This is terrifying to say the least. It absolutely creates panic- which might be why you’re looking for this article.So let’s talk about some of the causes and some of the different methods to address the problems.
Usually, this happens in adult dogs. Maybe even seniors. Certain breeds can be pre-disposed but really it can happen to any breed. French bulldogs. English bulldogs. Dachshunds. Dobermans. Great Danes. I see many breeds, including mixed breeds and bully types who “go down in the back end“.
Here’s the list of things that can be:
- A bad disk. IVDD is the acronym everybody wants to use because they like to throw around acronyms. (intervertebral disc disease)
- Arthritis. Which ultimately is compression of the disk space by bony pressure and returns us to the first item listed above.
- Degenerative myelopathy. Although this usually is a slowly progressive illness that starts out with weakness. And tends to be German Shepherd types, but even that is not definitive.
So if it’s a problem with the disc, what is the real problem? The problem is it’s putting pressure on the spinal cord. Imagine getting hit in the face with a baseball. This is what happened to your dog’s spinal cord when the disc “blew”. It created a whole bunch of swelling and pressure in the nerves that go from the brain to the back end.
What does western medicine do?
They will do x-rays and find evidence of arthritis or narrow disc space or even deformed discs as happened in the different bulldogs. And then they say don’t let your dog move for six weeks. And they give gabapentin and sometimes trazodone. Both of which do nothing to address swelling in the spinal cord. So what do they actually do? They both sedate your dog, so your dog doesn’t wanna walk around.
.
So remember when you got hit in the face with a baseball? Did they simply give you pain medicine so that you would be sedated or did they actually give you anti-inflammatories? That’s what your dog needs! An anti-inflammatory that addresses swelling in the spinal cord. Non-steroidals do not cut it. Neither do gabapentin or trazodone.
Back in the day we used to prescribe prednisone to take the swelling down. It’s almost instant. For some reason vets don’t like to prescribe prednisone in this very appropriate situation. They also used to prescribe methocarbamol which is a muscle relaxant. That takes pressure off of the area. Again, it’s a drug they don’t seem to prescribe much anymore.
Whatever.
There are also Chinese herbs that can reduce swelling in the spinal cord. And yes, they can be used in combination with any of the above medications.
And the other really important thing?
You gotta get motion back into that spine. Cause right now the whole thing is jammed up. Going back to our hypothetical baseball in the face situation: your whole upper body is in major contraction because of the pain. So- a massage of the shoulders, the neck, and the scalp will actually help relieve pressure and pain.
Muscles and movement has an immediate local effect at the spinal cord that blocks pain.
They don’t teach us this in veterinary school. They do teach this to us in animal chiropractic training.
Which brings me to the next most important therapies:
Chiropractic plus/or minus acupuncture have documented benefit on reducing healing time in spinal cord injury.
Without surgery. Yep. I said it. There’s some very good clinical studies that show that spinal cord disease treated with acupuncture alone was as successful as surgery plus acupuncture both of which were more successful than surgery alone!
The only time surgery is appropriate is when the dog immediately loses all concept of pain. Immediately. If the concept of pain is lost progressively overtime that’s a different problem and not reason to go to surgery.
So animal chiropractic combined with acupuncture – type therapy is amazing for helping these dogs heal quickly.
It usually takes five treatments to see how things are going to go.
And a good chiropractor/acupuncturist would also send homework and therapies to do at home to work on getting movement back into those back legs.
Some dogs never regain function of their back end. Sometimes there’s too much damage to the spinal cord. Sometimes the dogs don’t want to get up. Which is weird. And sometimes there’s something weird or going on like a tumor in the spinal cord or in the vertebrae.
But, if you want to give your dog, his or her best chance, don’t wait, look for someone to do chiropractic and/or acupuncture on your baby who just went down and isn’t walking.
Still seeing patients in Tampa, Clearwater, and virtually.