Riley's xrays show his left hip is dysplasic and has significant degenerative changes (aka arthritis). His right hip is in fairly good shape. His knees are pretty strong but he has some degenerative changes in his hocks (bone spurs and arthritis) which are likely due to compensating for the hip and not considered a significant factor at this point. When I received this news I was quite overwhelmed. I have known for a long time that his structure is not very good but had wrongly assumed that any recurring problems he had were from his back not his hips. If he was ten years old and I received this news then I would be willing to manage this with supplements, medications and therapies but he just turned six years old. I have never expected him to be a super long-lived lab due to his size but I did expect him to have a good 3-4 more active years. He is a very healthy and active dog but I do worry about the long term effects of using NSAIDs.
Our options are to restrict his activities and manage the pain or to do surgery. Neither option is clearly defined at this stage. He is currently on a NSAID and we have done a four week course of cartophen injections. I have been supplementing him with good quality glucosamine products for years and using homeopathic remedies like Arnica or Traumeel when he had soreness in the past. We usually walk 1-1.5 hours every day with a lot of that off leash hiking on local trails so he is actually in very good shape other than this problem. He has been on leash more the past few months in an effort to treat his soreness and prior to our holiday we were starting to get back to more regular activity levels with some modifications.
While on holidays I experimented with letting him have more off leash freedoms and unfortunately he paid the price. We didn't do any major hiking but still a longer (1.5 hour) walk was just to much for him and he was sore later. Darn dog has absolutely no filter on how to retrict himself and just go, go, goes while he is in the "moment". He does recover with a few days rest and does well if kept mostly on leash. It sucks for him because he loves to run and explore but for now I will closely monitor his activity and reactions.
The other option is surgery. There are two types of hip surgery. One involves cutting off the head of the hip bone so it no longer rubs against the joint causing pain. The muscles can stabalize the joint and recovery is fairly easy. Unfortunately that surgery is mainly successful for dogs under 50-60 pounds. The option I am looking at is a total hip replacement just like they do in humans. It will cost a small fortune (around 5 or 6 thousand) and involves a pretty major three month recovery. The first month has the largest risk of dislocation so is basically no activity other than potty breaks and then gradually over months two and three we build up from very short walks to regular activity. It appears there is a very good (90+%) success rate for the surgery but of course there are always risks and if things go wrong then he will be really screwed. Despite that I am still leaning towards that option. His soreness levels last week have convinced me that it will not be easy to treat this without surgery. It is very expensive but I also know from experience with Lucy that supplements, meds and therapies add up a lot and there is a lot of time and travel involved for chiro visits, swim visits etc.
I have asked my vet for a referral to the surgeon so we can assess if Riley is a good candidate for the surgery. If it turns out that he isn't then I will look further at regular therapy like swimming, accupuncture etc as well as some other alternative therapies. I have a friend who had good success with gold bead accupuncture implants for her dog and have also heard good things about stem cell therapies. I don't know much about either option currently but I will research.
Lots of information for me to digest and assess over the coming months. If we proceed with surgery then I am hoping to do it early september which allows for our summer holiday.
Here are a few pics of last weeks lovely camping trip. It was good to get away and just enjoy time with hubby and the dogs.
Poor Riley and poor you. That's a very difficult situation to face and to deal with. You clearly have Riley's best interests at heart. Keep us posted on the outcomes - whatever direction you chose to take. In the meantime, hugs to Riley and also to Stella. Stella's sister, Elsie, is here with me for most of the week; she's going into several shows this weekend. She's a little too chubby so will see how things go but she's very, very pretty like Stella.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good wishes Sylvia. Good luck with Elsie and take lots of pictures please :). I've noticed Stella chubbing out a wee bit since her heat as well so will be working on that.
DeleteGosh, that just sucks! The recovery would be so difficult for both of you after surgery. But if it works, it could be very worth it all!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments about Amber.
Totally agree but wow that will be a long three months! Hugs again about Amber :(.
DeleteAgain, I'm so sorry that you are going through this with your sweet boy. Toby's gait has never been right and my vet recently agreed that he might have hip issues brewing, but we are taking a wait and see approach for now - but Toby's nearing 9 and he's a big boy too (runs around 84 lbs).
ReplyDeleteIt seems the two things you have in your favor is that Riley is young AND he is in good health. I hope the surgeon can provide some good advice for you. Recently, I was researching the very two surgery options that you mention, because I was interested in adopting a dog who had also just had the FHO surgery done, and after my research, I agree with you looking towards the hip replacement. From what I understand, the FHO is a last resort, and once it is done, you can't do anything else, where if you do the hip replacement and it fails (hopefully it WILL NOT), but you still have the FHO option later on. Good luck with everything. My heart goes out to you.
Those darn big dogs eh! Riley currently runs at a slim/trim 100 pounds. Definately wouldn't be able to lift him up if his condition worsens. FHO seems to work very well for smaller dogs but the hip replacement is much better for his size. If worst case scenario happened and things went horribly wrong then they could do the FHO. Thanks for the good wishes :).
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