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Drugs for Incontinence

Comment 1: My dog is maybe 10, she is a rescue so we don't know how old, spayed female. Twice she has left a puddle under her of urine. The vet said we will check for an infection first. if she doesn't have and infection he wants to try a drug called Proin. My question is, has anyone else's dog been on this drug for incontinence? If so did it work? If another med. what was it and did it work?

Ill Effects of Medication for Incontinence

Comment 2: My 14 year old Siberian Husky, was on incontinence medication, Proin, for a few months. It definitely solved the incontinence, but unfortunately it also changed her personality. She became very distant and would spend 95% of her time in a distant corner of the yard. This was during the same time when we brought another dog, our Newfoundland puppy, home, so I didn't make the connection. I thought our dog was trying to avoid the rambunctious puppy. During a conversation with our dog’s breeders they mentioned that one of their Newf's personality was changed in a negative way by the Proin, so I tried taking our dog off of it. Gradually she got back to her normal self. She hangs out with us all the time like she used to even though it means getting harassed by Katie who now outweighs her by about 10 pounds. The interesting thing is that our dog hasn't had any problem with incontinence after being off of the Proin for about a month now. If she has problems again I might put her on it for just a short time to see if it will clear up, but I will never leave her on it full time again. I'm sure it's different for every dog, but it just made our pup too melancholy.

Alternative Treatments for Incontinence

Comment 3: I don't know if your dog would be amenable, but when our spayed female started leaving puddles when she was sleeping we started her on a tail-wagging program to increase the strength of her pelvic floor muscles (like Kegels for dogs). We taught her to wag her tail on command by shaping the tail wag using a clicker and treats, and eventually got her to the point where she could wag vigorously when we asked her to. She stopped leaking about a week after the regular wagging exercises began. Now she does 3 sets of 30 wags every day, and she has never leaked again. Just a thought for you and anyone else who might want to try a non-drug option for spay-incontinence. Our vet was so pleased with this program that she gave us a free set of shots when we taught her about it!

Comments...

Comment 4: Only used Cystolamine, which is the timed release version of PPA. Haven't seen the side affects would normally see with plain PPA using it - my vet doesn't like using regular PPA. Also used DES before and used DES in combo with Cystolamine. Our ectopic ureter girl was on Proin & DES when we adopted her from rescue in November. A few weeks ago she began literally flooding urine, so much so that she didn't need to go squat to urinate, there was never enough left in her. We also switched to Cystolamine, time released PPA as Janice mentioned. There was a marked difference within 4 days. She is still on DES. May didn't need to learn tail wagging exercises, her tail never stops. But I like that idea.

Spayed Females with Incontinence

Comment 5: We have had several older spayed females with incontinence problems.  DES used to be the treatment of choice, yes, DES we women would never take.  Proin used to be the expensive backup option;  now DES is finally recognized as not being the best option and Proin is considered a safer and more effective option (we used it years ago when the DES was not enough)

As I recall, Proin contains an antihistimine or perhaps decongestant ingredient that is not used in humans but works with K9s.   We had an old Sheltie/X on it for about the last three years of her iife and no side effects or behavioral changes at all.  We currently are doing a trial of it on another old girl.

Proin won't work if the incontinence is not related to old gal hormone imbalances resulting in urinary sphincter weakness when asleep.  In other words, if your girl is peeing when she is not asleep, Proin probably won't help. 

We tried some homeopathic and herbal approaches to this first, without success (other conditions we have had good sucess with the natural route) so we are comfortable with the Proin.

Using it even seemed to help our old girl, as she was always acting embarrassed or sheepish when she peed in her sleep in her bed, and with the Proin this was resolved and she had a brighter affect. 

DES Side Effects

Comment 6: Yes, there are some great reasons why "we women" would never take DES.  In the 1970s, Arthur Herbst, MD noticed cases of clear cell adenocarinoma of the cervix & vagina (such cases are unusual) in young women, and discovered that their mothers had taken DES while pregnant with these young women.  The DES had been given to help the mothers avoid spontaneous abortion and carry their fetuses to term.  There are also reproductive difficulties in both men & women whose mother took DES while pregnant with them.

These reasons for not taking DES would not apply to older spayed bitches with incontinence, because they are spayed and will not be having any puppies!!

Experience with DESs

Comment 7: As one of those women, given DES in the 1960s for TWO pregnancies after a couple of serious miscarriages, I well know the hazards of this drug..the sad thing is, it apparently did not work for miscarriages, ...I have two daughters that are now grown women with children of their own, and each has experienced some abnormal 'female' problems..not Thank God, cancer, however I did have a friend whose 19 year old daughter did die of such cancer and who was also a 'DES baby"..it was a drug that was prescribed to many women during those years. I often have wondered what long term effect of DES was/is on male children.