I took London to the NW Veterinary Specialists today. She saw a wonderful orthopedic doc who, after palpation, said he though her pain was more in her hip vs her knee. She has been walking 3 legged for a while now and the breeder I got her from said their vet said it was LP for sure. Well, its not. Her knees actually are fine. But her problem....she has a fractured hip!!! The ball portion of her femur is fractured and broken basically off the long portion of her femur. They are going a FHO on her (FHO info below) and said she should have a great outcome. Her surgery is not until next Monday, so she has plenty of pain meds to take until then and I am supposed to keep her as quiet as possible. My poor little baby.....I feel SO bad for her. She has to be in so much pain. The vet said he cant tell if it happened from trauma or something else.....makes me really wonder what happened to her!!!
FHO: The weight of the dog has some bearing on the outcome on this surgery. In the surgery, the ball portion of the hip joint (the femoral head) is removed and the bone smoothed, if necessary, so that no bone to bone contact occurs between the pelvis, which contains the now empty socket and the remaining portion of the femur. The joint is not stabilized, it is destroyed. While that sounds bad, in almost all dogs under 40 to 50 lbs in weight, this surgery will provide reasonable comfort. A "false joint" forms, consisting of fibrous scar tissue around the bone end. This forms in the muscles over the hip, which fortunately are strong enough to provide some stability. It is less painful than leaving the dislocated femoral head rubbing against the pelvic bone.