Grade II Ambulatory Dog Became Paralyzed AFTER Surgery Help!
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:48 pm
Hi everyone I’m new to this group but it’s been very helpful so far. I have a 10 year old male Daschund who was a Grade II going into surgery (able to walk with a limp and had deep pain sensation as well as continence). He had a ruptured disc at T13-L1 and was not getting better with steroid treatment after 6 weeks and slowly began to decline. This was his second episode of weakness in back legs so we decided to do surgery after recommendations from 2 different surgeons.
He received surgery on 9/4/18 and right after had no deep pain and is paralyzed from the waist down with no urinary continence. The surgeon noted in his report he had deep pain and motor function! It was clear that he could not move his legs at all and I brought him back to the surgeon and he corrected himself and said I was right, he has no motor function. He said deep pain is subjective but he believed he had some. It has now been the 2 week mark and he has received 2 treatments of acupuncture. The rehab vet stated yesterday that it is still questionable whether my dog has deep pain because he’s very hard to test (crying no matter if you’re pinching his toes with clamps or not) and definitely no motor function or urinary continence.
Needless to say, I am in a state of shock about what happened. I had a dog who could walk (albeit slow) and go to the bathroom by himself. I can’t help but feel completely guilty for getting him this surgery. I thought it would relieve the serious pain he was in (which it has), but wish he could walk again.
Please let me know if anyone here has any experience with a dog who walked before surgery and didn’t after. It would be really helpful to hear any advice.
Forgot to mention this is my second daschund with IVDD. My girl went into emergency surgery 2 years ago with complete loss of deep pain in both legs and started walking again 2 months after surgery. She showed more signs of improvement than my male dog and kept her urinary continence the whole time. I’m really worried the surgeon did some permanent damage on my male dog. Please help!
He received surgery on 9/4/18 and right after had no deep pain and is paralyzed from the waist down with no urinary continence. The surgeon noted in his report he had deep pain and motor function! It was clear that he could not move his legs at all and I brought him back to the surgeon and he corrected himself and said I was right, he has no motor function. He said deep pain is subjective but he believed he had some. It has now been the 2 week mark and he has received 2 treatments of acupuncture. The rehab vet stated yesterday that it is still questionable whether my dog has deep pain because he’s very hard to test (crying no matter if you’re pinching his toes with clamps or not) and definitely no motor function or urinary continence.
Needless to say, I am in a state of shock about what happened. I had a dog who could walk (albeit slow) and go to the bathroom by himself. I can’t help but feel completely guilty for getting him this surgery. I thought it would relieve the serious pain he was in (which it has), but wish he could walk again.
Please let me know if anyone here has any experience with a dog who walked before surgery and didn’t after. It would be really helpful to hear any advice.
Forgot to mention this is my second daschund with IVDD. My girl went into emergency surgery 2 years ago with complete loss of deep pain in both legs and started walking again 2 months after surgery. She showed more signs of improvement than my male dog and kept her urinary continence the whole time. I’m really worried the surgeon did some permanent damage on my male dog. Please help!