lasix

My dog has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure.  She is on lasix twice a day and enalapril.  She began to cough a bit again tonight.  She is about 70 pounds.  Can I safely give her two more pills of lasix?

[peekawho]

Call your vet before you do anything, unless they have already instructed you on what to do.  If your vet does not take phone calls after hours, you can often call an emergency vet clinic, describe the issue, and they can sometimes give you advice.

If she's having extreme trouble breathing, you should take her right to the nearest clinic.  If its just an infrequent cough, you may be ok waiting until the morning.

[sojka123]

lasix is a pretty safe drug and extra may help in an urgent need, but it is not a magic bullet and it takes time for her to pee off enough fluid to affect the amount of edema in her lungs.  

ask the prescribing docs as soon as you can.  in addition to lasix and enalapril, ask about digitalis and low sodium diets.  

CHF is something you will be managing for the rest of her life and it not only takes a while to find the right doses of various drugs to help her, but you will be adjusting them often.  

[Spotpatch]

Hi! My 14+ year old female Jack Russell was on heart medication, fortekor for 7-8 years and recently she has developed mild coughing (coughing frequency about 2-3 times a day) since last month and the vet prescribed her additional medicine such as pred syrup and prodin syrup for 5-7 days. But after taking the steroid for 4 days, she started panting more and shiver on off the whole day especially more on morning and night. She was normal (except coughing) before the pred syrup till the 4th day. Moreover, it also increases her appetite. Hence, was told to stop all the syrups. But she's still coughing, shivering on and off and panting a lot even I've stopped the steriod for 1.5 days. Is it normal for dogs to be shivering and panting more after taking the pred syrup? How long does it takes the last dosage to wear off? Yestersday, the vet prescribed very mild dosage of lasix for my dog and should I start giving her lasix now or should I wait till her steriod to wear off ( when she stop shivering and panting)? Vet is afraid lasix may cause her pancreatitise to come back again if given larger dose. When dogs are given lasix does it means the pet do not live that long?  Please advise. Thank you for helping.