Hemivertebrae & IVDD Surgery

[jaseky]

Hi, My name is Janet. I have a 5 year old pug named Cooper. He came to me from a breeder at 9 weeks old. At 4 1/2 months he was noticeably slipping on my wood floors. After a vet visit, a referral to a veterinary neurologist, and an MRI I was told he had Hemivertebrae located at T7 & T8 - two vertebrae did not form correctly in utero and as he was growing, it was compressing the spine more and more. The prognosis was bleak..... paralyzed & incontinent by 9 months. My little guy defied all odds. After declining until age 1, he began noticeably improving..... to the point he was racing around, doing his potty business in the normal male positions, and standing on his hind legs! He hummed along just fine until this past November when he began dragging his back legs. Back we went to the veterinary neurologist..... another MRI revealed 2 herniated discs in his back and1 in his neck. He wanted to address the two in his back first, let him heal, then address the one in his neck. Surgery was performed the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. When the surgeon called me after the surgery he said one of the two in his back was his actual birth defect so it was bone compressing the spine and not disc material. He decompressed that area as well as the disc material in the one just above (T6). If he had called me I would have said to leave his birth defect alone. It's now been 6 weeks tomorrow and my little Cooper is still not walking. He can stretch his legs and toes, has resistance when I do passive range of motion exercises and responds to pinching his feet & toes. He can stand on his own - a little wobble but I spot him. He can pee on his own but he is not willing to walk with his front legs to find a spot to do so..... I manually express. He can tell when he has to poop as well and tries to squat if he is on his feet. Has any one had experience with surgical decompression of a hemivertebrae? I am heartbroken...

[CarolC]

From what you say, I would be inclined to be optimistic his hind legs will improve with time, since he can stand and has the ability to urinate voluntarily. Many people would be ecstatic to have their dog doing so well at 6 weeks after surgery. 6 weeks is still early days for healing of a disk injury, I would not be too concerned that he is not walking well yet. The description of not wanting to walk with his front feet sounds like the neck issue might be affecting him there, and that is concerning. I don't think I have heard of a situation where a dog had disks in both the neck and back causing problems at once. You need to be very careful with a neck injury. I would think he should be on very strict crate rest for that, and handle like eggs. You might ask the vet if he can try any medication for the neck while you are waiting to see if he is going to have neck surgery, such as prednisone, or at least tramadol, and possibly muscle relaxers. If it was my dog I would not mind if he was a little zonked out if it helps him stay quiet and rest his neck. Some disk problems will improve with 6-8 weeks of strict rest and medication, it would be worth a try for the neck problem. Here is a link about crate rest.

http://www.dodgerslist.com/literature/conservative.htm

[jaseky]

Thank you for your response :O) He is on his 2nd round of a 3 week steroid regiment. I took him back to his regular vet last week to request it. I forgot to include that in my first post. That seems to be helping. I also have tramadol which I had been hesitant to give him but I've been giving it to him more lately. He sometimes moves around too much and I think that makes him uncomfortable. I was under the impression from the surgeon that he would be up and walking within a few weeks.... they have me doing light PT and I'm manually expressing right now even though he can pee by himself. Other than that he is resting either in his crate or next to me on the couch. Thank you for the encouragement!

[jaseky]

Cooper is now 11 1/2 weeks post surgery. Whatever happened at 4 weeks when he had the setback and required another round of steroids weakened his right side-which used to be his stronger side. The surgeon kept him on steroids until recently. Last Thursday was his last dosage. So maybe I can say good-bye to the 'hangry' (hungry & angry) Cooper and get my sweet pug boy back! A week and 1/2 ago all of a sudden he started wanting to play with his toys during a PT session so I knew he was finally feeling better.... we started rehab. He's been to 2 sessions. They suggested getting him outside on short walks with his harness k leash and a silk tie around his hind end. He's loving it but not peeing by himself like before. They put him back on bethanicol again to see if that would help. He's trying and will squirt a little if I get him started manually. He's been on it almost 2 weeks. Not sure how long he can be on it? He frog legs to walk and is trying to get up. Can I still be hopeful? Any ideas why he stopped peeing on his own? I thought it was just because I only manually expressed but not so sure now. The surgeon thought he might have had a mini stroke in his spine. He also came down with really bad diarrhea last weekend so has been on meds for that and skipped rehab last week.

[critters]

I don't know how long they can take bethanechol. My Buddy was on phenoxybenzamine (PBZ) at huge doses for a long time, but I don't know if bethanechol is different.