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Disc Issues


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My dear Buddy boy has been limping. I tried getting him in to our vet, but she was double booked and then out of town Friday through Sunday :(; then I called the vet who does all the work for our adoption group, and they couldn't see him. Finally I called my dear friend, she called her vet, and they got him in the next morning (yesterday).

 

He had a very thorough exam by a young vet, and she quickly narrowed the problem down to his neck. She did some x-rays and found that he has a narrowing between two of his cervical vertebrae, which is causing him to limp on his right front leg. She likened it to a sort of "sciatic" type pain.

 

Buddy is now on 75 mg. of Rimadyl twice daily, rest (which he is very good at!), and using a harness ONLY for walking; no collar. The vet thinks that this might manage it OK, if he's not better in a couple of weeks our next step will be an MRI to get a better look. He has an appointment for his annual check up on June 20, and the other vet will fax the info to our vet before then; they gave me the x rays on a disc.

 

This got me to thinking, how common is it for greys to have disc issues? A couple of years ago, another friend's greyhound went down with a ruptured disc in his neck! He is OK now, still gimpy but gets around pretty well...but I had my doubts about him at first; he literally could NOT move. It was very scary, and I worry that this could happen to Buddy.

 

On the other hand, you can only imagine my relief when the "big O" was never even mentioned.... :colgate

Phoebe (Belle's Sweetpea) adopted 9/2/13.

Jack (BTR Captain Jack) 9/28/05--11/2/12
Always missing Buddy, Ruby, and Rascal.

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Guest JudiK

I lost my Copper to disc degeneration two years ago. He was eleven and over a period of three months he became completely paralyzed in the back end and lost control of his bodly functions.

 

I'm sorry to tell you this - I thought about just ignoring your post...

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Guest LynnM

Some degree pain in the region of C6-7, T-1 is to be found in nearly every greyhound currently breathing. The vast majority of the time it's quite minor. My vet has great success treating with acupuncture and chiropractic in conjunction with NSAIDs as needed.

 

With all this soft tissue type stuff, the best thing is prevention by keeping a dog active during retirement.

 

Lynn

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Guest minzenon

Very very common in greys. By simple fact of their design - long, fast, and stop and turn on a dime.

Just because he has a disc out doesnt mean he will get total disc degeneration.

I would see a chiro or muscleman

This sort of thing - very easy to fix.

I can do some manipulation myself eg, neck, shoulders, saddle, and lower disc (the one where they drop like a stone, most of the time that is just purely a disc out, and very easy to put back in)

Most vets wont do manipulation, same as in humans, docs wont do manipulation either. So they just give you pain killers and tell you to rest.

 

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Guest grey_dreams

I had found a site during one of my searches called "International Greyhound Research Forum." There is quite a bit of interesting information there, but I can't vouch for exactly how correct all of their information is. In one of the articles there was a pie chart on causes of greyhound mortality. It states that spinal conditions accounted for 3% of all recorded mortalities.

 

The home page is here: http://www.greyhoundresearch.com/index.php [requires free registration to read the articles]

The article on mortality statistics is here: http://www.greyhoundresearch.com/research_...les.php?aid=706

 

Here is the pie-chart from that article:

post-13837-1181467318_thumb.jpg

Edited by grey_dreams
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our morty was just diagnosed. he will be 13 in dec

he was limping of course i thought the big c. so when the vet said it was disc i was so thrilled i didn't pay total attention to the rest (lol) but i do remember she said her own grey had to have an operation and it was common.

thank g-d morty with rest (ha) and carrying him up & down the stairs for 3 weeks he is fine

she told us to use a harness from now on.

she thought it was probaby a new injury and with time it will heal and it has

i have question are there any supplements any suggests

 

Iris

www.ligc.org

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We lost our Angel Sophia due to a ruptured disc in her neck. We did the conservative treatment for weeks and she would mildly improve but was never 100%. Then she went down in the yard and was paralyzed from the neck down. We took her right away to specialty clinic and had CT's and the MRI. They did 2 surgeries and she never regained her mobility. The day after her 12th Birthday in ICU we lost our girl. But we did meet a family at the clinic and their grey had a 100% recovery after his surgery.

 

 

Usethisone.jpg

Patti-Mommy of Lady Sophia 7-28-92 - 8-3-04... LaceyLaine 8-2-94-12-5-07...

Flash Gordon 7-14-99 - 8-29-09... BrookLynne...Pavé Maria... and 18 Bridge Kids.

WATCHING OVER US~SOPHIA~QUEENIE~LACEY LAINE~

CODY ANGELO~FLASH GORDON.

 

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Rex came up lame in both fronts. We took tons of x-rays and went to the specialists (both neuro and ortho) who could not find anything and he kept getting worse and worse.

 

Against my vets advice (he has much more faith in acupuncture saying it has a far better proven clinical track record :dunno ) and upon others recommendations we sought out an AVCA vet who was not only a DVM but an instructor at the college here. We went several times but quit after a month because 1.) it was not working and 2.) I could no longer stand to watch mellow mellow Rex scream and lash out during his adjustments.

 

Finally my vet said he was positive that the problem was dead center between his shoulder blades so he took one more set of x-rays and back to the neuros and orthos we went. That time they saw the problem. They said they were 90% sure it was something called a Smorls (sp?) nodule which is where a disc ruptures into the spinal column and is inoperable. They said there was a 10% chance it was GME, which had an equally dire prognosis. The specialist said they JUST happened to have an opening for a $1,200 MRI in 30 minutes if I'd take it right then...if not the wait might be a month before they could schedule him again.

 

Suddenly I felt like I was at an auto dealer. I asked for a second and called my vet who said that an MRI would be academic and a waste of money as either way there was really not much that could be done.

 

Rimadyl did nothing for Rex. Then we tried Tramadol, Metacam, Duramaxx and finally Moraphine, which he did not tolerate well at all.

 

Hope Buddy is feeling better soon.

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