Disk Problem With 13 Year Old Grey?

[Guest Hooperman42]

Hi. I have a 13 year old male. A few months ago he started on Rimadyl and seemed to be doing great. Took years off his life and he was able to run like older days.

Last weekend he was borded a what I belive to be a very good vet clinic. When i picked him up I noticed some limping and assumed it was just being awoken etc. When getting hiome i could see that he was having a difficult time and was feeling pain in his right forward leg as well as his neck area and shoulder. Later it was aparnet that he was really in pain as he began to pant and coud not get up well. The vet looked at him the next day and took 16 x-rays all of which showed no injury whatsoever. She called me and indicated that she belives it is a degenerative disk as he was feeling pain whenhis head was turned to the left as well. After a few days of monitoring him the prescribed a combination of prednisone and an anti inflammatory to see if this would relieve the pain. He has now been on it for a few days and although they do seem to provide relief it is clear that he still feels pain when they start to wear off and when approaching even one step up. I have carried him over the step a few times as well.

 

Does this sound like a degenerative disk?

 

Is there a better treatment?

 

is there anything other than surgery if this should continue?

 

any ideas, thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks!

 

Kevin

[Guest greydogluvr]

Have you tried chiropractic care? I have seen miracles in as little as one adjustment.

[RobinM]

Definitely for his age, acupunture. Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better but it will either get better or not, nothing bad will happen.

 

My teddy (4.5) has disc issue and has been having acupunture for a year.

[Guest joedogs_mom]

I am so sorry - this is a hard condition. We just had to put our Joe (would have been 10 in January) down because of ongoing, terrible pain due to Invertebral Disc Disease. Even at his age, surgery was not recommended. He had problems for 2 years very sporadically but nothing as bad as the last 3 months of his life, which included on and off steroid treatment, multiple steroid injections, even a morphine injection at one point. There were good days and bad days...over the last 3 months of his life, he probably had 10-15 nights of panting/pacing ENTIRE nights. It was awful. He was also on multiple pain medications -- ultimately we had the most luck with Tramadol but nothing was perfect. And at the end, we made the hardest decision of our life to let him go.

 

We did not try acupuncture or chiropractor treatment -- and it's something I will probably regret forever...

 

I'd say TRY ANYTHING at this point.

 

My heart hurts for you as I know this is a tough diagnosis...I will keep you in my thoughts and pray for relief soon for your baby.

 

If there's anything else I could be of help with, let me know.

 

Laura

[CaliforniaGreys]

Try the acupuncture for sure!! Lots of good thoughts for your boy

[Batmom]

Give him some time -- it can take a couple weeks for a neck/back injury to heal. Don't let him do steps at all if you can possibly avoid it.

 

You're not still giving the rimadyl, are you? Shouldn't be given with pred.

[Blaidd49]

Absolutely, try acupuncture - our rescue Whippet had this issue and it bought her a lot of quality time

Pam

 

 

Try the acupuncture for sure!! Lots of good thoughts for your boy

 

[Guest argolola]

I will pray for your sweet pup.

[Guest MorganKonaAlex]

Morgan has had a few episodes of "throwing his neck out". We put him on a combination of pred., diazepam, and neurotin. It goes away in a few days, usually as suddenly as it starts.

Edited December 14, 2008 by MorganKonaAlex

[Guest K9_Lady]

Try the acupuncture for sure!! Lots of good thoughts for your boy

I agree, electro-acupuncture did so much to help my Malinois! And as hard as it is I couldn't allow him to run anymore so we enjoyed shorter but more walks together.

 

[Guest LokisMom]

Go see a chiropractor and/or one that does acupuncture.

 

I have no experience with acupuncture but our boy was literally unable to stand on his own, we had to effectively carry him and hold him up. One trip to the chiropractor and one adjustment later and he is good as new. It was like a miracle. I cannot say enough about alternative therapies for pets.

 

[Guest Hooperman42]

thanks so much for these replies! We wil look into this Monday am!!! Thank you!

 

Kevin

 

Also no he is not taking rimadyl now

[Guest GentleHugs]

My Heisman had a disc issue in his neck called Wobbler's. We managed it with crate rest, steroids (prednisone) and some gentle pain meds for at least 10 days when he was first diagnosed. He slowly got better but was never 100% after that either.

 

Accupuncture/chiropractics for pets wasn't available here back then otherwise we would have tried it. No more running, jumping, steps, etc for Heisman but he was ok with no more jumping and running anyway. All he wanted to do was cuddle with every kid that came along.

 

My vet said it slowly gets progressively worse with time and will affect their balance. It also slowly causes them to go incontinent because the the compressed disc applies pressure to the spinal cord nerve. End stage is where they become completely paralyzed from the neck on down.

 

Heisman was diagnosed at almost age 9. We finally let him go at age 12 1/2 surrounded by us with love here at home when his back legs could no longer function no matter what we tried. My vet cried with us afterwards. He said Heisman was one of his favorite patients.

 

Good luck and I pray your boy gets better soon.

 

[Guest MyCody]

Just seeing this. My 13 year old Cody has protruding discs per an MRI done almost three years ago. We did chiropractic adjustments and lots of supplements. We are now doing Rimadyl and tramadol daily and ACUPUNCTURE, and he hasn't collapsed in a month. He couldn't even walk down the street without collapsing, so this is very good. I think the acupuncture is helping a lot.

 

We do acupuncture once a week and will now go to once a month.

Good luck

Edited December 14, 2008 by MyCody

[stlgrey]

I also support acupuncture and doggie chiropractic.

Edited December 15, 2008 by stlgrey

[Hubcitypam]

I will support accupuncture but will post for the thousandth chiro was the biggest mistake I ever made with Rex and if I could go back and change anything it would have been that. My vet strongly recommended accupuncutue instead as he said it has a far more proven clinical track record. I didn't listen, went with chiro and regret it to this day.

[Guest Hooperman42]

what happened with chiropractic and why do you regret it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will support accupuncture but will post for the thousandth chiro was the biggest mistake I ever made with Rex and if I could go back and change anything it would have been that. My vet strongly recommended accupuncutue instead as he said it has a far more proven clinical track record. I didn't listen, went with chiro and regret it to this day.

 

[DaisyDoodle]

Give him some time -- it can take a couple weeks for a neck/back injury to heal. Don't let him do steps at all if you can possibly avoid it.

 

You're not still giving the rimadyl, are you? Shouldn't be given with pred.

DITTO--NSAIDS should not be given with prednisone.

[Guest Hooperman42]

not giving rimadyl

 

Give him some time -- it can take a couple weeks for a neck/back injury to heal. Don't let him do steps at all if you can possibly avoid it.

 

You're not still giving the rimadyl, are you? Shouldn't be given with pred.

DITTO--NSAIDS should not be given with prednisone.

 

[RobinM]

I will support accupuncture but will post for the thousandth chiro was the biggest mistake I ever made with Rex and if I could go back and change anything it would have been that. My vet strongly recommended accupuncutue instead as he said it has a far more proven clinical track record. I didn't listen, went with chiro and regret it to this day.

 

Not to hijack this thread, but I too would like to know why you are againset the chiro? I am scared to death to do it, becaue just one bad adjustment could really hurt someone/something.

 

Just curious as to your experience.

 

[Guest koolaidnconner]

My boy Conner hurt his neck and back, vet seems to think he had a problem with a disc or pulled muscle. He has had xrays and nothing showed. He was on metacam for a long time, we have had him off of it for about 2 months and he has been ok. No screaming in pain like he was, every once in a while maybe a little yelp but nothing like it was before. She said he will probably never be 100%. His running days are over.

 

I have not tried chiro or actupunture yet but I think I may try chiro soon.

[Hubcitypam]

what happened with chiropractic and why do you regret it?

I thought I did it all right. Made sure the guy was an AVCA member and chose one that was a DVM to boot. Rex was as mellow as Buck -- totally horizontal.

 

The only time I ever saw aggression out of Rex in his life was while the chiro was working on him. The doctor had to muzzle him because he was lashing out at him while being adjusted. I thought that was just part of the deal, but in retrospect he had to be causing Rex a lot of pain to make him seriously try to bite. After about 6 or 8 weeks with no improvement and a lot of drama we quit going.

[DaisyDoodle]

not giving rimadyl

 

Give him some time -- it can take a couple weeks for a neck/back injury to heal. Don't let him do steps at all if you can possibly avoid it.

 

You're not still giving the rimadyl, are you? Shouldn't be given with pred.

DITTO--NSAIDS should not be given with prednisone.

You mentioned anti-inflammatory use in your first post--what are you using? Not sure which ones don't work with pred, but I've been told don't use any of them with prednisone.

 

Sorry to be paranoid or beating a dead horse, but I've had a REALLY bad experience with pred because I didn't fully understand the ins and outs of the precautions needed for use of prednisone

[Guest greyhound]

Take a look at this: The accidental discovery of this article added 2 quality years to our boy's life. He went from crippled to running again. He is now gone, but the treatment had an incredibly positive effect.

 

Good luck to you!

 

http://greythealth.com/lumbosacral.htm

[Guest LokisMom]

what happened with chiropractic and why do you regret it?

I thought I did it all right. Made sure the guy was an AVCA member and chose one that was a DVM to boot. Rex was as mellow as Buck -- totally horizontal.

 

The only time I ever saw aggression out of Rex in his life was while the chiro was working on him. The doctor had to muzzle him because he was lashing out at him while being adjusted. I thought that was just part of the deal, but in retrospect he had to be causing Rex a lot of pain to make him seriously try to bite. After about 6 or 8 weeks with no improvement and a lot of drama we quit going.

 

 

That is very unfortunate but want to say again that our dog could not stand on his own at all and after one adjustment is bouncing around this house like just like he was before.

 

I am sorry it did not work for you but it has worked miracles for some of us. We thought our dog would not live to see Christmas and now he is fine, after one adjustment.

 

I think it is a bit unfair to categorize all chiros as the same because you had one bad experience.