Complicated Injuries

When I look at the pics from our most recent flyball tournament it seems so obvious that Dylan was having issues.  When we were there I knew there was a problem but I wasn’t sure exactly which limb was bothering him.  The images make it clear.  See how his left rear leg isn’t extended fully in the image above?    I see the same in many of the pics of him from that day.  It was a tough tournament for me and Dylan was such a good sport and ran  hard despite the injury.  There are still days that I fear that the Santa Clara tournament may have been his last and final flyball tournament.    Only time will really tell.

We saw our holistic vet this week.  I trust her opinion and was anxious to see what she had to say.  Dylan went in to see her right before the tournament and shortly after the trauma.  She didn’t think there was going to be a significant problem at that time.    The injuries we are dealing with now didn’t show up on the thermal imaging we took then.  They also didn’t show up in the same views when we did them on Friday.  However, when she put the thermal camera underneath him to take views of the underside of his rear it was obvious there’s a lot going on under there.  

She looked over his x rays and found some unrelated issues.  She believes there may be a ligament spur in his left shoulder.  She said it would be easier to know for sure if I had done digital x rays.  I wasn’t expecting film but we will redo some x rays of that shoulder in a few months in digital format.    She said it’s not a rush because the injury is the primary issue at this time.

She also thinks there is probably just a touch of arthritis in the Left Elbow.  This elbow was really inflamed in the thermal imaging.  She wasn’t sure if it was hot because of the arthritis or because he is compensating for the injury in his rear.  Time will tell and if the inflammation doesn’t go away when he gets better than we will look into some other options to treat the arthritis.    I’m not sure what this will mean as far as Flyball is concerned.  Rigth now, I am just worrying about getting him better.  That left elbow takes the brunt of the pressure when he turns on the box because he uses it to pivot.  It’s not surprising to see him starting to get arthritis.  I expect doing more box turns will cause the elbow to get worse.   I gotta stop speculating though and focus on the injury until it heals.

She said there are some bones in his pelvis that are fusing.  I guess it’s totally normal when dogs and people age and not something to be overly concered about.  It mostly means he will have less flexibility in his back than he did before. 

When it comes to the rear end, my boy seems to be pretty messed up.  Some inflammation showed up in the right leg and the right hamstring.  We think that’s from the compensation on the right side. 

He had some adjustments in the left leg that will hopefully help him feel better.  There was lots of inflammation on the understide of that left leg.  His gracilis muscle though was cold.  The vet said she thought it had definitely been strained but maybe it is cold because it is healing from the treatment that he had been receiving.  The cold laser therapy in that area probably helped.  He had inflammation pretty much everywhere else all the way from his groin down to his hock.   

When she examined him she rattled off one muscle after another that was stiff and strained.  That leg really took a beating.   Whe he ran into Paul and the fence he hit Paul with that left side.  I am fairly certain he hyper extended that back leg during the process.  

It sounds like there is a lot more complicated issues going on in that back rear leg.    Prior to going up there I had seen some tremoring in his leg when it was sore.  I could touch the leg and cause the tremoring to happen when he was more tired or sore.  During the acupuncture, his leg started tremoring.  The vet said it was his sciatic nerve acting up.  She put a few more needs in and the tremoring stopped.  That scares me a bit - it seems sciatic nerve issues in people cause so many problems.  I am sure the same happens in dogs. 

The vets keep reminding me that he is getting older.  I don’t really want to admit it but his 6th birthday is coming soon.  I never thought of 6 as old but most of the aging dogs I have known were a bit smaller than him.  He’s a good medium to large dog and I know they have shorter lifespans but 6?    It seems so young to be considered “aging”.    I guess he is technically middle aged though and middle aged people don’t bounce back as quickly as young adults do.  The same is true of dogs and at six I can’t expect him to heal as quickly as he did at two. 

More PT this week and hopefully we will start seeing some more improvements.  For the most part he is walking better but there are still days where he is very obviously hurting!!  I just hope for his sake that he heals up sooner rather than later!