Happy March!

We are off to a great year but can you believe it is March already?!?! Time flies when you are having fun.

This month I want to discuss chronic pain of osteoarthritis and my experience managing pain in my personal dog, Timmy.

Osteoarthritis can cause subtle signs of discomfort and does not normally present with your pet crying in pain. Signs of osteoarthritis may slowly start and could appear as hesitation to jump on the bed, changes in personality (more grumpy with other pets), eating too much or too little, sleeping more, or reluctance to take walks. The pain of osteoarthritis may fluctuate with the weather patterns and can worsen after an abnormally long walk.

I would like to share a personal story with you about Timmy. Last month, Timmy became non-weight bearing in his forelimb suddenly. Timmy came to me 9 years ago as Tiny Tim the 3 month old Malinois puppy who was surrendered after being stuck in a hunting trap for an unknown amount of time. His left forelimb was severely injured and many other veterinarians wanted to amputate his limb, but I knew as a Belgium Malinois he was going to be a big active dog and if I could save his leg, this would give him a better quality of life. I used laser and honey bandages to get his leg to heal and within 2 weeks it was mostly repaired. He had a broken his toe that healed in what we now call the “raptor claw”. His wonderful rescue decided I would be his best home considering the future complications that would arise.

Timmy has done well over the last 9 years. He has done well on Dasuquin Advanced, stretching protocol, and rehabilitation exercises. He has been unable to take anti-inflammatories but we have managed with the occasional laser therapy on rough days.

Unfortunately, Timmy loves to jump off the couch and chase birds or small motors and this beautiful February morning, he did just that. He returned inside not using his leg. He really was reluctant to let me look at it and just laid there in pain. I was worried that he had something worse going on so we proceeded with radiographs.

Radiographs are a great tool for us to look at the underlying bone structure to rule out cancer, infection, and to stage the arthritis present. When paired with a physical exam, the x-rays can help to tell the full story. In Timmy’s case his story is a pretty severe case of elbow arthritis and possibly a defect from when he was a puppy. He also had arthritis in several other joints.

At this point I knew we had to work on his pain management first. Due to his inability to take anti-inflammatories or Adequan injections, I elected to start him on Traumeel (homeopathic analgesia), Gabapentin, and Amantadine. I also gave him a shot of Librela. This is the new shot for pain, but I was not sure how he would respond to this new medication as he has always been a sensitive boy.

Additionally I lasered his entire leg twice a day for 3 days. After the first day, he woke up with a smile on his face and he started toe touching on his leg again. With this same protocol by the 3rd day he was back to his normal self, a slight limp, but a happier boy.

To follow up on his severe arthritis, I will proceed with performing a joint injection with Spryng, a collagen and elastin product. This will coat his cartilage and help his joints move more smoothly.

I tell Timmy’s story to show that sometimes we have to treat pain from many different angles in order to really get a handle on it. I used a multimodal, integrative approach, combining rehabilitation modalities with pharmaceuticals to help him. Once the pain is managed we can proceed with rehabilitation and return to normal function exercises while considering reducing the medications to the lowest effective dose.

Timmy will always have arthritis, but I will monitor his pain level and treat as we need. For those of your pets with arthritis, this is also why we are here to help. There may be times where we need to increase the treatment plan to get things under control, but then we will back off and let your pets live their best life.

If you feel your pet may be suffering from osteoarthritis, we are happy to help by evaluating your pets. Not only dogs, but cats too can benefit from rehabilitation modalities and supplements to ease the pain of osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis requires a multimodal management plan including: weight loss, supplements, anti-inflammatories, pain medications, physical rehabilitation modalities, and therapeutic exercises. We may need to use joint injections to quiet a joint down or refer a patient for surgical consult if our conservative treatment plan does not work.

When our pet’s are diagnosed with osteoarthritis the most common mistake is decreasing all exercise due to pain of movement. The lack of motion increases the stiffness of the joints and promotes atrophy or muscle loss from disuse. Pain should be reduced first using a multimodal approach, then we will begin low impact workouts. Short, frequent leash walks can help to move arthritic joints to help break down scar tissue that has developed from inactivity. These walks can make a huge difference in pain management of your arthritic pet.

With treatment your pets can live a happy and healthy life even with osteoarthritis.

For more information on osteoarthritis visit: caninearthritis.org

Peace and love,

Dr. Lisa Mason

March 2024

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