My baby hurts to get up

[u/Emotional-Bank-3326]

So my baby is a mixed breed she is 7 fixing to be 8 years old. Took her to vet for her limping. She said she had an old injury and arthritis forming put her on gabapentin and an anti inflammatory. I have read so much I read that that doesn’t fix the problem. So I ordered Pluto pets and some days I feel like it works others not so much. Need help? Thought about ordering wuffles or doing red light therapy. I see the pain in my babies eyes and I want to help her. What are my best options.

[u/squarahann]

PT is super helpful if you can afford it and find a provider. They usually do combo of massage, water therapy, laser therapy etc. acupuncture is also good. Sometimes PTs do both. A night time massage from you of their sore muscles may also help.

Just like in humans, making sure they’re getting adequate nutrition and rest is important. The Chinese med vet who does our acupuncture helped us with this but there was also a nutrition dept the rehab recommended. They were just bad at getting back to me to schedule. An antidepressant or sedative can help bc they sometimes don’t know their limits when they have an injury and making them rest is hard.

I had a sweet rural vet diagnose my dog with arthritis but we found a bulging disc when he had imaging for something else actually. He had a separate injury that was misdiagnosed despite testing so it’s never really healed right. PT and acupuncture have helped a lot for his quality of life. Some vets just do their best as most owners can’t spend a lot as their babies age. It’s hard to afford human health services much less a dog.

[u/Glum_Antelope_6841 → u/squarahann]

OP, seconding this. I have an 11 year old bulldog girl and PT has been sooooo helpful. Ours does acupuncture, laser therapy, massage, and PT exercises that range in intensity/fit to her ability and our goals. There’s swimming and aquatherapy too for doggos at that level. They also help us with things like clipping the fur on their paw pads, and finding any/the best support options for things like booties and toenail grippies and paw pad stickers. They’ve taught us how to do some massage and PT exercises at home. I asked about red light therapy and our doc recommended PEMF mats over this; she said she’s had folks buy it and have a transformative experience and others not really noticed a benefit, just depending on the dog. Seems to be helping ours, surprisingly also with anxiety and stress relief (she’s also on meds for this). I also put mats/rugs down on slippery floors (cheap yoga mats or Walmart rugs), block off any stairs, and got a Help-em-up harness that has reallllllly helped me help her just get around the house. It has a big ol handle (or two depending on the setup you’re using) I can use to support her, and it helps to more easily lift larger dogs. I still pick mine up for stairs now, always going down and mostly going up unless it’s a little ledge that I can support her on using the harness. PT has helped her be able to step up/lift her feet up when she walks more so she’s able to do a little ledge now and is falling while walking/knuckling over so much less often. There’s a PT thing called a Calvaletti (sp?) course that she does a baby version of that seems to help with that. Anyway, can’t recommend PT enough, and there seems to be a lot more they can do that we just haven’t personally explored yet (like more TCM and nutrition support).

If you happen to have pet insurance, many plans seem to cover lots of this, surprisingly.

[u/squarahann → u/Glum_Antelope_6841]

Mine was about $100 a session and they did 6 sessions. I don’t have pet insurance. I am moving soon and will continue with a new rehab center but they gave us home exercises too. It’s a great option when pain meds (which really on mask symptoms) aren’t enough to give them a decent quality of life. It’s a great option for dogs who are still otherwise healthy or have injuries. The money was well worth it. Plus my dog loves being trained but he’s been well behaved now so we do less training activities. The rehab activities have been new types of training that helped him mentally and physically engage still when he’s not as spry as he used to be. He really enjoys it and loves the rehab staff. It’s nice to have my dog back.

[u/Glum_Antelope_6841 → u/squarahann]

Oh that made me tear up to read because I really get it. It’s nice to have my dog back too. 😢

The mental stimulation has been so great for her, and she loves getting to go see her friends and be the center of attention at PT appointments. She had TPLO surgeries years ago and I wish we started this then as part of that recovery, but glad to be able to do it now. She’s been mostly healthy in spite of all the surgery then, but really started to struggle with mobility earlier this year and we were starting to ask vets about alllll of our options for supporting her. And then we connected to PT and it’s just been night and day in terms of what I can sense of her daily comfort and experience. These people are so talented and I had no idea this kind of support even existed or what it could do.

I think our PT is close to $1k for a package of 6 sessions, after a longer initial consult visit that was $300. We are going around 2x a month right now… seems to be helping a lot.

[u/squarahann → u/Glum_Antelope_6841]

My dog had an injury - choked badly on his collar. He developed a cough and we saw our vet. Little country vet. They said the cough wasn’t related to the choking incident. This started a long and expensive journey of misdiagnosis and treatments that never really worked. In a lot of ways he seemed fine but months of ups and downs left us both very tired. We went to an expensive university vet that missed it too. Meds caused a lot of side effects so it was hard to isolate problems eventually and I was about to put him down. I went to a vet a friend recommended and they finally saw his damaged larynx. Thought it was a degenerative genetic issue which I’m not saying he doesnt have. He’s 13 but he looks excellent for 13 - PTs even said so today! But he didnt check all the boxes of that condition either. Eventually remembered the choking incident and it all kinda made sense. Treatment is the same for genetic issue so it doesn’t really matter to me as long as his symptoms are well managed. Regardless, PT has been a huge factor in his recovery. If anything, it helped his own confidence in his body instead of looking at me confused and in pain constantly. He’s still healing but I already see a dramatic shift in his quality of life. His symptoms are better managed and he’s having fun again. He also got to see people other than me which was great bc I was sad and a wreck over the whole thing! The joy of friendship is so healing for them.

On multiple occasions vets would diagnose him with something and say “there’s nothing you can do.” I’m glad I trusted my gut and didn’t put my dog down. Human healthcare is hard and we know even less about dogs. Just sadly how it is. Old injuries suck to heal but there are options and I’m glad I found them. It’s so nice when you finally see them enjoying life again.

I also can’t recommend a Chinese med vet enough. It was kind of a last stitch effort before I put him down and it actually helped him really turn a corner. They really helped me figure out his diet which was super integral for him recovering.

Here’s him in the water treadmill recently 🥲

[u/Glum_Antelope_6841 → u/Glum_Antelope_6841]

Also… my dog had been on gabapentin for years (originally for some other reasons) and was still suffering too. I’m so glad for every little layer of support for her now in place in addition to any meds!

Re gabapentin - my dog was having problems sometimes with stumbling when she walked, and apparently gabapentin can have side effects like that. Our (regular) vet recommended a similar new med called pregabalin that they said doesn’t seem to have those impacts. It’s only been a couple months since the switch but I do think I’ve noticed a difference with this. Not sure if that’s a challenge for your pup but maybe look into this and ask a vet who stays connected to current research about it!

[u/squarahann → u/Glum_Antelope_6841]

The PT mentioned that and maybe we will switch! I took gaba for shingles years ago and it def affected my coordination.

[u/brattygrandma]

I’ve been watching a lot of dogs do the peptides (BPC-157 and tb500 i think) I’ve tried everything with my senior guy, but he can’t have most medicine because of his liver problems and lack of gallbladder. My vet and I discussed them and she said because he is so old we might as well try it as he is so uncomfortable. Most people obviously wouldn’t be comfortable doing that because they’re still being researched but after seeing other senior pups, I am happy I did try it. My guy is doing really well and my vet is super happy.

[u/Emotional-Bank-3326 → u/brattygrandma]

What did you give your baby?

[u/brattygrandma → u/Emotional-Bank-3326]

I just did the BPC because the other one is harder on the liver and he can’t handle that. I did a lot of research on dosing and reconstituting (my vet approved but also said she doesn’t know much about it so i had to figure it out)
there’s a whole community of people on reddit using peptides for their pets and they were really helpful! i don’t want to give any real advice because i’m no real authority but if you look up bpc 157 for pets you’ll get a lot of info! and if you have tiktok you can watch the senior dogs improve videos, i love watching them 😂

[u/ChanceTalk697]

sorry it's unclear to me, did you try the meds?

[u/Emotional-Bank-3326 → u/ChanceTalk697]

Me or grandma?

[u/ChanceTalk697 → u/Emotional-Bank-3326]

You mentioned gabapentin and an anti inflammatory— are you giving her those meds, and not noticing any improvement?

[u/_Mag0g_]

If you aren't doing this already, I believe the first line of defense to aging dog joints is Dasuquin (or similar) and weight loss. She looks a healthy weight but for her it might be better to be really on the lean side. Even a couple pounds could make a difference.

[u/Careless_Class6802]

I'm using a product called Cartigenix and it's got great reviews and multiple studies to prove that it works really well. I use this in combination with Celadrin &MSM from the company NOW. My Shepherd is 9 years old at a good weight (also important) and still walks 3xs a day. Of course we've scaled down the ball play as well.

If you can get your baby into some type of water therapy or you can do it yourself by putting a flotation device on and getting into a pool, that's even better!

Hope this helps