The Purple Dye in Levothyroxine!

Paige is my cocker spaniel. She was born in 2002. We met in a Pet Shop in Arizona when she was ten months old and it was love at first sight for both of us. I am frightened of animals – all of them – so this bonding was unusual in the extreme.

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Paige was the first dog I have ever been able to touch and hold. She has always been gentle with me from the get-go and I have been sensitive to her needs. It’s like we were made for each other. When I would have to go away for a few days, she would stop eating. She follows me wherever I go. Her love for me is unconditional. She holds a special place in my heart.

I let the children name her. If it had been up to me, she would have been called ‘Lady’. The five children came up with Paige unanimously and Paige she is.

My husband readily admits that he is a mutt! It makes me laugh. Americans like to say they are made up of a percentage of the nationalities of all their ancestors and, as you know, the majority of Americans (bar the native Indians) descend from immigrants especially from Europe. My husband’s extended family comes from Norway, Denmark, Germany and Ireland. I, on the other hand, am a purebred! My ancestors come from Fordingbridge and Southampton for quite a few generations.

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My ‘puppy’, Paige, is also a purebred. We have a great and natural understanding of each other. Perhaps we are subject to the myth that purebreds are a little insane due to interbreeding. Nevertheless, we are not mutts.

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Paige is getting on in years and I am dreading the day when she has to cross the veil. She is so much a part of our family and I love her deeply. The past couple of years, her health has been declining. She always love to come on long walks with me and then she didn’t want to go any more. We would get a few hundred feet and she would be pulling on her leash to go home. We took her to the vets and eventually she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. The vet put her on some purple thyroid tablets – Levothyroxine 0.6 mgs. She started eating again, had more energy, and started to be able to go on small walks around the block. I was so happy she was feeling better.

One day a few months ago, I picked her up to put her in the back of the car to take her to the vets for one of her injections and a comprehensive examination. I felt something crusty under her belly. I couldn’t figure out what it was and wondered if she had another cyst that was weeping. When I got to the vets, I pointed it out. I left Paige at the vets as scheduled and rushed home to work.

A couple of hours later I got a call. The vet told me that she had open sores all over her body (how the heck did we miss that?!). The vet had done some research and discovered that Paige was allergic to the purple dye in the thyroid tablets. She went on to explain that the manufacturer had been told that some dogs were allergic to this dye but they hadn’t changed their product in any shape or form.

When we went to pick Paige up, they had cleaned up her wounds. Gobs of hair had come out of her coat and we could see all the open weeping lesions on her body. I found this extremely distressing. Paige had not shown any signs of pain that we had recognized.

We had to apply ointment to all her sores twice a day for two weeks. They covered most of her body – her back, her shoulders, her neck, all her tummy and her hind legs. Together with antibiotics and pain killers, her sores healed and the vet was very pleased to see skin growing back. She put her on some other thyroid tablets without any dye in them. It was a lower amount so we had to monitor Paige to see if the new dosage worked. I asked the vet to file a report to the manufacturer so that this wouldn’t happen to any other dog. I would hate to see any other dog suffering as much as my little girl had.

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We took Paige into the vets again last weekend as we were worried that we saw blackening on her skin and she was having some more cysts appearing. We were also concerned as her hair wasn’t growing back on her body. We were lucky as the blackening wasn’t a repeat of the lesions, just old age. It turns out that the dye that caused the lesions also caused the hair follicles to be destroyed.

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Paige will now have to either wear a doggie coat or have sunscreen put on her if she goes out in the sunshine. I feel so sad for her being physically scarred by this medicine. We now take our walks early in the morning before the sun has had a chance to be out. I so love Paige and hate to see her suffering in her old age. She is so much a part of our family.

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apenelopewren@gmail.com

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