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DES to Solve Dog Incontinence

When your pet dog was young, she stakes out her territory using the traditional doggie way. After that, she is quite refined and urbanized in conducting her “nature” affairs. Her manners belong to royalty and she adjusts well, living inside your cozy condo unit. Until now.

Now, urinating seems to be her normal greeting for both friends and strangers. She is leaking all over the place. On one side, it is embarrassing and inconvenient, and on the other side, it is worrisome. Incontinence in in-door-living, house-broken and well-trained dogs cannot be a pleasant experience for them, too.

DES or Diethylstilbestrol may be the answer to this problem. Like some pet medicines, DES was originally made for humans. DES similar in structure to female hormones. It is a synthetic estrogen used to alleviate the sphincter-related incontinence of women during their post-menopausal age. And then, it was tried on spayed female dogs, and it was found to be effective.

DES is relatively safe to use as long as you remember these two important conditions. First, the DES capsules are administered everyday for one week. If after this week, the incontinence was not controlled, then the DES is not the solution to your problem. Increasing the dose will lead to a dangerous drops in red blood cell count, white blood cell count, and platelet count.

Second, if the DES successfully controls the incontinence, its use must still be stopped after the said one week. The pet dog must be closely observed for the return of the incontinence. The period or number of days that passed until incontinence happens again will determine the interval of administering DES. For example, if incontinence returns after five days, then DES should be used every four days. If the interval is seven days, then medication should be given every 6 days. This method of medication ensures that only safe minimal doses are given.

If the DES is not effective, perhaps it had to be used together with phenylpropanolamine, another incontinence medication. You will need to consult a veterinarian for this case. Pregnant pets are not supposed to take DES since this drug can induce abortion.

There might be other reasons why DES does not work on the pet dog. For example, the dog may be using the rifampin. This antibiotic increases the enzyme activity of the liver, making the organ more efficient in cleansing the body of drugs. Since DES is synthetic, it will be removed immediately.