Gnasher

£6

Just to add - this website is well worth keeping an eye on - they give details of places to eat, new foods and all sorts of news: Coeliac website

I have been coeliac for 13 years or so - so well used to finding my way round the system now. You are able to get a certain amount of bread/flour/pasta on prescription and there are also a few companies which once you register with them will send you some samples to try as they all really want you as their customer. There is gluten in lots of food you would not expect - but now it has to be marked which has made life an awful lot easier in the last year or so. You can get Tamari Soy sauce which is gluten free so can make your own chinese as well. I do tend to cook more from scratch than I otherwise would as the alternatives are pretty pricey and not always as tasty. Most supermarkets and health food shops have a free from section where they have all sorts of stuff you can buy. Some of the gluten free pasta is just as good as nomal pasta - but I have to be honest and say the best bread is home made and I don't tend to eat an awful lot of bread any more. Eating out can be a bit of a nightmare - but Weatherspoons is quite good as they have a few meals you can have and it is marked on the menu so you can clearly see your choices. Happy to answer any more questions.

Gnasher had major spinal surgery at the end of September and has been struggling to get back to fitness ever since. Recovery has been very much along the lines of two steps forward and one back until Christmas when we seemed to be taking more steps back than forwards. After much to-ing and fro-ing my vets finally tested him for thyroid and he was very marginally under so has been treated for that for the last three weeks. He was showing improvements in energy levels really quite quickly but his energy is taking a bit of a dip again at the moment which hopefully is just a temporary blip as he regains his mobility. We are due back at the vets again next week and the vet will be doing another blood test for his thyroid. As he was so marginally under last time I am fairly sure he will be back on the correct scale this time - but how do we know if his levels are correct for him or if he should really be high in the scales rather than just scraping in at the bottom? I have seen something indcating different breeds have different natural levels - but Gnash is a collie/terrier type cross so no help there. I am also not able to be guided by "normal" activity levels as there is nothing to say what a dog who has been through spinal surgery and has nerve damage should be doing at this stage. I do get on quite well with my vet so assuming he is lowish on the scales as I suspect can we just "tinker" with the tablets to see if an increase does give him any more energy or is there something more scientific we can do. Alternately is there any danger if we do try him on higher doses for a couple of weeks to see what happens? If you have had a dog treated for thyroid problems how did you get the medication levels right and how long was it after treatment that you would say your dog was back to normal - particularly energy wise? I will be working closely with my vet on things whatever - but just trying to get an understanding of how it all works to do the best for Gnasher.

Tons of good thoughts for Flora today and for you sitting waiting

I rather love Flora from afar too Making the decision last year whether to put Gnasher through major spinal surgery or not was one of the hardest I have ever faced and things have been very up and down ever since with the whole rollercoaster of emotions that go with it Tons of positive thoughts for you and her and happy to chat if that would help at all having recently put a dog through major surgery :GroupHug:

Oh wow!! She is lovely Congratulations!!!

I have had three - two with sedation where I don't remember much at all and one without. I did have trouble swallowing the tube, they said helpful stuff like pretend it is a cup of tea, whilst I had my mouth jammed open and a filthy great tube stuffed in my mouth Got there eventually though and then it was not too bad but I did gag a bit. As I was staying awake I asked if I could watch so I got to turn over every now and then and see my innards on the TV screen

Sending tons of positive thoughts for your lovely boy

Lots of positive thoughts for Timmy for today

I think to get them positioned right for the x-rays they have to pull them around a little whilst they are out so Gnasher has always been a bit sore and taken a few days to get over any x-rays he has had done he has just had so much done to him this year it has all sort of merged into one Hopefully the effects should be wearing off now and he should be back to normal pretty soon. I think the question you need to be asking yourself and vets before any more tests is what will happen with the info - if an operation is out of the question for him then it might not be worth putting him through more tests. I know that was the process I went through with Gnash. (I think I asked on here about experiences with MRI scans too so might be a thread lingering somewhere?)

Sorry - duplicate!

Sorry results were not more conclusive Disc problems not showing on normal x-rays is all too common unfortunately as the changes are quite subtle and just don't show well enough on a normal x-ray. Not sure where you are based but we went to the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket for Gnashers MRI scan - it was a bit of a long trek to get there (and a very early start as we had a 9am appointment) but they were excellent and took really good care of him. I think they only put him out relatively lightly too as we were able to pick him up at lunchtime after his scan.

Good luck for Monday Ollie I have PM'd you Just wanted to add - Gnasher has recently had spinal surgery for his disc problems, he is a small collie/terrier type cross with no hint of GSD about him but both the specialist at the Animal Health Trust and the orthopaedic specialist have said even though they can see considerable disc problems on his scans they can not rule out his problems may be caused by degenerative myleopathy. Certainly more common in GSD's and maybe different for a greyhound but in the case of my lad they can not postively rule it out even though all the evidence says it is not

I would definitely speak to the vet sooner rather than later. Maybe a short course of anti-imflamatories and rest will be all he needs

Just read about Ollie Gnashers problems are very similar to how this sounds and in his case the problem is caused by discs pressing on his spinal cord and causing compression which stops some of the messages getting through to and from the brain. It looks extremely similar to CDRM. As far as I am aware there is no test for CDRM but it might be worth getting his back x-rayed as if it is disc problems the sooner it is recognized the better the chance of him making a good recovery - it could even just be the case that he needs crate rest to let his back settle down rather than anything more scary like the surgery Gnasher has just had to have. If you turn his foot over so he is stood on the back of it rather than the botton does he correct it as quickly as you would expect I am happy to witter more about Gnash and spinal problems if you want as I have been learning rather a lot this year

Fingers firmly crossed that the results show something easily treated

Hoping they find something easily treatable and you have your lovely boy back home very soon

We have used a remedy called Anxiety for the last couple of years which seems to have helped Lady. I guess it is time to dig the bottle out and start her on them now. Anxiety Link

Sending tons of positive thoughts for the lovely Rosie Buttons

So sorry

So sorry

Thanks everyone It is nice to know there are people out there rooting for my boy, yes he has got me twisted round his little paws and gets more and more spoiled every day He does rather love little Toastie but I think would find it a bit too stressy really although I might bring Lady up tonight if it stays dry

I very rarely post here but do still know a few people from the old days so thought I had better update as my lad Gnasher is struggling at the moment. He was badly treated before I had him and has been treated for back pain for a good few years as a result of this but is only 8. Gnasher has got much wobblier over the last few weeks as his back problems get worse. We went back to the specialist vets yesterday. From his previous test results he has six areas of his spine which all look pretty evenly damaged. The chance of improving or even stabilising his situation with a operation is extremely slim and it would be quite likely to make his problems worse or even totally paralyse him. The consequence of not operating will be he continues to get worse until he can no longer cope or is no longer happy. At the moment he is coping very well, he is enjoying his walks (where he dictates how far he goes and refuses if he is not keen to go) loving his hydro sessions where he does his serious swims and then gets to play fetching his toy in the water and generally still enjoys his life despite being pretty wobbly and falling over some of the time. He still loves his toys and pretty much gets an attentive human to play with him whenever he wants these days – spoilt or what! The one possibility is to have an updated MRI done to see if one area of the spine has deteriorated and is very clearly the one causing the problem in which case in which case an operation may have more chance of helping a little. This is a pretty remote chance so I need to weigh up the options of putting him through a visit to yet another vets for an MRI scan which will probably just confirm that nothing can be done to help him over giving him that remote chance. He does find people and new places pretty scary so I need to weigh up if it is worth putting him through that for the very slim possibility that it gives him of it being worth the risk of an operation.

Gnasher was treated just with acupuncture for pain relief for 4 years which worked better for him than any of the drugs we had tried before. Since his back has got much worse this year we have tried previcox which is one of the newer NSAID's and more recently we are using PLT