Pet meds to Help Control Urine Leaking in Senior Dogs
One of the more common urinary complaints of older dogs is when animal guardians start discovering puddles of urine where dogs rest or sleep at night. This common problem is often due to a weakness of the nerves around the urethra, which is the outflow tract of the bladder. When the muscles around the urethra are loose or lax, urine leakage can occur when a dog is resting or asleep.
While this problem is fairly common in spayed and neutered pets there are several effective prescription medicines that can help. For years we used to use low doses of the estrogen hormone with a product known as Stilbestrol or DES. However, because of the small risk of hormonal side effects, another drug called phenylpropanolamine or Proin replaced DES as the most common drug of choice in treating incontinent pets. Most dogs’ urine leaking can be adequately controlled with Proin in my experience, which acts to tighten the muscles around the urethra.
However, it is important to have a full medical evaluation, including urine analysis and possibly blood work to rule out other potential underlying causes and urinary infections first before prescribing medicines for urine leaking. Other holistic products such as HomeoPet Leaks No More can also be tried, but in my experience these other drugs are much less effective in controlling urinary incontinence or leaking in dogs.
I seem to remember that years ago we weaned our bitch off the previous medication used for urine leakage and that she didn’t leak for many months. Can one do the same with Proin?
You can try weaning dose of proin down but dogs often will relapse over time.
My doctor put my 14 year old female, spayed Yorkie on Proin to stop night leakage. It works, but now she is piddling around the house quite often, something she NEVER did. I am at my wits end. What do I do? Thanks!
Ask vet about adjusting dose up of proin and/or consider adding low dose estrogen known as stilbesterol which can help many spayed females.
Dr. Michael,> Proin back in the day was used for humans as a weight loss drug— then dumped by the FDA and now used as a dog bladder control med… I noticed my dog not eating as much while on this med that she really hates and was told this by my vet.. my question is isn’t there any thing else out there besides theses 2 drugs….why can’t human meds used for bladder control be safer than an old weight loss product gone bust and a estrogen product that can cause cancer, and in my dogs case changed her personality after 1 week
Hi Spanky. There is newer somewhat safer form of low dose estrogen known as Incurin that is script you can ask your vet about. Actually, I prefer that over the Proin because spayed dogs are estrogen deficient anyway, leading to the incontinence, so I dont feel that low dose estrogen would be that harmful tapered to lowest effective dose. Other option would be to see acupuncturist in vet medicine who can also use chinese herbs.