My full bred black lab has a partial ligament tear in her left rear leg. Won't heal on its own, surgery is required to repair.

Luckily I have what I feel is a reasonably good vet. He does not recommend unneeded treatments and is very open minded.

His recommendation, no surgery unless she further injures the leg. Cut down on the food for weight loss (15lbs needed to lose.).

Anti inflammatory for life.

He xrayed and made diagnsis based upon xray and exam.

My question, any advice on dealing with this type of injury? There is significant limping when she first gets up in the morning or from a nap. Limping goes mostly away after warm up.

She is about 6 years old now. Is it better to have the surgery to correct the problem while somewhat young and hopefully avoid future problems?

Our farm dog was attacked by coyotes, and her hind end shredded.
She had emergency surgery, and they tried to re attach her medial collateral ligament.
We think it worked as she is now able to get about quite well.
We had to keep her in a crate for quite a while, no walking, then only on leash. No stairs, or running/jumping.
She is creaky now, but has devised a way to run, and can jump on the bed and couch.
It still takes her a while to get up from a down or sit.
Her front end is really built up now.
It happened about 6 weeks before Christmas, and we never had to go back for the follow up surgery.

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Won't heal on its own, surgery is required to repair.

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His recommendation, no surgery unless she further injures the leg. Cut down on the food for weight loss (15lbs needed to lose.)

These two statements are completely contradictory.

I guess if you had heard that it does require surgery,then that is what I would do. JMO.

But I would also cut back on food, if the dog is 15 lbs overweight, that would definitely help with the dog being able to have less stress on that leg in the future.

It sounds like a tough decision if she is able to use that leg without limping.
If she is otherwise in good health, she is likely to have a good
6- 8 years of life left, so that seems like a long time to go with a limping leg.

I am sorry she is having to go through this, as I recently have a dog whose leg is lame from Fibrocartilaginous Embolism.
I know it is difficult to see them struggle.

Is she in any pain?

She doesn't appear to be in any pain and the limping has decreased to almost non noticable. The favoring of one leg over the other has also decreased. Still a little limpy when first gets up but as the joint gets warm, the limp goes away.

She's on an anti inflamatory which seems to help. Also the joint supplements (can't spell it).

You must have mis understood my original post. The vet said based on the xray and exam, he didn't think any vet would recommend surgery. Treatment plan is weight loss, supplements, and anti-inflamatory.

I originally posted because the progress seemed minimal at the time. Now it seems to be quite good.

Weight loss is helped by the following receipe, which the dogs absolutely love:

Warm up some corn (no salt added), boil carrot slices and green beans, mix it all together with one cup of food, then warm beef broth over the top. They love it, love it, love it, and the weight loss is noticeable.

http://www.tiggerpoz.com/

Check out this website. I have quickly skimmed over it while coming across it on another post on a blog, but the information was really interesting.

Anyone else looked more closely at this website before?

Edited by Niomi Smith (03/25/2010 01:50 PM)
Edit reason: Edited Link

It sounds like she is recovering and getting along much better, so that is very encouraging!!

I am sorry if I misunderstood your above post. I guess the part where you said that it "wouldn't heal on it's own and required surgery" seemed pretty straight forward to me.

But the link that was just posted sure seems like many can heal on their own.
I wish you continued success with her recovery!

Hi Dave,

Glad you're seeing improvement.

One thing...just because it's getting better, keep up with the quiet stuff. I don't know how long your vet recommended low activity, but it can take weeks to really heal up completely. Returning to too much activity too soon can set you back big-time.

Hope the progress continues...

leih

Thanks for the reply and the web site really helped. At a minimum, it saved me from spending money on a 2nd opinion. I am going to try the non-surgical recovery method and follow the advice very closely. A change in dog food along with added supplements is needed for sure.

 Quote: joyce salazar

But the link that was just posted sure seems like many can heal on their own.

The tiggerpoz website describes the non-surgical way to deal with CCL injuries - conservative management. Some ligament injuries (sprains, strains, twisting) can be healed completely with CM, because the ligament itself remains intact, but ligament tears inflict permanent damage (the body simply can't repair torn ligament) and even expertly planned CM will not return the knee to 100% normal function.

The best you can hope for with CM, applied to a proper ligament tear, is that scar tissue will completely engulf the joint and "stabilize" it enough for moderately normal activity. Dogs with CCL tears healed in this fashion usually always have a limp (which gets worse after heavy exertion). The whole issue is much more of a concern with larger, heavier breeds, for obvious reasons. CM is certainly a possible option, and one that makes much more sense for smaller and older dogs, but if you have an "athlete" of any kind, or a young dog with a lot of active years left, I'd seriously consider surgery with the absolute best ortho surgeon you can find. It's a very personal decision - just make sure you have all the info.

I have gone through 2 CCL tear scares with my dog, so I've done a fair amount of research into this - my best suggestion is to read everything out there, from every angle (CM, TPLO vs TTA, stem cell treatments, etc.), and I'd probably get a second opinion actually. The only reason my dog wasn't operated on the second time was because I sought out THREE ortho specialists to get a difinitive diagnosis (surprise - no tear!) and some expert suggesions (yes, I'm a little crazy about my dog)... long story, but if you want more info, there are posts here about it, or feel free to PM me. Also, look up the yahoo group "orthodogs" - it's a fantastic network of people who have worked through ALL of these options, and they really know the ropes.

So sorry you're having to deal with this, but best of luck for you and your dog - keep us posted on what you end up doing.

~Natalya

I've only had 1 dog with ACL tear to both sides about a year apart. One side I had the suture tie done and the other TPLO. This topic can be a bit controversial, but at the time surgeons were quick to recc surgery and now the trend seems to be rest and time. I know of several people that did the suture tie repair and as time went by the "tie" broke or loosened and had to have the surgery repeated. Some blame the owner for not "resting" the dog, some blame the surgeon I really don't know the reasoning, which is why I chose the TPLO for the 2nd tear. For my dog the side that was fixed suture tie method left a big knot at the joint, it creaked a lot and although he could stand and walk that leg was forever favored. The recovery from the TPLO was much smoother and he was much more comfortable with that leg. However I was blasted by some for having put my dog through such a traumatic surgery. Not sure if his comfort or discomfort was due to the degree of injury or the method used.