Pano - Page 2

Pano and growing pains are 2 completely different things....Growing pains are exactly that, which is usually caused by too much protien in the diet, causing the long bone to grow too quickly. Pano is inflamation of the longbone joint. I tend to stay away from medication and crate a dog for a few weeks, limiting heavy or long periods of excercise. Rymadil is certainly something to stay away from, Deramaxx is the replacement drug for Rymadil, it works better with less side affect

sorry but pano and all the pseudonyms mentioned are the same.. look it up in any vet medical text....pano is inflammation of a long bone thus the name long bone disease....has nothing to do with a joint.......

my understanding of pano is when the long bones grow to fast and the bone fills with blood rather than marrow and it can take anywhere from a week to a month for the marrow to catch up hence the pain and limp

jim h

My Fred got Pano in his left nearside Front Leg,  it stopped him working for six weeks but he got over it

a few pain killers helped to ease the discomfort Since this happened he has been fine now 20 months old he is going well

I guess it is similar to growing pains in the limbs of children, some just start to grow a little too quickly

Me being short i guess i did not grow quick enough, and i stayed that way throughout my life

Steve

 DiKah and others have answered the main questions posed by the OP. I will take the liberty to summarize and add some comments of my own.

1. No one knows why some dogs get panosteitis and others do not, even within the same litter, and even maintaining the same growth rate, fed the same foods etc. I have kept all littermates for life from two litters, and some have had it and others not. I have also seen hundreds of dogs in my rescue program, of all ages, and some young ones have had it, others not, and they have all been fed the same way, and a variety of quality foods.

2. No understanding of what causes it is known and it is speculation only that high protein levels in food causes it. See the link below for more information on additional possible causative factors. These include calcium imbalances.

3. As with every medical condition short of a contagious illness or injury, this condition likely does have a genetic component to it predisposing certain dogs to develop the condition. It might be as simple a case as having certain inflammatory chemicals released in a body, given some "trigger" of unknown origin.

4. Pano IS and DiKah points out,  the EXACT same thing as "growing pains" and other pseudonyms. In fact, pano has nothing to do with joints, but affects the long bones. One of the diagnostic criteria is that squeezing hard on a long bone will cause discomfort. X-rays also sometimes reveal some mottling in the bone and/or extra density as bone is deposited during growth. Just how or if the way the bone looks is related actually to the elicitation of pain is not clear but in some cases seems to correlate with clinical signs in the dog.

5. There is always a debate on how to treat pano. The good news is that if a condition is pano, it will resolve in time, once and for all. Some dogs have one episode, others many. Some have mild episodes, others severe. Some have long time periods in between episodes, others short time periods. Some have limping and soreness in a single limb, others may demonstrate a rotation to several limbs. This changing back and forth should always be a clue as to what is really going on, although as stated, other conditions can confound the diagnosis or exist in concert with the same diagnosis.

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 6. There is NO proof that any specific type of diet causes or contributes to pano or prevents it. As a personal note, I have had hundreds of dogs in my care, of all ages, sometimes siblings, and never saw any correlation at all with diet. Some people think it has to do with fast growth rates and high protein content. Think again about a canid in the wild....they would, given good environmental conditions, have abundant protein and would be growing fast. Whether pano is observed in wild canids I don't know. I do know that over the past 50 years or so the size of our breed and others has increased some 30-50%. This alone, just as in humans, has serious implications for skeletal health.

7. If one decides to consider treatment, yes, aspirin, Rimadyl, Deramaxx and other medications can be useful. NONE of these medications is without some risk, including aspirin. The thing one must do is know what the risks are, know that in most dogs these medications are useful. One major consideration must always be a quality of life issue. And one must look at the individual dog and its’ baseline health, especially liver and kidney function. For example, I take prednisone. Are there risks ....yes, and in my age group they are even more likely to occur than with younger people. But for me it is simple: without this medication the quality of my life is poor.  I cannot move and am too stiff and in great discomfort without it and sometimes, even having taken it. So I CHOOSE to take the risk and I do what I can to minimize the risk by altering other factors in my life. Rimadyl for canines, for example, is a terrific drug. I have seen many animals given the drug who might otherwise be put down or spend the last years of their lives in great pain. Most of these dogs do very well. Just like with NSAIDS in humans (which I also have chosen to take despite the risks), there are some dogs who do not do well. This is why knowing the dog, keeping tabs on liver and kidney function, and knowing the adverse and side effects with this and every drug, human or animal, is wise.

8. In mild cases probably nothing needs to be done to treat it. In more severe cases one can simply limit the dogs' activity, or try to see if the dog itself will limit its' activity. With dogs who do not limit themselves in activity when not feeling well (such as in higher drive dogs), giving medication actually may contribute to the condition not resolving in a timely fashion because the dog is so active. In other words, pain often will cause a dog to slow down and this is a good thing. However, giving medication to take away the pain may make the dog feel well enough that it engages in activity that should be avoided.

I do not supplement in any way, without a very good reason. I believe that if a dog is fed first of all, a quality food, that is enough. Others have their favorite supplements, but in my book, they do nothing to contribute or minimize joint or other health status unless a specific deficiency is known to exist. Others will disagree and I always say that if it works for you and for the dog, then do it. There are many studies however, on Vitamin C for example, that call into question whether there is any benefit at all for such conditions.

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 Finally, we might also want to remember that the size of GSDs and other large breeds has increased tremendously over the last 50 or so years. In my opinion, it is this that is probably one major factor contributing to bone and joint issues in these dogs today. Also, we have much better vet care and much better overall awareness levels as to what constitutes a healthy and well animal. Better nutrition is known to be a contributing factor to larger size in most species, including humans and dogs.

NOTE: I don’t feed this food, but this is a reasonable article with good sources.

http://www.breedsmartpartners.com/bronline/en_US/jsp/BO_Page.jsp?pageID=RLDP&articleID=7

And for Steve, I am also short and in my case, I do think I was not fed enough good food, along with genes that said I was to be short. Now that I am old, I am short and stout....

Simply switch to a true balanced raw food diet and that will fix it, I had one dog with Panosteitis (inflammation of the growing bones) at 10 months and it was gone

I also have read that distemper vaccinations aggravate it, and I had just given him a booster 3 days prior to the onset of it.

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1561&articleid=466  is the article on it

Never NEVER NeVer...  raise a litter or dogs on puppy food

Do not overfeed pups and dogs no matter what

I doubt its genetic though some like to claim and blame genetics on everything

http://www.geocities.com/margaretmbradley/NaturalRawDog.html

 There are MANY pups fed raw who also develop pano. But wait, the last poster can sell you some "holistic" stuff that will cure everything. At the end of the day, EVERYTHING is related to one's genes, short of an accident or some types of infections. But there are almost always also contributions from the way any organism interacts with the environment in which it finds itself.

Kerschberger what you posted is incorrect, misleading and in one instance speculation.

A raw diet doesn't miraculously "fix it".  I've fed raw for three decades and if that were true none of the four (rescued GSD) youngsters that came to me (three having undiagnosed Pano and one who developed Pano) would have suffered Pano for months on the very well balanced raw diet I feed.  By your statement my well-balanced diet would have miraculously "fixed" the problem.

I do not doubt that genetics play a big part, if not the majority of the part.  Diet plays a part too.

To state here that simply switching to a balanced raw diet will "fix" Pano is simply untrue, misleading and can be dangerous (not to mention incredibly painful) to the dog if the owner is uninformed enough to listen to your mis-advise.