Hey everyone. I appreciate any feedback you can give.

I just got back from a trip to a doggy back specialist after I noticed some behavior changes in my Leerburg female. She is 5 1/2 years old and has become very hesitant to jump up or pull hard on a leash for a long time. She use to jump head high with a 6' fence.
Her hips are OFA good.

The DR says that she has swelling in a few disks in her back from a past injury. There is no degeneration of the back and the spine looks good in the X-rays. It is not crippling and you would have to know Wini to know that she is having a problem. He says she will have to live with it.

He suggests one 81mg aspirin at night with a meal and no more ball chasing or jumping.

Is this aspirin dose OK every day over the long term?

A friend who is into Homeopathic med gave me the name of a Homeopath who suggested Arnicin.

Does anyone have experiance with arnicin?

Wini currently takes a dose of Syn-flex (sold here at Leerburg) every day. This has helped some. She has taken it for 3 weeks.

Can anyone please offer some input on the suggested treatments and their own suggestions?

Thanks!

Jonathan

Long term ASA ( aspirin ) dosing for humans is well studied and documented. It's a potent anti-inflammatory drug, and does have side effects that include GI bleed. You can reduce the risk of that by ensuring that you always give the medication with food. *Always*.

I take a daily dose of ASA myself, it's well worth the smaller risk of GI bleed in humans for it's remarkable ability to decrease heart disease and stroke.

I'd feel comfortable giving a dog that dose, and I'd feel much better about it than using Rimadyl.

Increasing fluid intake helps to decrease the possibility of renal side-effects with any anti-inflammatory medication.

One question....your vet discussed swollen disks from a previous injury. Was that diagnosied with a CT scan, MRI, or just a best guess?

Will-

Thanks for the feedback. My usual vet suggested soft tissue damage as x-rays showed good hips and joints. A friend knew of a vet in Memphis that specialized in backs and is well thought of in the SAR community. Alot of his diagnosis is through conversation with the owner and watching how the dog stands, moves and responds to touch. He is use to treating working dogs and their injuries.

We went up yesterday AM. We started out with alot of questions and just watching how Wini stood and moved in the exam room. He next started to feel down either side of her spine with light pressure, a finger on each side. When he was about a third of the way down you could see her muscles twitch and she would look back at him.

At this point he suggested what the problem was and took two x-rays to back up his idea and make sure their was no degeneration of the spine. Both x-rays looked very good with no degeneration, compression, spurs, etc. He also checked joint movement ranges and this was normal.

He said that she probably just torqued or impacted wrong at some point and her disk was inflamed. After this we went outside and he watched her walk, trot, turn, etc in a large grassy area.

Dr. Griggs was very helpful spending about an hour total with us yesterday. No rush in and out. He seemed genuinely concerned with helping to solve the problem.

I hope this helps. The whole reason that I started this discussion in the Holistic formum was it was originally a question about Arnica that changed the more I typed. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
You can move it some where else if it would be more appropriate.

Thanks!

Jonathan

jonathan,
I'm not sure what she was doing when you noticed, or how you exercise and condition her, but did the Vet rule out "Myoglobinuria" (Metabolic disorder) that effects adolescent and adult dogs. This is also known as Azoturia or metabolic acidosis. This also occurs in human and equine athletes as well. The muscular exertion in an unconditioned animal results in localized muscle ischemia (deficiency in blood supply to a muscle group), which leads to rupture of the muscle-cell walls. Depending on the clinical catagory, symptoms vary. Dogs with this often resent handling and especially over the back and hindquarters. This can potentially be fatal. I could be way off on this but if your Vet hasn't mentioned this possibility as ruled out, I'd bring it up to him/her. Sorry to hear about this.

Thanks for mentioning that Chris I will bring it up with the vet. Wini is a very active dog. When you open the kennel
door she is normally off like a rocket.
Her exercise consists of walks, ball chasing and running a fence in an exercise yard.

The symptoms she is showing is a hesitance to jump up.
She use to jump head high with a 6' kennel. Now she will only rear up on the chainlink. She also hesitates to jump up in the back of my truck. She also was giving an occasional yelp that I could not tie to any specific movement.
To complicate matters Wini has a very high pain tolerance.
She is out of a Jenny/Otis breeding.


I initially had the hips and rear elbow x-rayed and they are practically good as new. The specialist I went to in Memphis says the problem is inflamation in the disk of her back from a past injury. He does not believe that it will go away.
This diagnosis was given through x-rays, my imput on her changes and watching her response while running his fingers down both sides of her back bone.

Right now I am giving 400 vitamin E a day and 1250 vitamin C
along with Syn-flex. I am probably going to also give a daily 81mg aspirin on top of the evening meal.
Any further suggestions to reduce inflamation?

This situation really saddens me b/c she is not an old dog, only 5 1/2 years and has so much spunk and potential left.
I am just getting back into dog sports now that my son is older and I had thought of trying an ASR entry level on her before she got too old. Right now I don't think her back would take the impacting. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Jonathan

Jonathan,

Connective soft tissue such as tendons and ligaments have a cellular turnover rate of 300-500 days. Inflammation is a KEY ingredient in the healing cascade and in the case of soft tissue damage SPEEDS healing. If you use ice, anti-inflammatory etc to reduce/eliminate this inflammation you are also prolonging the healing process.

Im an avid weight lifter and over the years have suffered many soft tissue injuries due to lifting very heavy weights. At one point my elbows hurt so bad (tendinitis) that I couldnt even push a door open at the mall. After a few trips to my normal doc and following their anti-inflammatory advice with no imporvement I sought a more permanent method of healing and that led me to prolotherapy.

In the last 8 years or so I have had both elbows, shoulders, mid back and one foot treated with great success!. Just last friday I went in to see my prolo doc (who I hadnt needed in 4 years) to treat a low back injury. We were chatting and catching up on things etc. As it happens I actually injured my back lifting my dog so we got on the topic of dogs and he informed me he now does prolotherapy on dogs and has an appt to also treat a horse.

In short prolotherapy is a series of injections of a proliferant and lidocaine into the injured soft tissue. This causes acute and very localized inflammation (this IS NOT the same as a cortisone injection) which GREATLY increases cellular turnover rate and in turn shortens the healing time as well as strengthening and thickening the connective soft tissues.

If interested, do a search on the web for prolotherapy or feel freem to send me a private message and I will send you the link to my docs web site, lots of info there and perhaps you can e-mail there office and he can recommend a doc in your area.

Larry.

I have successfully used homeopathic remedies to treat back injuries/spondylosis in several of of my dogs. I can tell you which ones I used, however, homeopathic remedies are chosen on the individual dog (temperament etc) and the symptoms you are seeing. There are many remedies to choose from. If you do not or cannot see a homoepath or a vet who knows some about homeopathy you could also get Dr. Hamilton's book called Homepathic Care for Cats and Dogs. It is a very good book and he goes into different remedies for different problems.

I would suggest going to a vet/chiropractor. There may be adjustments/acupuncture that they can do to help. They may also recommend some exercises you can do at home.

if there isn't a homeopathic vet near you, most homeopaths can treat over the telephone simply by asking you questions.

Chris, were you refering to a lactic acid buildup in the muscles that results in 'tying up' at least in horses? I believe that it happens in dogs as well. Usually when worked without proper warm up & or some dehydration, especially in the hot & humid weather. Just curious.