Coping With Animal Health Problems

A year and a half ago, my wife and I noticed our 7-and-a-half-year old lab/dalmation mix limping on his left, hind leg. There was no noticeable cause but it didn’t go away with time. He sometimes lifted his left leg when he walked to keep the pressure off it and he could no longer sit, because it hurt him to put weight on his leg that way. At times he whimpered in pain.

We took him to our primary veterinarian and she said he had swelling in the joint of his left leg and it was probably from osteoarthritis. She referred us to a surgeon in a local animal hospital.

The surgeon confirmed the osteoarthritis diagnosis and scheduled a surgery. In the surgery, the Vet noticed extensive damage, repaired the joint by reshaping the bones, removed a damaged piece of cartilage, and removed a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament.) The cost of the surgery was about $1,800. We also had his teeth cleaned (and one tooth was found to be cracked and needed to be pulled out) while he was under anesthesia.

After the surgery, at the Vet’s direction, we gave him a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (metacam) that eased his pain while he was healing. The surgery was successful and he was able to walk and run again almost normally, seemingly without too much pain. However, the osteoarthritis is not something that goes away. Sometimes he still would get lame at the end of a long walk.

Once the healing was complete, the Vet said we could continue to give him the metacam before a long walk and it would help reduce the post-walk lameness by preventing an insult to his injury. The Vet said we could also supplement the metacam with coated aspirin.

The surgery did relieve the symptoms and for a year and a half he did well.

Now he is nine-years old and he has a limp in his other leg and the diagnosis is once again osteoarthritis (in his other leg joint) and probably another torn ACL.

At the Vet’s suggestion, we are giving him steady doses of metacam until we can save enough money to have the next operation. The metacam is expensive, something like $84 dollars for a large bottle, but the $84 goes a long way and he is doing very well on it and he can walk and run with hardly any lameness.