Telling and showing the tails of my Smooth Collie Teach among other everyday activities.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tails of Limping
About a month ago Teach came up limping on his left hind leg. After taking it easy for a week with no change we went to the vet to see what was going on. The vet felt it was his cruciate ligament at that point and gave us Rimadyl for inflammation and to come back in a few weeks if not better. So ... a few weeks later ... (brings us to now) we have had x-rays with some good and so-so news. The good news was his hips are beautiful and he couldn't find any damage to his cruciate ligament. What he did find, however, was a condition called patella alta, where the knee caps ride to high on the hind leg bones. This must be something not very common as the vet decided to send his x-rays to Virginia Tech for a second opinion. So ... we wait and see what they tell us.
Of course, being the Google-friendly person that I am, I've been doing a ton of research. But what I have found is mostly on luxating patellas, which is where the knee cap pops out of joint. The vet mentioned the knee cap not riding in the groove on the bone, but never mentioned it coming out. So ... not sure what is going on.
He is on Rimadyl again for the pain and after one dose last night he was moving much better. Rimadyl isn't something I want him on full time because of the nasty side effects it has. A friend told me this weekend of laser therapy that can help treat inflammation so once we hear back from Virginia Tech I'm going to pursue that aspect and see what it does.
Until then I'm just glad he's back to normal after being at the vet all day (he was rather ticked off at us Tuesday evening). Even with limping he is still a very happy dog.
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