Pain Management For Arthritis And/or Lumbosacral Stenosis

[Muriel]

Hi Greyhound lovers,

 

I can't tell you how much great advice I have received from you all over the years regarding medical concerns that I have had for my grey. I am hoping that I can trouble you all again for some additional guidance/suggestions. Ginger is now approaching 15 years of age and has been doing pretty good up until now. In the past, she had been diagnosed with some arthritis in her hip/lumbosacral region as evidenced by general weakness/pain in that area. She's been on supplements, fish oil, and tramadol. That combination has managed to control her pain. Last week she had a terrible episode and stopped eating for 3 days, could barely lift her hind legs, and bad diarrhea. Needless to say, I thought it was the end. I managed to take her to the vet and get her on a probiotic and a combination of Gabapentin and Tramadol. The vet also did a full check for parasites in her stool or any other unusual circumstances. We discussed end of life and the potential of dementia, etc. After a restful weekend of a different drug combo and food choices, she is doing much better and almost back to herself. My next step is to consider more aggressive pain management techniques. From reading Dr. Suzanne Stack's article on lumbosacral stenosis, it appears that Ginger's condition may include not only arthritis but also lumbosacracal stenosis. My vet does laser therapy, and I was wondering if anyone has had any success with that for pain management. I'm also looking into injections such as the ones that Dr. Stack recommended, as well as acupuncture.

 

Can anyone provide me some feedback as to their experience with an aging greyhound and managing this type of pain?

 

Many thanks in advance,

Muriel

[Remolacha]

for your sweet old girl! My first greyhound had spinal stenosis, and acupuncture got her from barely being able to stand to about 85-90% of her former mobility. Not all dogs get that much benefit, but it gives some help,to most. I also highly recommend laser treatments, they have helped my current boy with pain relief with his mobility issues.

[claudiav]

Adequan shots and acupuncture helped my 13 y/o girl for about 8 months...

[smurfette]

 

This is Andy. He is 13 years old and suffers from laryngeal paralysis and lumbosacral stenosis. He was diagnosed with both one year ago. He was barely able to walk and had a horrible raspy breath. This picture was taken 2 weeks ago.To keep him going he is on a strict plan that includes pain meds, homeopathy, herbs, oils, acupuncture, reiki and physiotherapy.

Andy gets onsior 40mg every morning with his food. I also add gelsemium and alumina.

In the evening he gets St. Johns Wort, melissa and gingko as herbs in his meal and again gelsemium and alumina. I also add rice bran oil to keep his muscles. He also gets keltican which is a vitamin b complex for spine issues, neuralgia etc.

Every 2 weeks he has an appointment with his physio and reiki lady.

I bought a laser to do acupuncture once a week.

He takes his walks for at least 30 minutes (on bad days) and up to 1,5 hours on good days - slowly but steadily. He mostly walks off lead due to the lp.

 

Every once in a while he gets nux vomica to increase his nerve cells' ability to transport information.

Talk to a holistic vet, too. Mine was able to help Andy way more than his regular one. But I combine both methods.

Edited April 1, 2019 by smurfette

[RaineysMom]

our Larry (just turned 12) has LS and neck vertebrae issues too. He takes 100mg Tramadol, 400mg Gabapentin 3 x day, and also now is on a Chinese herb called "Sore Back" (only available from a vet and is $60 for 100 pills) - he gets 1 3 x a day as well. He ALSO gets 1/2 a Meloxicam (3.75mg) pill in the morning -- for Meloxicam, the dosing needs to be pretty precise so we are lucky he is right at 80 # and 1/2 is just a smidge over what he should get or we'd have to do the liquid form for more precise dosing.

 

he gets 4 (2 pills 2 x day) 1000mg fish oils and 1/2 teaspoon glucosamine (Greyhound Gang's) daily as well. He gets a chiro adjustment every 4 weeks too.

 

he's doing ok on all of this, so far at least. The laser treatments have helped, and we should be doing them a few times a week - but unfortunately our vet is over 30 minutes away one way PLUS Larry stresses out SOOOO badly going to the vet that I feel the stress would outweigh the benefit at this point.

 

wow, 15! That is amazing. I really think the Meloxicam (like $10 for 90 day supply at Walgreen's with their Rx card, which can be used for dog Rx's!) helps as well as the Gaba. And honestly, I thought the Sore Back stuff would be a crock but we had to stop it for a week as Larry had a dental last Tuesday (3/26) and I could see the difference when he stopped getting it, and in just a couple days is back to his bouncy self.

 

Good luck with your girl!

Edited April 1, 2019 by RaineysMom

[cleptogrey]

as you see there are a variety of routes that you can take. adequan is excellent if you can put the time in. it's a series of shots 3 days apart for a month and then monthly or even more frequently. we did that for a while, then felix started to need the injections more frequently and it's not cheap.

 

metacam/liquid combined w/ tramadol did the trick for quite some time.both of my vets like the fact that the liquid is more exact. personally i did see a difference between the generic(which is now on the market) and the name brand.

 

felix was one of the dogs who really did not respond to gabapentin, our female did, ever dog is different. towards the end since we were dealing w/ thyroid, kidney and pancreas, lyme , anaplasmosis issues i just went with tramadol and as much exercise i he could do. i swear going up and down stairs did wonders for him. he still was able to play on grass, but walks were out of the question since he was knuckling. if i did take him i used vet wrap on his rear paws. and yes we used the ruff wear harness.

 

so, try, communicate with you vet and ask lots of questions.

see when your dog is in more pain. for felix it was the evening. so, 1/2 tramadol in the am and 1.5 with dinner.

and experiment with a variety of nasid. you will see what combo works best for your pup. best of luck, it's trial and error.

[greysmom]

For our seniors we usually gradually work up to a combo of an nsaid, and true pain reliever, and gabapentin.

 

Our nsaid of choice is meloxicam as all our dogs have tolerated it well. We also don't do tramadol for pain relief anymore. We found it ineffective, and prone to make our dogs opioid hyper. New vet recommendations I just read say not to use it. We switched to codeine sulfate.

 

Some dogs find gabapentin helpful for issues involving nerve pain, some don't. It's the combination that works best for us.

 

We haven't tried laser or injections, but I wouldn't hesitate if needed.

[GreytNut]

Assuming it's legal where you are, CBD (cannabidiol) may be of significant relief. It's not only for humans. It can be used for pets. You would want to consult with your veterinarian and with the vendor regarding the type of product and dosage for your greyhound.

[cgingrich]

We got excellent results with acupuncture ~

[Muriel]

Thank you so much for all of your posts. All of this information is very helpful, and I have been passing it on to my vet. Meloxicam cannot be used due to kidney/liver issues. We started her on Galliprant. She's on tramadol, Gabapentin, and Galliprant. She's not doing great and can stand for small periods of time to eat and go out to do her needs, but after a while she starts to buckle. Next step is doing a Depo-Medrol injection if the Galliprant is not effective. She seems to be panting more after I started her on the Galliprant. I don't know if that's due to the combination of meds or the pain. A holistic vet and acupuncture is also not off the table. My vet said that if I wanted to do the injection that Dr. Suzanne Stack recommended that I should probably go see a neurology specialist.

[tbhounds]

Stop the tramadol-new finding show it doesnt help and that could be the cause of the panting.

[Remolacha]

Conner was on a combo of Gabapentin and Tramadol. I didn’t really see any improvement with the Tramadol, so we have dropped that and added Galliprant. I believe it has helped.

[GreytTerp]

Following...Marvin is going to the vet on Monday, as what had been a bit of occasional rear weakness was bad this morning. I couldn't tell if he was trying not to poop in the house or just couldn't stand up fully in the back.  He just turned 10 this past week, and I'm tearing up now just looking at him.  

[EllenEveBaz]

Quote

My vet said that if I wanted to do the injection that Dr. Suzanne Stack recommended that I should probably go see a neurology specialist.

Nutmeg got those depo-medrol injections.  Our regular vet had not heard of them but after reading the Stack article was willing to give it a try.  Nutmeg would start showing significant improvement 24-36 hours after the shot, and it would last for months, although not as long as Stack suggested.  We were also doing a combo of some of what's posted above.  I figure the shots gave her almost a year -- a good quality year -- after I would have otherwise let her go.  

GreytTerp     

Edited April 20, 2019 by EllenEveBaz