CBD for Cushing’s Disease in Dogs – How Cannabis Tincture Can Help
Is your dog currently suffering from Cushing’s syndrome? If they are, there is a good chance that you have been looking for some type of affordable and safe alternative to all of the standard prescription medications that are normally prescribed by veterinarians to help treat this condition. Luckily for your dog, CBD is one of the alternative medicines that may be able to help them out. But before you can understand how CBD supplements may be able to help your dog with their Cushing’s, you must first understand exactly what Cushing’s syndrome really is and how it can affect your dog.
What is Cushing’s Syndrome?
Cushing’s disease is a particular type of endocrine disorder that is going to be characterized by an excess amount of cortisone levels within your dog’s blood. This is bad, as cortisone is considered to be a stress hormone that your dog’s body is normally going to produce whenever they are in a stressful situation. So, when there is an excess amount of it within your body, it can start to cause damage to your skin, bones, and muscles, in the sense that it will start to break them down.
Excess cortisone is also going to cause an elevated glucose level within the bloodstream as well, which in turn will help to increase the amount of insulin that your dog’s body is going to produce.
Understanding How Stress Effects Your Dog’s Body
Take a second and pretend that you are crossing the street. All of a sudden you hear a loud car honking its horn behind you. You turn around and see a car coming to a screeching halt just a few feet away from where you are standing in the street. Now, I’m sure that you would agree with the fact that this particular situation is quite scary and stressful and will more than likely have your heart racing and the whole ‘fight or flight’ mode will take over your body.
As for your dog, they may find that they are having a very similar type of reaction while they are on a walk and suddenly find themselves confronted by somebody else’s dog.
But what is really actually going on within your dog’s body when these types of situations arise? When it does come to these types of stressful situations, everything is going to start in the hypothalamus, which is a small part of your dog’s brain that actually plays a very critical role in the production of hormones. When it comes to the response that you have to a stressful stimuli, it is going to be the hypothalamus that will produce a particular hormone that is known as corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH. This CRH is going to then signal their pituitary gland that it needs to start producing another hormone that is known as adrenocorticotropic-releasing hormone, or ACTH.
Once the ACTH has been released within your dog’s body, it is going to then travel to your dog’s adrenal glands, which are located right above their kidneys. Here is will react with some specific cells within that gland to stimulate cortisol production. This cortisol that is released into your dog’s body is a steroid hormone that is going to give them the energy that they need in order to react very quickly to their surroundings when they are in stressful situations.
It is able to accomplish this by boosting up the synthesis of new glucose molecules, combined with the breaking down of proteins and fats that the body is able to use for the boost in energy. Cortisol is also believed to be involved with managing your dog’s circadian rhythm, having its levels reach their peak earlier in the morning when it is time to wake up for the day and get going, but decrease throughout the day becoming the very lowest of levels when it is time to get to sleep for the night.
On top of that, cortisol is also going to be involved with the regulation of blood pressure, as well as supporting your dog’s cardiovascular system by helping it to function properly.
When it is combined with epinephrine, cortisol is going to help trigger a very wide variety of different responses within your dog’s body that will help them to react with and cope with the everyday stresses that they face on a day to day basis.
Essentially, cortisol is going to serve as your dog’s fight or flight hormone that will trigger a very wide variety of different physiological responses that will aid your dog in being able to respond very quickly to any type of outside stressors that they may come into contact with. Cortisol is going to be what will give your dog the energy that they need in order to stay and face a confrontation or run away if the need too.
The only catch here, is that the main key to this entire system is going to be the regulation of it. A healthy body will easily be able to regulate any stress hormones such as cortisol very carefully through a process that is more commonly referred to as negative feedback. If your dog does have high levels of cortisone within their body, it will normally tell their pituitary gland and their hypothalamus to start slowing down on the production of ACTH and CRH. This will then start to slow down how much cortisol is going to be released from the adrenal glands.
When your dog has Cushing’s disease, their body is going to have lost this ability to properly self-regulate their specific hormone levels.
Causes of Cushing’s Syndrome
When it comes to Cushing’s syndrome in your dog, there can actually be several different causes. In fact, there are actually several different types of Cushing’s disease that are each going to have their very own causes and effects.
Typically speaking, the middle layer of your dog’s adrenal gland, also referred to as the zona fasciculata, is producing too many glucocorticoids and their body doesn’t’ know how to properly regulate them. Cushing’s can be either pituitary dependent or adrenal dependent. This means that there are going to be 2 separate types of atypical disease, those being either:
The first type of disease is going to be caused by the outer layer of your dog’s adrenal gland, or the zona glomerulosa, which will produce way too much aldosterone, one of the hormones that is in charge of helping regulate and balance electrolyte levels within their body.
The other type of disease is going to be more of an atypical disease that is caused by your dog’s body overproducing a sex hormone, such as testosterone precursors, estrogen, or even progesterone. This takes place at the innermost layer of their adrenal gland, which is also referred to as the zona reticularis.
Some of the potential reasons your dog may get this disease can be:
- Misusing Medication: It is not very uncommon to have veterinarians actually induce your dog’s Cushing’s disease through prednisone therapy. The higher amounts of prednisone or the longer-term administration of it can predispose your dog to Cushing’s syndrome.
- Adrenal Gland Disease: Some dogs suffer from underlying diseases of their adrenal glands. The most common form of this adrenal gland disease is known as adrenal adenoma, which will cause your dog to have an excess amount of cortisol excretion.
- ACTH-Secreting Tumors: In several of the rare cases of Cushing’s disease, tumors are actually going to be responsible for an excess amount of ACTH secretion, which is going to then stimulate the excretion of the adrenal gland and cortisol.
- Their Genetics: Sometimes your dog may simply inherit an elevated risk for developing an endocrine tumor, which will in turn have a huge effect on their body’s production of cortisol.
A study has shown that about 85% of all canine cases of Cushing’s disease are due to pituitary dependency. This means that your dog’s pituitary gland is going to produce more ACTH than they actually need. This excess amount of ACTH will then overstimulate their production of cortisol from their adrenal glands. The other 15% of cases are typically going to be caused by some type of adrenal gland tumor.
Symptoms of Cushing’s Disease in Dogs
Some of the more common sings that your dog may show when they do have Cushing’s are going to include:
- An increased amount of weight gain, especially in their waist and tummy area.
- An increase in their thirst and their urination (from the increase in drinking).
- A loss of their hair
- Swelling in their abdomen
- Excessively panting
- Having a sagging belly
- Their skin pigmentation changes
- The lose their energy
- The health of their skin decreases
- A decrease in their bone and muscle mass.
- Bruising
- Easily agitated and irritable
Since cortisol is a more diverse hormone, this disease is going to produce many different, diverse symptoms. Since the symptoms are going to be so diverse in nature, it can become very difficult to link them together with Cushing’s disease. The fact of the matter is, that most dogs who do actually have Cushing’s disease, are only probably going to show maybe 2 to 3 of the symptoms. Because of this, it can be quite difficult to actually diagnose the disease.
The most common symptoms are going to be an increase in their thirst and an increase in their urination, which can even mean that they will start to soil within the house. An increase in panting is also considered to be quite common, as is an excessive amount of weight gain. Since the symptoms can really be due in part to a wide variety of other diseases or other factors, to diagnose Cushing’s disease, it will usually require that your dog has a 2 or even 3-part blood test done. This is the only surefire way that your vet will be able to definitively identify Cushing’s.
If your dog is suffering from Cushing’s disease and it is left untreated, the excess amounts of cortisol can lead them to even more serious health conditions, some of which can include becoming diabetic, or even getting infections.
Treating Cushing’s Disease
The treatment of Cushing’s disease is actually a very tricky thing. When dogs are normally diagnosed with it, it will more than likely already be a full-blown version of it, which means that it is too late and is essentially incurable. On top of that, the medications that are available to your dog are going to be very expensive and have some very serious side-effects as well. In fact, many of the side-effects of Cushing’s medication are actually going to be worse than they symptoms of the actual disease.
If you decide that you would like to use these medications, your dog will require a lot of blood work during the rest of their life to make sure that the medications are being properly managed.
This is why many are looking for a more affordable, all-natural cure such as CBD supplements. While there is no definitive answer to whether or not CBD supplements do actually help with your dog’s Cushing’s disease, all of the health benefits that are known about CBD make experts think that it does aid with Cushing’s disease symptoms and can even reverse it if caught in the early stages.
While there is still a lot of research that is required on the matter, what is known about CBD, is that when taken on a regular basis, it can help to eliminate cortisone from the body, which will help to bring your dog’s cortisone levels back to where they should be. So, in theory, yes, CBD will help your dog if they are suffering from Cushing’s syndrome.
If you are going to start your dog on a CBD regimen, be sure that you speak with your vet about it prior to actually starting. This way they will be able to assist you with the proper dosing and making sure that your dog stays safe throughout the entire time and may even be able to recommend a particular CBD supplement for you.
