I can't really tell you why i decided to have my Airedales tested and the
results reviewed by Dr. P. I guess mainly because the news of the occurances
of Airedale auto-immune diseases was startling and i began to imagine how i
would feel if Pixi or Peach came down with something life threatening and i
could have prevented it. I also felt that with Pixi training for obedience
competition i owed it to her to make sure all systems were in top form to
take the stress. And Joey was nagging me to get it done--she can find more
ways for me to spend money. Sheesh!
Before i did anything, however, i bought three copies of Dr. Plechner's book.
One i gave to my coach, Jane Johnson, who is probably the best obedience
trainer in this area of the country and has students traveling to her from
all of the Southeast. My reasoning was that Dr. Plechner seemed to be
pulling dogs like Aemon Forrester through things that no one else could, and
heaven only knows we are ALL seeing odd diseases in our dogs of all breeds
and from the best of lines. I figured if Al Plechner was truly on to
something, a person like Jane needed to know about him. My second reason was
that she is also a total skeptic and a nurse practitioner who brooks no
nonsense on medical matters. And she's a breeder of border collies. With a
touch of patronizing but patient disdain she took the book. A week later she
was reading it aloud to our training buddies over dinner. To bypass getting
into the medical details of Dr. Plechner's hypothesis, suffice it to say she gave
it a huge "YESSSSSSS! This makes perfect sense!" She had, in fact, been
wondering for years why some dogs, often Goldens, would seem to her so
clearly, obviously low-thyroid and yet test normal. One of our vets, in
fact, finally prescribed thyroid meds for a "normal" Golden on Jane's say-so
and they did, indeed, improve things greatly.
So i had the girlz tested and to cut to the chase, Peach was normal, Pixi was
not. She had the classic symptoms of a genetically damaged adrenal cortex
and what should someday be named "Plechner syndrome": too much estrogen, not
enough cortisol (the body's natural cortisone) and depressed immunuoglobulins
(the disease fighting antibodies made by the white blood cells). According
to Dr. P's hypothesis, not only do you have a compromised immune system in
this case, but the excess estrogen (that's adrenal estrogen which both sexes
have, as opposed to the kind that's produced in the ovaries) "binds" and
renders the thyroid hormone ineffective. And thyroid effects every organ in
the body, including the brain.
In a million years, i would not have guessed there was anything physically
wrong with Pixi, and truly her abnormality was very small in the relative
panoply of what Al Plechner sees daily. She was always a very good dog. But
after five days on the prescribed meds we went to our weekly training class
and a friend, with no knowledge of any of this, looked over from the
opposite end of the building and said to herself, "There's something
different about Pixi." I could see a difference in attention, mental
retention and stamina within days and so could Jane. As she puts it,
"There's just a lot more dog there."
Since then two other of the people i train with have become Plechner
patients. One has a Golden
who just seemed old before her time and seemed to have mental lapses in the
ring. She's a different dog. Another is an Aussie with great potential in
both obedience and agility but who was so unpredictably aggressive his
devastated owner was faced with having him put down. He's done a 360 degree
turn around and his owner, an RN, says Al Plechner is a genius.
I think he's a genius too, and besides that, he is as nice a man as you are
likely to encounter on the face of this earth.
