Any ideas to help my badly dysplastic dog? - Page 3

I second what Jackie said about the steroids! I had a good friend who was on Prednisone to suppress her immune sytem, as she was a kidney transplant receipient.

She fractured her foot stepping off the curb one day!

I know you said dasuquin is not good for your dogs allergies, but did you try the original cosequin double strength   formula that only has glucosamine and chondroitin?  I have also heard that the glucosamine  product sold by Animal Health Options has quality control that is just as good as Nutramax (Nutramax  makes dasuquin  and cosequin ).  The Animal Health Option's glucosamine pill uses type II collegen instead of chondroitin and is supposed to be easier on dogs with allergies.  However, its more expensive per pill than the Nutrmax products, cannot be bought over the counter and must be order by a vet.  I also think you should try adequan as many others have said.  Also pending on your vets experience you could also try Pentosan or Cartrophen.  They both work sort of like adequan, but are supposed to stay in the dogs system longer.  They are available in Europe, but a Vet in the USA needs to fill out some extra forms to use it here.  Finally the vet could use bisphosphonates  like they do for race horses, either through an IV or pills used for humans like  fosamax or boniva.  Bisphosphates are hard on the liver and kidneys though.  I bet a combo of adequan and some type of high quality control glucosamine pill/powder will show a vast improvement.   .
 to us.  
Is your dog getting a lot of exercise on inclines or water based physical therapy?  Muscle atrophy can make such a condition even worse. I've been told by a few vets that if the dog has strong rear muscles they can help hold the bad hips in place.  There is obviously still pain, but the dog will still be able to get around 
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Thank you all for the extra input!

Today Tara was x-rayed and everything looked good EXCEPT her hip joints.  Vet said she indeed has bad dysplasia on left and much on the right.

I told him since Sunday (I took her there Mon) that Tara is better than she was before he saw her (he was concerned as it was!), but she's not as good as this time last week, say.

Basically the drug options were no-steroids/NSAID, Tamophlen or whatever it was, and (when I mentioned it due to recommendations here) Adequan.  I still need to ask how much for those latter 2 - I don't want to risk her allergies with the former.  That will help my husband and I make a decision for starters.  She IS better but still knows enough that she's not moving around or up steps as much.

(As for the glucosomine issue, I was told it is always basically animal matter, so regardless it is out of the question.  We use Avoca (avocado base) vegetarian remedy for her.)

On another sad note, my sister's GS Stoney (about a year younger than Tara) suddenly also got very bad in the last couple days.  Apparently all his siblings died already with some kidney or other ailment, and the vet today found several growths in his abdomen, expecting same.  He lost 20 lbs in the last few weeks and can't move well and is having accidents.  Vet said not much hope for much life even after surgery.  So sis is having him euthanized Friday, after her last radiation treatment tomorrow.  (She is stage IV cancer on the brain - this has been a horrible last few months, never mind the last few years.)  She had called me late Mon 1st asking about Tara, then telling me about Stoney.  Today she called while I was working the local fair and waiting on Tara's tests, saying Stoney was very bad and hoping I could look at him (we live 5 min apart).  She did get her son to take him to the vet for her.  Poor Stoney; poor sis.

Wow, you & yours are going through a rough patch! I will send my prayers for your sister & your dogs. I don't know how you cope with things, but I (& I'm no Holy Roller, my Lord has great patience with me!) find it helps to lean on Him & let Him share your burdens. I'm sure many others here will offer their positive energy & good thoughts as well. Make sure to give your sis a gentle hug from me as well, with all she's going through & now losing her dog....well God bless her. Sure makes my troubles seem small! jackie harris

Thank you so much Kali for the kind words!

Can you believe it, sis had to postpone last treatment because the machine broke!  So her last was actually today, which kept the Stoney issue a bit up in the air (her son tried to talk her out of the euthanasia, at least for now).  But, she made a late appointment for him.  I went.  In fact, just about everyone did, except 1 daughter.  Even 1 of the daughters' friends went.  So, we had 8 people there for him - me, our parents, and sis' family & a friend.  There was crying even by my teenage niece, who never seemed that interested in Stoney.  My parents set up with the vet's office to pay for cremation.

It was sad; we had nieces' birthday on Sunday and he seemed OK.  A bit wobbly, like my dog, but otherwise OK.  Said he had a cancerous tumor in there.  Wasn't eating recently, and of course lost the weight.

Meanwhile, I got the prescription of Tramadol for Tara.  We are hoping this will help.  She has been doing OK - except finally last night/today, she was "incontinent" mostly on her favorite pillow - massive urine output 2x.  This could be simply that she couldn't easily get up; sometimes she's had this problem anyway.  Tonight, she seemed better in walking/running, though - outside she moved both back legs in tandem rather than hopping together.  I still would not play with her, though.

I should say the vet recommended 1st to try the Adequan.  We're going the "cheap" and clear route 1st, and it's easier and cheaper for mileage - won't have to drive her 14 mi to get a shot 2x a week.

Ol'Line Rebel, first off, my sympathies to you and your family on having to send Stoney on ahead of everyone on the journey; sadly, there's stuff that comes up w/old dogs that are painful and can't be managed readily, and when that happens all we can do is make that stage of life a short one so they're relieved of their pain quickly.

Re: the Adequan injections, it's now can be given either intramuscularly OR subcutaneously, so if you're comfortable giving injections, there's no reason you vet couldn't dispense a full vial of the product, along with a supply of the appropriate syringes, and you wouldn't have to travel for the shots at all.  It's worth discussing with your vet...eventually, the frequency of the injections spreads out to the point where you may even be able to go to a monthly treatment--it doesn't stay at the twice weekly interval for very long.  I'm betting the tramadol will give Tara a significant level of pain relief, which will allow her to be more active and thus trigger her system to get more endorphins circulating in her body.  :)  Let us now how that goes.

With the incontinence issue, it could be a simple hormonal cause that can be controlled with phenylpropanalamine HCL, usually sold as Proin--it has a decongestant and appetite suppressent effect in humans, when it was sold in OTC cold remedies and diet capsules, but the product also improves bladder control in dogs, too. Likewise, diethylstilbesterone, also known as DES, is known to have a positive effect on the bladder spinchter's function, especially in spayed females.  DES is not used in human medicine any longer, so it has to be compounded by a pharmacy that offers that service, but there are actually a good number of those to be found, and the cost for DES is relatively low for a custom-made product.  This may be something you'll need to discuss with the vet, if the incontinence is more than an occassional incident.

EDIT-I did see she is on tramadol. Just keep an eye out for constipation and that is easy enough to remedy if it shows up.

I did see the statement on curcumin (active ingredient in turmeric) and did want to mention that while it has increbile anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties it is partially because of natural cox-2 inhibitors (think meloxicam is in the same class only a commercial drug).  If the combination is a problem (NSAID + Prednisone) you may want to do a little more research on that one if you are considering.

I did wind up giving my old girl metacam towards the end. She was confirmed severe HD with no real problems but getting stiff in the last months (but she died from undiagnosed but rapid case of hemangiosarcoma) and metacam was my choice because I could meter it down to the lowest effective dose. With a natural product (which I would prefer to give) there is some more variation I would thinki. It did make a positive difference on her. 


Curcurmin
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17569207 

Meloxicam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meloxicam 

Not to give the OP a hard time, but I think they are making the wrong choice by not choosing to use Adequan as a first option.  I know it can be expensive, but my feeling is as long as the financial sacrafice is not devastating, every effort should be made to get through the hassles of the loading period.  My vet begs people with dysplastic dogs to try Adequan, but 99 times out of 100 they choose a pain killer because its a lot cheaper and less initial travel hassles to the vet.  He even tells them he will not charge them the base fee for the visit, just the cost of the adequan every time they come to get the shots and they still won't do it  He also says in many cases the dog will live comfotably much longer than with pain killers becuase the dog will rebuild lost muscle and likey won't get any organ damage as they would from long term pain killer use.  Pain killers should be your last choice only after the adequan becomes less effective and even then it would be a combinations of adequan and pain killers.  

As for subcutaneous or intramuscular injection, I think having the vet do a intramuscular injection keeps it in the dogs system much longer than a subcutaneous injection.  By week 4 I can see the affects of adequan start to wear off after an intramuscuar shot, I was told that a subcutaneous injection would wear off sooner than 4 weeks.

An update:  since I last posted much is happening.  Most important here is about the dog.

Tara that very night went upstairs with us for bedtime (unbeknownst to me until I went up last myself - she was so quiet about it).  The next day I left town to be with my sister at her beachhouse so was not around a few days (partly because I got sick down delaying return).  However, my husband said she was doing OK but did not go back upstairs - probably because I was not home (you know how dogs can be - ours tend to wait until everyone is upstairs).

The night I came back Tara came upstairs with us, then the next night.  She's doing OK, but did not come up last night undoubtedly due to the stress I caused taking her to a dog bath (the ramp on that vet's tub is VERY steep and I had to pick her up as she wouldn't even attempt).  But, either way, all week she has been going between our sunken room and the rest of the house pretty well.

I don't know how much else I can report here out, because now my sister has gone down hill very badly the last few days and the outlook seems poor for her.  I don't know what's going to happen in the near future, so Tara may have to take a back seat.  But I'm glad we have extra info on how we can help her, beyond what the vet says!

I'll add also
food grade diatomaceous earth is very good for the bones and joints. 
Acupuncture will also help with the pain

may want to check into bee venom?  I've heard that it's been used with great results for controlling pain in arthritis. 

I'm sorry to hear about everything you're going through, we recently found out my dad has stage 4 prostate cancer, the end scares me.