hurt back leg

[Lovetodream88]

Originally Posted by dkeen461

This vet is telling you straight. Are you sure it is a luxated patella, could even be a ligament pull.

If your pup has started standing on or walking on the leg already..it's a good chance it'll heal without surgery.

LP surgery is a high dollar.. high profit ( for the Vet) procedure. I say take a conservative approach. Give it a couple of weeks..it can't hurt.

If it is LP though she should have an orthopedic surgeon look at it and it wont heal on its own also waiting to long on LP will make the possibility of arthritis grow and they say puppies heal better then adult yorkies in most cases of LP surgery.

[My baby Milo]

Milo is back to normal i think or his knee dont hurt any more. He's not holding it up at all. I am going to take him back in about 2 week tho for the vet to check on it. I hope he won't have to have the knee surgery. I was really worried about it.

[Lovetodream88]

Originally Posted by My baby Milo

Milo is back to normal i think or his knee dont hurt any more. He's not holding it up at all. I am going to take him back in about 2 week tho for the vet to check on it. I hope he won't have to have the knee surgery. I was really worried about it.

If its LP it doesn't just get better. It will be an off an on thing that can lead to arthritis. Like I have been saying I would not let a regular vet make a decision and do surgery on my yorkies knee an orthopedic surgeon should be consulted. Something that bothers me is when a human has to get surgery involving a bone they have to go to an orthopedic surgeon but when a dog has to have a bone worked on they don't have to so some people end up getting it done by a regular vet and it turns out going wrong or something because the regular vet is just not trained the way an orthopedic surgeon is. But I feel saying this is no good because it doesn't sound like your even going to have an orthopedic surgeon look at it.

[My baby Milo]

If I find one i will but in our area i haven't found one yet.

[Ringo1]

Surgery isn't always recommended for LP - it depends on the severity and current symptoms.

Lucy has Grade 3 and so far, none of the 4 Vets she has seen (we moved) has recommended surgery for her LP.

But, preventative measures can still be taken - keep weight down, limit jumping (ha!); consider supplementing with Glucosamine . . all with your Vet's approval of course.

IF it gets to the point to where you need surgery - then I would go with an Orthopedic surgeon as well.

Good Luck

[sashacarlino]

Good morning I was just reading you post about your Lucy having grade 3 luxating patella. I was hoping for some advice I have a yorkie who just turned 5 and never once did she show any signs of it until November. she ran into her food dish and flipped over she began limping took her to our vet and he said it was luxating patella probably caused by injury gave some meds and six weeks rest and she was great until wed she skid on the floor and now limped on the other leg. Took her in and she was graded 2. The original leg went to a one. He feels now that she was born with this. So more meds and one month rest. It's killing me that my baby has this. We bought steps for couch and bed and she's been using them but she would sometimes jump on or off bed it's hard to keep her from doing that. I would so much appreciate your experience with this he did not recommend surgery for her yet. But my feat is can she still run and play with this or is she going to be limited I am so scared for her. Thanks for listening

[Ringo1]

Originally Posted by sashacarlino

Good morning I was just reading you post about your Lucy having grade 3 luxating patella. I was hoping for some advice I have a yorkie who just turned 5 and never once did she show any signs of it until November. she ran into her food dish and flipped over she began limping took her to our vet and he said it was luxating patella probably caused by injury gave some meds and six weeks rest and she was great until wed she skid on the floor and now limped on the other leg. Took her in and she was graded 2. The original leg went to a one. He feels now that she was born with this. So more meds and one month rest. It's killing me that my baby has this. We bought steps for couch and bed and she's been using them but she would sometimes jump on or off bed it's hard to keep her from doing that. I would so much appreciate your experience with this he did not recommend surgery for her yet. But my feat is can she still run and play with this or is she going to be limited I am so scared for her. Thanks for listening

Well, I am in your same boat pretty much. Lucy was born with luxating patella and it will never go away. We know that. She has done fine with it ~ until now.

She has been on crate rest this past week - but let her out for a good while yesterday; she immediately wanted to run and play, slid on the wood floors and held the back leg up for a minute. I can't say that she will NEVER need surgery for her knee - but right now we have more pressing health concerns for her.

My vet is a firm believer that a dog is going to be a dog and it will be very difficult to keep them from running and playing. I think the steps for couch and bed and good ideas but I don't know that you can stop this from happening again.

I say only what the ER vet said to be when he first diagnosed Lucy - be wary if surgery is recommended right away for a low-level LP. He did not think it was always necessary. But now that Lucy is graded with a 3 (grading is a little bit subjective BTW) I can see a time when she might need surgery.

That surgery may or may not be 100% helpful. Certainly, I am not going to keep her on crate rest all the time! I'm going to let her enjoy her life; play; do what she can do; and if she eventually needs surgery - then so be it. We'll do it and hope for the best.

Take one day at a time and I wish I had more answers for you!

[My baby Milo]

My Milo has been doing really good. He don't hold his leg up anymore or show signs of it hurting. My vet told me to give it a little time to see if it gets better and it has. It's been a month and I am going to take him back and let him check it. I don't think he needs surgery anymore.

[sganow]

Our Maggie has grade 3 LP in both legs and so far she has only had one flare-up. The vet gave her an injection and some meds and we had to keep her rested for awhile and she was ok. This was almost a year ago now. You would never know she has it by the way she acts. The vet told us that if it becomes a chronic problem for her she would need surgery and said we would need a surgeon to do it. They said they could help set it up when/if the time comes. We plan to hold off for now unless she has more trouble with it.

[Buster Brown]

Buster has LP in both his back legs and arthritis in his front. He had surgery on one knee and if the other starts acting up we may need it for that one. I went to a Board certified orthopedic surgeon he said along with jumping up and down off of furniture that running and turning sharp corners on wooden floors cause a lot of stress on the knees. IF your dog is lifting it's paw off the ground it is a sign of pain. LP does not always require surgery but you do have to try and limit the jumping and sliding on wood floors to prevent injuries. here is a link to find Board Certified Orthopedic Vets.
ACVS - Diplomate Directory
Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine

[sashacarlino]

What type of injection did the vet give her? Sasha also stopped limping but is still on restriction for another three weeks then back to vet for her check up. I so so upset that she has this problem I can't seem to understand how after five years it surfaced now I hope all your babies get better

[My baby Milo]

Update on Milo's LP. He started holding his leg up again so I took him to another vet for second opinion and she said that it was a grade 1 maybe 2. And she wasnt worried about that right now She thought he had some pain in his hip. I asked her how she knew that and she said that when she checked his hips that he didn't like for her to feel back there. She said that it shouldn't bother him for her to check his hips. I thought he just didn't like a strange person to be touching him. The other vet said nothing about his hips. The new vet wanted to sedate him and do X-rays to check his hips. She said sometimes that they will hold their legs up from a hip problem. Has anyone heard of that?

[Ellie May]

If a vet is isolating pain to the hip area, they need to be xrayed. I'm not so sure that sedation is needed unless your pup is very uncooperative.

[Lovetodream88]

Originally Posted by My baby Milo

Update on Milo's LP. He started holding his leg up again so I took him to another vet for second opinion and she said that it was a grade 1 maybe 2. And she wasnt worried about that right now She thought he had some pain in his hip. I asked her how she knew that and she said that when she checked his hips that he didn't like for her to feel back there. She said that it shouldn't bother him for her to check his hips. I thought he just didn't like a strange person to be touching him. The other vet said nothing about his hips. The new vet wanted to sedate him and do X-rays to check his hips. She said sometimes that they will hold their legs up from a hip problem. Has anyone heard of that?

Callie's orthopedic surgeon had to sedate her for X-rays and she did great. If the vet thinks its the hips I would go ahead with the X-rays.

[My baby Milo]

Thanks, I think that what we need to do to, to find out what's really going on with my little fellow.