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Old June 3rd, 2012, 02:28 PM
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TeriM TeriM is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: North Vancouver, BC
Posts: 9,757
Unhappy Riley has hip displaysia

I know it's been a while since I have been around but wanted to share some news we received this week about Riley.

He has been struggling this past month of so to recover from an injury. He had been improving but after a few recent setbacks that had me in tears and freaking out over every horrible thing it might be I finally decided it was time to get some xrays to see if anything serious is going on. Unfortunately the xrays showed that his left hip is quite dysplasic. His right hip is actually pretty good and his knees are stable. There is some degenerative changes in one of his hocks but that its thought to be secondary to the hip.

He just turned six years old on May 12th. This is hitting me pretty hard as it feels really soon after losing Lucy and dealing with all her ortho issues in her last years . I am considering having a total hip replacement done for him. Has anyone had or known a dog that has had the procedure. My initial thoughts to surgery were no way but after some more thought and research I am interested. It is gonna cost a small fortune (4 to 6,000) but it does appear to have very good results if we can survive the three months of hell. The idea of surgery terrifies me!

If we had received this news when he was 9 or 10 I would be more likely to try to manage things with meds and therapies but he still is very strong and active. He doesn't have the greatest structure and has had "injuries" over the years which we thought were from his back but I have definately noticed more soreness episodes over the past year and when I think back we are almost getting to a "chronic" type of situation. He has been on good quality glucosamine product (Recovery etc) since he was a year old. He receives fairly regular chiropractic treatments and has also had IMS treatments in the past and even got a canine massage last month. I have rarely given NSAID to him and have mostly treated the soreness with rest, chiro and homeopathic remedies like Arnica or Traumeel which has worked in the past.

He is currently on Metacam (actually he is big enough to use Moloxicam thankfully) until this current inflamation episode settles down and have started him on the cartrophen injections. The meds are making him more comfortable. He stands up much faster and seems to rest better. He is also wanting to play a lot with Stella which is great fun trying to regulate . I will restrict his walks to on leash for now and gradually build up the time over the next few weeks until he can hopefully be back to his regular levels. I have stopped all obedience training and rarely ask for a sit. We go to the chiro tomorrow and I will also see what his opinion is on everything. I worry about the long term issues with medications.

He is still very strong and fit currently but I can already feel the muscles on his bad side are changing as he uses that side less. He is one of those crazy dogs that does things sometimes that you know must hurt but he never shows any signs. His brother is much wimpier and is quite the baby when he hurts himself. Now that Riley is showing some signs from the hip it makes me think that he has been very uncomfortable especially when I think back on a few things (he grumbles when I pick up his back feet to wipe them etc).
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