one day, a little maltese, anyway next minute on the grooming table I see all this blood, first thoughts was have I accidently cut him, but no, he hadn't yelped or anything....I found the source, it was comming out his douvi lacker, and I mean full on bleeding. There was no smell. He was in no pain whatsoever, he was actually standing letting me clip him at the time.
I immiediately stopped, called the owner and she rushed him to the vets.
He had severe kidney stones.
His owner had noticed nothing, he was peeing on the grass, everything about him was normal.

[Meisti]

Oh, he gets rinsed off okay - he visits the ocean every day for playing and he always goes to the low end of the pool - he doesn't really smell like urine ever. He's used to travel in the car and the road to the vet is mostly paved (which can't be said for many roads here), so he should be okay. He also doesn't seem to "leak" continuously, but I do see some droplets occasionally and he's had just about two accidents that involved a considerable amount of urine.

Ellie - yes the hormone usually dispensed for incontinence is estrogen simply because hormonal incontinence is far more prevalent in females, especially after spaying. Estrogen is easily avaiable in pill form. For male dogs, testosterone needs to be used which is apparently only available as injection and which needs to be administered 2 to 3 times a week.

My understanding of the various drugs that can be given to aid in incontinence, side effects tend to be rather long term. Let's face it, at 15, long-term effects don't really matter much although I don't want to expose Max to any unnecessary drugs unless there is no alternative. I'd rather have him be incontinent for the rest of his retirement as long as this doesn't lead to anythin more serious. I suppose at this point, I can only wait until we do find a vet who can run the necessary test. If not, I can always take Max to the Capital where excellent vets are readily available. We've been through MUCH worse and I am certain we will emerge once again with great success.

[Dax]

My wishes for the best. I say again he's lucky to have you look after him. Many people simply put down old dogs when they get ill. My hope is that it's nothing but a minor inconvenience that will pass.