Marian's Obi 10/18 conservative — G. sheperd

Welcome to Dodgerslist. We all have dogs with IVDD here so you have come to the right place. We are glad that you have found us. Euthanasia is not the right treatment for disk disease. Dogs can recover from disk issues with the conservative treatment of Strict crate rest. It is difficult to care for a paralyzed and incontinent dog. It is especially difficult when the dog is large. At Dodgerslist we know a lot about caring for paralyzed dogs and will be happy to share what we know with you.

The disease we know here is IVDD (Intervertebral disk disease). The fact that he does not want to use his front legs as well as his back legs could indicate a disk issue in his neck. Did the vet think that the disk problem is in his neck?

Is Obi currently on strict crate rest? It is the immpbility enforced by crate rest that heals the disk. one to heal. That 6 weeks of a cast for a broken arm to heal is similar to the recovery suite being a kind of cast for the disc. 100% STRICT crate rest 24/7 for 8 weeks provides limited movement to allow good strong scar tissue to form. Super tried and true tips for setting up the recovery suite:
www.dodgerslist.com/literature/CrateRRP.htm
STRICT means:
- no laps - no couches
- no baths - no sleeping with you
- no chiro therapy

Neck disk issues can be especially painful and his pain is not in control. It is critical that his pain is controlled. The pain of IVDD is caused by swelling in the spinal cord. The swollen, herniated disc puts pressure on the spinal cord and other nerve in the area. This is painful and in many cases the pressure on the spinal cord prevents nerve impulses from passing between the brain and the the body causing neuro deficits like difficulty walking. The swelling in the spinal cord is treated with anti-inflammatories like pred. It can take up to 30 days on the full anti-inflammatory dose of pred to resolve the pain caused by the inflammation. If you went to the vet on Oct 18 and the pred was prescribed then, it seems like Obi is not taking the pred twice a day, but is on a tapering dose of pred. A tapering dose does not count against the 30 days it could take to reduce the inflammation. If he is on a tapering dose, he should go back on the full dose right away. What is the dosage of the pred pill?

The methocarbamol works best given 3X a day. Gabapentin is a medicine for nerve pain. It work well with tramadol also 3X a day. We have seen thatt hese three medicines together work best for pain control. Please call the vet again now and advocate for a change in pain meds. There is no need for Obi to suffer. Vets have many, many ways to control pain. Full pain relief is expected in 1 hour and stays that way dose to dose of correctly Rx/d pain meds. Any breakthrough in pain means the medications are not yet right.

This page gives fuller info on those pain relievers and also lists the things you can do at home to help Lilly's neck disc: www.dodgerslist.com/literature/cervical.htm

Famotidine is super important when taking an anti-inflammatory. Dogs with IVDD not taking an anti-inflammatory could also benefit from Famotidine (Pepcid AC) given 2X a day. It is hard to tell if he is not eating because of pain or stomach upset. Keep a close eye on his poop. If you see additional blood that is coming from within call the vet right away. There is a medicine called Sucralfate that can be given along with the Pepcid to protect his stomach.

Expressing can be tricky to learn and it takes practice. Did you get a hands-on lesson from your vet as to how to do it? I needed more than one before I became proficent at expressing my Frankie. Just keep on trying with the expressing. So many of us have struggled with it. Expressing is a matter of physics. That means the pressure applied to the bladder has to be greater than the strength of the urinary sphincter. Sometimes you have to hold that pressure many seconds longer than you think before the sphincter is overcome. Also the bladder moves back into the body as it empties so it is not always in the same place. Once you become good at expressing taking care of Obi will become so much easier. Poop can be expressed for also. I am not sure if you have seen our page on expessing.
www.dodgerslist.com/literature/Expressing.htm#bladderexpress

It is very scary when our dogs have IVDD. It becomes less so when we learn all we can about the disease. An excellent page to start with is "Overview: the essentials" and then read all you can as soon as possible. Here's the link:

www.dodgerslist.com/healingindex.htm

Please let us know what the vet recommends for Obi's pain.

Marian, did the vet think the disc was in his neck? He stopped using both his back legs with the CCL tear? A neck disc could cause neuro loss to both the front legs and the back legs. What is yours and your vet's opinion- back or neck disc?

The important part of prednisone is the number of days at the anti-inflammatory level prior to the start of any tapering. Please help us to understand what the Pred course was exactly if the below is wrongly interpreted.  It appears, then, that Obi never got the anti-inflammatory level dose...he did not get Pred 20 mgs 2x/day for 7 days 

Prednisone as of 10/18: 20mgs 1x/day for 7 days, then 10/25 test-for-pain Prednisone taper doses begin