? & Ros
New Member
FEMALE — Dachshund
Posts: 1
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Post by ? & Ros on Mar 5, 2019 7:32:41 GMT -7
Post op IVDD surgery Just joined this forum. I have been a Dachshund owner for over 30 years. 25 years ago had a mini that woke up one day dragging his hind legs, took him to the nearest animal hospital where they decided he needed emergency surgery, he was 6 years old. He died 2 days after the surgery from sepsis". I now have 3 dachshunds, 2 are standards and one mini. The 2 standards are 13 years old, littermates, the mini is 4. 8 months ago one of the 13 year olds, Ver started crossing his hind legs while going for a walk. Took him to the vet immediately. Put on metacam, tramadol and gabapentin, strict crate rest. He had a terrible reaction to the gabapentin and ended up at the Vet overnight. Took him off gabapentin and replaced with robaxin. After 3 weeks of crate and meds he stopped crossing legs, my Vet then started acupuncture . Since then he has been fine.
5 days ago, March 1st I noticed that my mini, Ros was refusing to go up or down stairs or even walk up the ramp to her couch. I immediately took her to my local Vet, they examined her and said they found nothing definite but decided to do crate rest, meds, tramadol 20 mg every 12 hours, metacam once a day to the ?'s mark and robaxin 125 mg. every 8 hours. Two days later I picked her up from the crate to go out for potty and as soon as I touched her she yelped. I got her outside put her down and she immediately sat in an off kilter manner. I called her to come and when she attempted to stand her left hind leg just folded underneath her and she yelped again. As it was a Sunday, March 3rd and local Vet closed I immediately called the nearest animal hospital open 24/7. I brought her over asap and they sedated her and did an MRI. She had a herniation at L 5. The neurosurgeon on call went over the MRI with me ( I'm an RN) and suggested that due to her age and the fact she still had just weakness in the right hind leg and paralysis in just the left leg with deep pain sensation surgery within 48 hours So on Monday , March 4th she had surgery . Vet said she did well , woke up right away. Vet called last evening said they were giving pain meds and would attempt to feed her . Just got a call from the vet who said Ros is anxious this morning, gave her pain meds and offered her food which she refused. Vet said when she tested her for deep pain sensation in toes no response today- could be from trauma from surgery or ? maybe she lost it between MRI and surgery? Now I feel like I should have opted for crate rest for a few weeks. I have a bad feeling about the outcome as I keep thinking of what happened 25 years ago.
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PaulaM
Moderator.
Member since 2007: surgery, conservative . Montana, USA
Posts: 19,567
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Post by PaulaM on Mar 5, 2019 9:03:25 GMT -7
Welcome! Hi, my name is Paula, what's yours? While we are not veterinarians, we have lots to share with you. Our main goal is to help you become educated about IVDD so you can better work with the vet you’ve hired, protect your dog and give proper care during this episode, but also to be able to live many happy years ahead with the disease your dog was born with. Knowledge, is indeed, the power to fight this IVDD enemy and win!
It is true the surgery itself will causes some temporary setbacks. In about two weeks when it has resolved you and the surgeon will better be able to see the direction of nerve healing. The body CAN self heal to bring back deep pain sensation and from there that would bode well for even more nerve healing to take place. There is no right or wrong decision conservative vs surgery... you made the best decision given the information you had at the time. So moving on to what you can control is getting her recovery suite ready, reading up on IVDD and being prepared for you little patient's discharge day! Let us know what the surgeon will want for at home PT or rehab clinic PT. For how many weeks will he want crate rest which does include his directives for PT.RECOVERY SUITE
See if there are any extra tips that would be helpful to you in added to what you have: www.dodgerslist.com/literature/cratesupplies.htm BLADDER CONTROL If by discharge date, bladder control has not returned, then you''ll get a hands on lesson to manually express the bladder. First reviewing the video and the tips will have you getting alot more out of the You will get more out of a hands-on-top-of-your-hands type of expressing lesson www.dodgerslist.com/literature/Expressing.htm NOTE: you would also be able to express for poop, not as a health concern but more that Ros is not anxious and upset to find poop where she sleeps. DISCHARGE DAY You may find Dr Isaacs (neuro ACVIM) comments helpful in developing a list of questions for the day of discharge: www.dodgerslist.com/literature/surgery.htm Let us know if there is anything else we can address. And do keep us updated as you get new reports from the surgeon.
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