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Originally Posted by eringabrielle  Whooooaaa indeed. My regular vet has been practicing years, and Willow IS lifting her back leg already, she has grades 3 and 4 on the back legs. It is better to fix this now before she is in a lot of pain and has not done damage to her knees, there is no way I would feel comfortable waiting too long on her knees. I have done my research.
And yes, an Orthopedic that is also at my regular vet's office has seen her and is the one who recommended the LP surgery. Given the choice between getting her knees fixed so she can live a pain free normal life and waiting until it could possibly be too late and she go lame later, I think I'll choose the former.
As for the internal specialist, she conferred with many of the other specialists in the same office, and they aren't pushing anything on me, they just gave me their opinion if I wanted to know for usre she did or did not have a shunt before we proceed with the LP. I am completely comfortable requesting not to have the scint, just wanted some input.
I am thinking of doing the Protein C, and then deciding from there. |
well just because the surgery is done does not guarantee no arthritis in knees as surgery alone can cause arthritis so either way surgery or not a dog with LP will have arthritis so if you are trying to avoid arthritis probably will not happen. Now if dog is holding leg up all the time not just once in a while then by all means do surgery. This surgery is not an easy surgery and is very hard on them but agree the younger they are the better.
I would not imagine she has a shunt with those numbers but could be wrong - shunts usually throw bile acids over 100 post. Also the dog would be having alot of symptoms. Also numbers can be off due to gall bladder contraction during blood draws and why more than one pre and post bile acid are done along with protein C.
Alot of vets are real quick to do a ton of testing when not really necessary. Treat the dog not the blood work so if the dog is not having symptoms running a bunch of unnecessary tests is not right as it puts alot of stress on the dog.