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Murphy beggining trial

MurphysMummy

MurphysMummy

Well-known member
Murphy went to see Sarah Smith cardiologist today, and had an ECG, and was decided to put on her new trial. It will determine if a drug(dont know the name of) will stop or slow down heart failure, There is going to be about 300 dogs and half of them will have the drug and half will have a placebo. Mum, I and Murphy are going back next thursday for his x-ray and bloodwork. All of this is free so I cannot thank Sarah Smith enough, she is a lovely lady :)
Also its an amazing experience for me as i'm studying animal management at college, which involves animal biology etc, so seeing his ECG was pretty amazing, and seeing all the blood flowing backwards was just shocking, no-one would ever think these beautiful cavaliers would have these problems, but unfortunately, they do, I also found out that Murphy would most probably of had the de-barking operation as a pup so he wasnt noisey on the pup farm. I love him so much and hope this is the best thing for him, which obviously it is, now off to sleep for me and cuddles with Murphy as its been a tiring day because we had to travel too.
Hope all you cavalier folk are well :eek:
 
MurphysMummy said:
Murphy went to see Sarah Smith cardiologist today, and had an ECG, and was decided to put on her new trial. It will determine if a drug(dont know the name of) will stop or slow down heart failure, There is going to be about 300 dogs and half of them will have the drug and half will have a placebo. Mum, I and Murphy are going back next thursday for his x-ray and bloodwork. All of this is free so I cannot thank Sarah Smith enough, she is a lovely lady :)
Also its an amazing experience for me as i'm studying animal management at college, which involves animal biology etc, so seeing his ECG was pretty amazing, and seeing all the blood flowing backwards was just shocking, no-one would ever think these beautiful cavaliers would have these problems, but unfortunately, they do, I also found out that Murphy would most probably of had the de-barking operation as a pup so he wasnt noisey on the pup farm. I love him so much and hope this is the best thing for him, which obviously it is, now off to sleep for me and cuddles with Murphy as its been a tiring day because we had to travel too.
Hope all you cavalier folk are well :eek:
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Sounds interesting. One thing I don't understand is why give a dog a placebo.
Could you tell me where this Sahra Smith is based.
 
On why a dog is given a placebo: because this is a clinical trial and requires double blind testing (same as with proper human clinical trials). Some of a study group gets the drug, and some get a placebo. The placebo effect -- where an improvement is seen even on a 'fake' pill -- is a well documented psychological effect in humans, and there's a statistical number above which the 'placebo effect' is discounted and a trial drug is seen to be having a significant enough effect to be considered as a new drug to treat an illness. :) Dog owners or researchers may bring a placebo effect to a pet trials if they know whether a dog is being treated with a new drug -- they may see improvements that are not actually there.

I am glad you have had Murphy checked out and having him on a trial means that whatever he gets, he will be part of a study to help many other dogs. :D

Seeing an ECG is amazing. I got to watch my own heart flow when I had this done myself last year for some basic heart testing and I talked to the technician about what happens with MVD.
 
Sabby said:
Sounds interesting. One thing I don't understand is why give a dog a placebo.
Could you tell me where this Sahra Smith is based.
Click to expand...

Sarah Smith is mobile at the moment but we visited her in Alfreton(Derby),She does secondray refferals and can visit your own vets etc.. She is setting up her own practice very soon though.
 
Oh that sounds fantastic - I do hope that this new drug will work well and be added to the arsenal of treatment we have available for MVD.

Don't worry, if a dog is on a placebo but starts to deteriorate, the vet will change the medication so that they don't suffer.

It's great that you can be part of this trail, it's so important.

We hope Murphy does well.
 
Murphy has started the trial today - it is called the EPIC Trial. We have started tablets (vetmedin or placebo) WE (even cardiologist) does not know which tablets Murphy is taking, the trial is to see if vetmedin can slow down the progress to heart failure, if that makes sense?? Because vetmedin is usually given when the dogs get into heart failure, this will see if it slows down, so they can maybe live longer.
We have to go back in 5/6 weeks, then every 4 months. Murphy's new routine is, wake up, tablet, walk, then breakfast,and he is not liking it!!
 
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