Unknown Backpain

[Babet]

Last year April we rescued an 8 month old greyhound. Everything went quite well, until July last year. He started getting back pain (no trauma). We took him to the vet but all the x-rays and blood tests were clear. They put him on Rimadyl and sent us home. He did not improve and we went back. They did a bunch of tests again and put him on some other anti inflammatories and pain medication and a big dose cortisone. He improved and finally he was back to normal by September last year. He was fine until January this year when he suddenly stopped playing and started becoming slow and grumpy and lost his desire to play or run. We took him to a specialist where they did many tests and finally saw some slight spots on his lower back on the xray. They realized that it was most likely a secondary infection from the Parvo he had as a puppy when he was rescued (long before we got him). They put him on a high dosage Gabbapentin, Rimadyl and Cephalexin. It helped for a while but he has been getting sore again in the last few days. We have a bit of a problem taking him to the vet as he absolutely hates it, has to be muzzled and sedated and does not cope well with the whole diagnosis process so it's traumatic for us all. We are running out of money from all his medical expenses (doing scans and x-rays every 3 weeks but with no improvement on the "spots" so far). Vincent is now almost 20 months and has been in pain for the largest part of his life. We are at wits end. Has anyone had any experience with something like this or any advice? When he is so very sore he becomes very snappy and has even bitten me twice (only bruising)....

Edited April 11, 2019 by Babet

[tbhounds]

Did they do an MRI?

Has this been mentioned?

http://www.vscvets.com/surgery/neurology-conditions/discospondylitis

Edited April 11, 2019 by tbhounds

[Time4ANap]

You might want to do a consultation with Dr Cuoto if you haven't already done so. We did one for Rocket when he has having trouble walking and it was money well spent to know that our vet was on the right course of treatment at the time, because the x-rays literally showed nothing and it was difficult to find something that worked for him. He will use you current x-rays and give you a way to submit them electronically if you have them, or will also work with your vet to do the consult. He is the expert when it comes to greyhound issues like this. He responds quickly, to emails even when traveling.

 

http://www.coutovetconsultants.com/

 

Also see the Greyhound Health Initiative for more info on him and the consultation options that are available to their members. He does consults through both his own practice and GHI, so you can go through either organization should you decide to have him do a consult.

 

Good luck.

[greysmom]

When our Male puppy began to exhibit similar symptoms, discospondylitis was mentioned. He turned out to have hypertrophic osteodystrophy that was impacting one of his hips in addition to his long bones.

 

If he does have a bone infection, it doesn't sound like he was treated with antibiotics for long enough. Bone infections can take months to clear. It also sounds like he needs an actual pain med like codeine sulfate or tramadol, along with an nsaid, and the gabapentin.

 

I hope you can get a handle on this quickly.

[JohnF]

I hope you get some answers soon.

 

 

Sounds like a case for the UK's Supervet, Noel Fitzpatrick.

[Babet]

I hope you get some answers soon.

 

 

Sounds like a case for the UK's Supervet, Noel Fitzpatrick.

We are unfortunately in South Africa