Ls/hind End Weakness Poll

[rascalsmom]

As you may know, my 12 year old, Buddy, has been diagnosed with "lumbosacral disease/cauda equina".

 

He is currently on tramadol, rimadyl, and gabapentin (Neurotin). After a week of this treatment, he is feeling MUCH better.

 

I do, however, have an appointment later in the month to see a holistic vet, perhaps to do acupuncture and/or chiropractic. My DH thinks maybe we don't need to keep this appointment....so I thought I'd do an informal poll to see what you all, who have dealt with this disease, have tried, and what degree of success it has had.

 

Please choose what you've tried, and then comment as to what has seemed to have helped the most for your dog.

 

Thanks!!

Edited February 13, 2009 by rascalsmom

[Burpdog]

I use them all. The only prescription drug given is a low dose of pred after the supplements are not enough. I give Joint Health & Fresh Factors, vit E and fish oil caps, do chiropractic and acupuncture and chinese herbs.

 

As many of you know, I lost my first grey Eliza to rimadyl and will not use a NSAID. If you are using one, make sure you get the blood work done to check kidneys, liver and platelets. You should do a baseline blood test. Do not wait 6 weeks. Do the first blood test at 2 weeks, then another 4 weeks later to see how they are tolerating it.

 

So, no, I didn't vote since I do them all!

Edited February 13, 2009 by Burpdog

[Guest KennelMom]

we used tramadol and depo-medrol injections to treat our LS kid. NSAIDs really provided him no pain relief with respect to his LS.

[Hubcitypam]

Would depo medrol injections be prescription drugs?

That gave Rex amazing relief. Chiro did not work. If I had to do it again I might try accupuncture.

[rascalsmom]

I would consider depo medrol injections as prescription drugs, for sure. The neurologist I took Buddy to said he has never done those, though....

[Guest Spiff]

We did one depo-medrol injection that helped for 6-9 months.

Then we treated with rimadyl and traumeel for about a year or so.

Tried another depo-medrol injection that didn't really help for more than about 2-3 months.

Then we treated with prednisone for about 9-12 months. (In the end, I think the high steroid use caused Spiff's leg bones to weaken - we had to euthanize him after his leg simply broke under normal use.)

 

We didn't try acupunture or chiropractic treatments.

 

I would say that the addition of traumeel to the rimadyl did have a positive effect. We ran out of it for a couple of days one time and I noticed that he didn't do as well without it.

 

Have a look at this old poll that I did about LS for some more information too.

Edited February 13, 2009 by Spiff

[Tallgreydogmom]

We used Whirlpool Therapy in addition to acupuncture, herbal supplements and pain medication.

[rascalsmom]

Thanks for the link, Carolyn....I didn't realize there was already a poll about this.

[Pippin]

Casey was just recently diagnosed (early jan), and we're just on a med regime for now (tramadol/robaxin). It's made a huge difference for her. The bed-rest seems to have helped as well (she had a pinched nerve, and we've been letting the inflammation subside). She's almost not wobbly at all, now, and it's all I can do to keep her from running in the yard. We go back to the ortho vet for re-eval on 2/24.

 

I will look into chiro/acupuncture for her in the future, but don't have the extra funds for it right now There will also be scheduling challenges to deal with.

 

My vet has never done the depo injections, but she told me to ask the ortho vet about it, as well. I'm going to ask him when we see him later this month.

[Guest Spencers_Greyt]

Spencer has a bad case of hindquarter weakness. I was told that I would have to have a 3k MRI to correctly diagnose what exactly is the problem with Spencer which I haven't done. I have 2 vets - one traditional and one holistic. The traditional vet puts Spencer on Prednisone when he's in really bad shape. No pain killers as it doesn't appear that Spencer's back hurts him at all. The holistic vet has Spencer on herbs and does acupunture on him. The acupuncture seems to be enough to help him manage. Unfortunately a week ago today Spencer fell off the ramp to the car and hurt his back along with cuts that needed stitches. It looks like he's pretty much back to where he was in the beginning - dragging his left leg, being wobbly and stumbling around. I'm waiting until the stitches come out of his foot to discuss with my traditional vet. In the meantime I have an appt. for acupuncture next Tues. which I'm hoping will help Spencer enough not to have to go back on Pred. It's a rollercoaster ride every day.

 

[packmom]

I used them all with absolutley no success.

[BluegrassGrey]

Just wondering at what age did your pups really start having problems with the LS or hind end weakness?

 

Pistol has some slumping, but no pain or real problems (yet), so we have not had to have any treatment (except his supplements).

[rascalsmom]

Just wondering at what age did your pups really start having problems with the LS or hind end weakness?

 

Pistol has some slumping, but no pain or real problems (yet), so we have not had to have any treatment (except his supplements).

Buddy has been showing signs of weakness for probably a year, mostly reluctance to go UP stairs. We also noticed some toenail dragging while on walks. We atttributed it to him getting older (he was 12 on Jan. 31).

 

Spencers_Greyt, the neurologist we went to agreed with us that the MRI wasn't really indicated; he was pretty sure it was LS, and he uses the MRI mostly as a means of positively diagnosing something with the thoughts of going straight to surgery....he knew we weren't really willing to put Buddy through back surgery at his age, and he agreed that the MRI would just be a big expense for something he was pretty sure was LS.

 

 

[Guest Spencers_Greyt]

Just wondering at what age did your pups really start having problems with the LS or hind end weakness?

 

Pistol has some slumping, but no pain or real problems (yet), so we have not had to have any treatment (except his supplements).

Buddy has been showing signs of weakness for probably a year, mostly reluctance to go UP stairs. We also noticed some toenail dragging while on walks. We atttributed it to him getting older (he was 12 on Jan. 31).

 

Spencers_Greyt, the neurologist we went to agreed with us that the MRI wasn't really indicated; he was pretty sure it was LS, and he uses the MRI mostly as a means of positively diagnosing something with the thoughts of going straight to surgery....he knew we weren't really willing to put Buddy through back surgery at his age, and he agreed that the MRI would just be a big expense for something he was pretty sure was LS.

 

My vet gave me a list of 4 things that could be attributed to his back and I don't have them with me right now. One of course of LS and one was a herniated disc but what stumps him is the lack of pain involved. Anyway Spencer's problems started happening right after his 8th birthday.

 

[Guest KyGrey]

Lee is 13 and has really been showing signs in the last 3 months or so. He has had it for quite a while (years) but it really hit him so hard in November that after a slip on the floor where he did the splits he had to be carried into the vet's office. Here is what is being used on him:

 

Depo medrol injections

Robaxin

Pred - 1 every other day

Tramadol as needed.

 

 

[Pippin]

Just wondering at what age did your pups really start having problems with the LS or hind end weakness?

 

Pistol has some slumping, but no pain or real problems (yet), so we have not had to have any treatment (except his supplements).

 

Casey displayed symptoms at 8.75 yrs. She'll be 9 in March. X-rays show a huge bone spur on her spine in the LS area, so apparently there was some type of damage/weakness to her back years ago, before we ever knew her (she moved into our group right before she turned 4). I never knew anything was wrong until she started very occasionally yelping when rising from bed. Then she went from once-in-a-blue-moon yelping to screaming in pain every time she stood up. We've done the bed-rest to give the inflammation from the pinched nerve time to subside, and we'll figure out what we do next based on what the ortho doc says in late Feb.

 

I saw definite hind-end weakness early on during her bed-rest, but as she heals more, it's less & less apparent. She's back to her usual bouncy walk, and is full of energy/enthusiasm for life, just like she was before she started screaming in pain.

Edited February 13, 2009 by Pippin

[rascalsmom]

I guess bone spurs must not be very uncommon....Buddy has one, too, in the lumbosacral area.

[Hubcitypam]

Just wondering at what age did your pups really start having problems with the LS or hind end weakness?

Dr. Herron diagnosed Rex at 4. He went to the bridge about 2.5 yers later from other spinal problems.

[Remolacha]

Sugar did not have LS, but some other kind of back end weakness. I've forgotten the details of how my vet described it. She was 3 months short of 12 yrs when it suddenly got Very Bad. Short term, she was on pred, which helped. She was already taking Metacam for arthritis, but we switched to Tramadol so she could have pain meds with the pred. I also started her on acupuncture regularly, which was a huge help. She got an Adequan shot, which really helped the first time, not so much the second time, so we didn't do it again. Her "long term" treatment was Tramadol as needed and acupuncture, which kept her in pretty good shape for 7 months. She passed away from acute kidney failure related to the heavy doses of heart meds she had been on for several years.

 

I am very much in favor of acupuncture!

[Guest Greensleeves]

Whistler died at nearly 13 of (totally unrelated) cancer, but he'd been getting treatment for his LS for probably nearly two years. He was on low doses of pred for an unidentified auto-immune condition, but I don't think it helped his LS at all.

 

Depo-Medrol was a miracle drug for him. And yes, it doesn't last--you have to repeat the treatments, often with greater frequency. My vets had never done the injections, either--but when I brought in Dr. Stack's article, they were perfectly willing to try. Whistler saw such great improvement that they now make the treatment available to other dogs.

 

From what we could tell, Whistler wasn't in any *pain* (so we didn't use/need pain killers) but he did have severe-and-worsening hind-end weakness, partial paralysis of the tail, knuckling under, fecal incontinence, and difficulty with stairs (if I had to be honest, though, I really think the stair issue was because of overall weakness from the cancer).

 

If I had to do it again, I would absolutely add acupuncture to the drug therapy.

[Guest crazy4greys]

We used Whirlpool Therapy in addition to acupuncture, herbal supplements and pain medication.

 

Same here and also Chiropractic adjustments.

[Guest Spiff]

Thanks for the link, Carolyn....I didn't realize there was already a poll about this.

No problem! It's a good chance to get some more information than was in my post! The more information, the better.

 

Just wondering at what age did your pups really start having problems with the LS or hind end weakness?

Spiff started having trouble when he was about 12. He started with tripping and dragging one of the rear legs (so that the toenails were shorter on that foot).

 

From what we could tell, Whistler wasn't in any *pain* (so we didn't use/need pain killers) but he did have severe-and-worsening hind-end weakness, partial paralysis of the tail, knuckling under, fecal incontinence, and difficulty with stairs (if I had to be honest, though, I really think the stair issue was because of overall weakness from the cancer).

Spiff had all the same symptoms gradually increasing over time. He also had a reluctance to go up the stairs - maybe for Whistler it was the same - probably because of losing muscle mass in the rear legs.

 

Spiff wasn't in pain either, as far as I could tell. But we did use NSAIDS, not for their pain-killing effects, but for their anti-inflammatory effects. The idea was to keep the nerves in the LS region of the spine from being swollen and pinched in the spine. (Predisone has the same effect, but it has worse side-effects than NSAIDS.)

 

I think what I learned from Spiff's LS is to start out with some treatments that have lower impact on the body (glucosamine tablets, traumeel, depo-medrol injections, in our case), and as the LS progresses ratchet up the treatments. We first treated Spiff for LS when he started to knuckle over frequently and was causing damage to his knuckles on walks. (He had started to occasionally have 'oops poops' - the depo-medrol injection also prevented these from happening as frequently.)

 

Like I said in my initial post, I think Spiff's leg break was a direct result of needing to take the maximum dose of predisone for many months... We knew that predisone would have bad effects on his bones and kidneys, but on the other hand, at the point there wasn't any other option. We played this 'end game' so that Spiff could enjoy a few more months of mobility before he went to the bridge. Then we were simply out of cards.

 

One thing that just occurred to me - One of the vets that Spiff saw has had some success treating dogs with spinal problems using 'fresh cell' injections. I'm not sure what this entails, because it was rather expensive and when she suggested it as a possibility, Spiff was already well into his predisone treatments. I didn't think it made sense at that point to try anything new.

[Guest suzye]

I am a believer in acupuncture. I used it for one dog with LS and after 6 weekly treatments, it was already making a difference. From what I understand the treatment is cumulative so you may go weekly for a little while but can slowly back off, all depending on how your dog responds. I would absolutely try it and see if you can cut back on the meds.

[dbullwinkel]

Missy started showing hind end weakness and foot dragging at around 7 years old...not really sure if it is LS..depo medrol injections didn't seem to do much for her. she was already on metacam for arthritis in her shoulder. I added fresh factors, salmon oil, vitamin e and arthrisoothe gold liquid. Accupuncture really helps her a lot. we are on a "maintenance" schedule now;typically once a month. if she looks like she needs one sooner I call and get it done sooner. She has learned to be so relaxed during the treatments (we have them at home)

[Guest LoveSeniorGreys]

I've had two greys with LS. Bashful started having troubles at 13 yrs of age, she went to the bridge at 15yrs. Sally is having troubles now at the age of 14yrs.