dirtychicken Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 In the latest of the traumatic life that is Flora's, we've discovered that she has bi-lateral hip dysplasia. The news brought with it several shocks - the first being that her right hip was also affected when I'd only thought her left hip was a problem and the second being that her left hip is so badly affected that it barely resembles a joint any more I'm not really in a position to make major decisions yet as we only found out from x-rays on Friday just how bad things are, and the x-rays have been sent off to a specialist for his opinion. However, the vet is expecting the specialist's report in either today or tomorrow so a decision will need to be made fairly quickly. Initially, the vet has suggested that Flora may need a Triple Pelvic Osteotomy (TPO) - which is, essentially, a total pelvic rebuild. My initial reaction was "yes - whatever it takes" but I've now spent more time looking into what it entails and I'm not so sure that it's the right way to go. Besides, I'm not sure that she'd even qualify as it is supposed to be carried out on dogs who have very little existing joint damage and I think her left hip may be too far gone. We're then still looking at double hip replacement. I have several major factors to consider: 1. Cost - I would prefer this not to be an issue but that would be unrealistic. Flora is insured for up to £7,000 vet fees but it would appear that hip ops are not cheap and may well exceed even this limit 2. Flora is epileptic - the amount of damage that could be done should she have a seizure following the surgery will need to be taken into consideration 3. Recuperation time - this is being listed as up to 6 months. Flora is 16 months old and usually very active. 6 months out for her is going to be incredibly hard to deal with. She would be on crate rest for 8 weeks immediately following the op. That in itself might be more than she could bear BUT I also have to consider that it is *only* 6 months out of a potential life span of 15+ years 4. If I choose to not have the operation done, Flora will be pain managed until a time at which the pain becomes unbearable Bearing in mind that in the space of a few short months she has gone from being able to play on the beach for 2 hours before her hip starts hurting to just 20 minutes or so, we are not looking a great distance into the future. Although, obviously, there are other possibilities to prolong this time such as carts, etc. My pros and cons list is really not much help because for every pro there's a con and I'm really struggling. So it's time to call on the Fugees..... Do you have any experience of dealing with HD at this level? What did you do? Do you have a friend/family member who has gone through this? What did they do? Can you think of anything else that I need to take into consideration/ask the vet? Any/all help/suggestions would be very much appreciated I am really sorry that this thread is almost a duplicate of the one I posted a few months back regarding Flora's epilepsy, but my baby girl has been dealt a crap hand At the end of the day, her life quality has to be the utmost priority and I *have* to do what is the very best for her even if it isn't the very best for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agilitymad Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 Sorry i don't have any experience on HD but just wanted to give you and Flora a gentle What ever dission you choose i'm sure it will be the right one for your baby girl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracey.s Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 We had this with ICE sarah, and my heart breaks for you both. I'll pm you as this will make a mega huge post and that way i can stop for tissue breaks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 to you and Flora Ronnie also has HD. He's only been with me for three weeks and I took him on knowing about the problems we might encounter. He's a two year old greyhound. You might have seen his x-ray when I posted it a couple of weeks ago. You can see on the left of the screen as you look at it, he doesn't really have a ball and socket joint. It's completely distorted and grown out of shape. This x-ray was taken in July 2006. I can't imagine what I might look like now. TBH, I don't know if Ronnie is aware of it. He doesn't seem to struggle, except for the stairs but there's no real need for him to go up there. He needs lifting in the car as well but that might be because he's not happy about travelling. I've got him on glucosamine but will be changing to Synflex, thanks to Madmerle. He also wears a Bioflow collar, which I can highly recommend (about £30 online). I've read quite a lot recently to help understand more about HD and it seems actually quite common sadly. My vet seemed unpanicked (but so far we've only talked on the phone about him), as if she has managed a lot of cases. She said they don't normally recommend surgery in the vast majority of cases and usually opt for pain management, good diet and controlled exercise. I need to meet the vet and discuss it in more detail but from what I've read, I'm not sure about surgery. As with everything, there are risks, but in some cases it can make it worse which I would never want to happen. Like you, I find the pros and cons list is confusing, full of conflicting information and guilt-ridden. I too have the cost issue to consider as Ronnie had this condition when I took him on so no insurance company would take him, as I've always said, I will always do the right thing for my dogs and cats. I would have to make sure I trust the vet enough to know they were recommending it because it's right for Ronnie and not because they think I can claim on the insurance so won't mind what they suggest. I'm sure you've done your homework but is your vet giving you the 'worse case scenario' or being objective about how Flora is now and how he/she sees her coping with HD? I'm a novice with this and I'm keen to read the responses as much as you are. I just wanted to say hang on in there and give you a . Keep Flora happy and stimulated because that's half the battle of giving them the strength. Ronnie says hi and wondered if Flora would like a handsome greyhound as boyfriend? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranirottie Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 no advice as only you can decide and I am sure that you will do what is right for Flora whichever way it goes. x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackthelab Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 Hello Well my Ute Maia has HD and in both hips with no actual hip cups, she is 6 years old and lives a full and happy life without having had any operations, she does run funny, its actually a bunny hop with the back legs and we walk at her pace and let her tell us when she has had enough. We have a great Homeopath we work with, she has given us some wonderufl remedies which do the trick, including an HP Metacam. We tried the magnetic collar on her as we have one on my Jack who has OCD in his elbow, it was very effective on him, but on Maia it showed no benefit. There is also a Lab called Pudsey that had operations on his Hips, but they have now remved the Hip replacement as it caused him more pain than without, in fact you can read the diary Pudsey HD Diary here, it has some graphic op pictures but is extremely informative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackthelab Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 Apprently there are 2 types of replacement too cemented or screwed in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 That's a positive post to read, Natalie I've taken comfort from it because I've read so much of the other side of the coin and relied on hearsay for how things might turn out. It's good to hear from someone who is already travelling down the road that I'm just starting on. Muckyhen, I hope you don't think I'm hijacking your thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pboae Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 Sully has arthritis and also HD on a similar sort of scale, his left hip joint is almost flat and his right is in a bad way. We saw a specialist a couple of years ago to see what the options were, and none of them sounded great :-( He has the added problem that they don't actually make the joints big enough for him, so he will need a lot of extra bone cement to pad it out, which greatly increases the chance of the joint failing. We dithered a lot, and I won't bore you with all my to-ing and fro-ing about but the upshot was we settled for management for now. We started him on Cartrophen injections, which were great at first, and gave him a year without Rimadyl, then another year of needing it sometimes, and he's now back on Rimadyl daily. He also has Nutradyl daily, and he still has the Cartrophen though it doesn't seem to be helping much now. The specialist said that it wouldn't matter (in terms of the op) whether it was done now or further down the line, so he recommended that we wait until we can no longer manage the pain and decide then. The downside of that is that if we do eventually go ahead with the op and it goes well, he'll have had several years of uneccessary discomfort. But the risks are so great, with the higher chance of the op failing, the logistics of managing his recuperation because of his size (he may have to remain at the vets for several weeks after the op, if we couldn't manage him) and his tendency to become aggressive if he is in a lot of pain. There is so much that could go wrong, I'm not willing to risk it yet. When the time comes to make that decision I just hope I have the emotional strength to do what's right for him. He'll be 5 soon, and we've always said that if he makes it to 6, he'll have had a good innings with all his other health problems. It would be overly optimistic to hope he reaches 8, but I can wish, can't I? So if he is over 6 when the op starts to look like the only option, it might not be in his best interests, with the long recovery period and everything. Sorry, I'm rambling now. It's not an easy decision to make, and all I've managed to do is defer it for a while. I don't think it is ever going to be a clear cut yes or no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nettie Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 Indy has HD, greyhounds and salukis aren't know for having genetic HD but can develop the same if they are overworked when their joints are still forming/maturing. Indy has HD, we didn't take the op route but he did used to have hydrotherapy in the waterwalker. The idea behind this exercise is to really strengthen the muscles around the bum (sorry not more scientific) and the hip joint which in turn helps stablise the joint itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackthelab Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 That's a positive post to read, Natalie I've taken comfort from it because I've read so much of the other side of the coin and relied on hearsay for how things might turn out. It's good to hear from someone who is already travelling down the road that I'm just starting on. Muckyhen, I hope you don't think I'm hijacking your thread What you describe you have to do for your boy we do for Maia, she has to be lifted into cars and she can't jump up onto things such as sofas but she puts her front paws up to be lifted. When she was a pup she had lots of hydrotherapy which meant the muscles have been built up to compensate for the lack of bone/socket. She has her moments when she gets a bit rheumatic but we use pain relief then, but other than that she runs around in short bursts winding Jack up Oh the only other problem we have is she has worn down her outside claws right past the quick sue to the way she swings her feet when walking, but it doesn't seem to bother her too much, and if it does we can buy some flash bootees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pboae Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 The other posts have reminded me, we also tried hydrotherapy, but Sully hated it (I mean really really hated) and we had to give up in the end because he was going to do himself more damage in the weekly struggle to get him in there. He does have problems with his feet now too. He drags his back paws which are kind of turned out and to the side, so he has callouses on the sides of them. He gets ingrowing hairs inside the callouses which turn into abscesses and it all gets very nasty. We have the option of having them operated on as well, but there are problems with that too, so for now we just keep a close eye on him and get him on anti biotics at the first sign of a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtychicken Posted October 29, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 (edited) That's a positive post to read, Natalie I've taken comfort from it because I've read so much of the other side of the coin and relied on hearsay for how things might turn out. It's good to hear from someone who is already travelling down the road that I'm just starting on. Muckyhen, I hope you don't think I'm hijacking your thread God no! Any benefit that anybody else can take, please feel free to take it I agree that it's a very positive post, Natalie. Thank you for sharing your experience Hydrotherapy is something else I'm hoping to look into. I'm thinking it would be an idea to use the insurance allowance to do "proper" hydro in a warm pool through the winter and then when the weather improves we can take advantage of the sea being so close (possibly with the addition of a super-warm wetsuit for me!). Synflex I've also started scoping, but I've kind of put everything on hold until I hear the specialist's report - which should hopefully be tomorrow Once I know *exactly* where we stand at the moment I can make more decisions. pboae - which op was tabled for Sully? I'm only asking as everything I've read about the TPO suggested for Flora is best performed on dogs aged 12-16 months which gives them a very small window in which to operate anyway Flo is already at the top end of this scale so if they're even going to suggest it then it would have to happen very soon, and this is just added pressure at the moment. I think the hip repalcement/s are ops that can be carried out at any age but if both hips are going to be replaced then there needs to be 2 - 3 months between each op Edited October 29, 2007 by muckyhen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pboae Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 We would be looking at a single hip replacement, that's the only option he has really. He was 2 when he came to us, 2 1/2 when he saw the specialist, and already too far gone for TPO. The specialist considered a double replacement, they would have been done 6-12 months apart, but in the end he felt the recuperation period would be too much for Sully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackmagic Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 My friend's labrador had no ball joints at all on either side. As this was a few years ago, there were not the options or expertise that there is today. There was no option of surgery as there was nothing to work with. He was diagnosed at nine months old, when his hips gave way on a walk. He was managed with metacam and cartophen injections when needed. He was pts at ten years old when his front elbow gave way from ocd from taking the extra weight. He led a full life, albeit he couldn't race around, but he went for walks in the woods and competed in obedience at novice level. He was reassessed for surgery when he was eight years old but the decision was the same. Best wishes to you and Flora. Not an easy decison to make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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