About 1 month ago, my 8 year old Border Collie completely tore his CCL and Meniscus to his right rear leg. Neo already had 1 big strike against him. He had broken his left leg when he was a puppy and developed terrible arthritis in that leg.
We had a stem cell transplant in 2010 for the left leg, because it had become too painful. Neo was just about lame on the left back leg. The stem cell transplant did not work. So, Neo has been compensating with his left back leg. But….1 month ago while “herding” a tennis ball he tore his CCL. Now both of Neos back legs are seriously injured.
Neo did fine with the initial surgery but he is not progressing. He has now been placed on muscle relaxers, along with the meloxicam and tramadol. He’s been on muscle relaxers for over a week now because the vet feels he might be having muscle spasms from the unusual way he holds his body, with two painful and weak back legs.
We’ve brought Neo back to the surgeon twice. But I have a feeling we’ll be going back tomorrow.
Am I expecting to much to quickly? Why is my boy still limping, having trouble getting up and down stairs, and just getting up from a prone position?
Does anyone have any suggestions??
Did you have the stem cell treatment with Vet-Stem or the in-house procedure? Stem cells worked really well for Jasmine.
Which surgery did he have for the torn ligament?
Did you try massage, physical therapy or chiropractic?
Note: going up and down the stairs should not be allowed this early after surgery
Not sure how old this is but I had the same issue. After 8 months of hearing the surgeon (traditional repair) say “he’s fine, the surgery worked” I took him to a very experienced orthovet who said that his knee was completely unstable, he had a partial torn meniscus, and he needed to redo it. Or I could let him live with this.
Well, I couldn’t let him live with this. My guy has bad hips, elbows, shoulders, etc. He cannot take having an unstable knee.
So, it was redone – surgeon’s specialty – TPLO (which I had hoped to avoid), and he’s fine now. He has some arthritis and is still sore but today is his official 8-month anniversary from the TPLO and trust me, it’s like night and day.
I knew something was wrong because he wouldn’t put a lot of weight on it. wouldn’t use it to go up stairs, wouldn’t jump on the couch, etc – basically, he wasn’t the same as before. He could walk on it, but his stride was shortened on that unstable knee.
He can do all of that again now, even at 10 yrs old.
Thank you for the information. I’m just worried that he is still growing and If they put this plate in to repair the acl, you would think that would do something to his growing upwards. I just cant let his limp and he keeps lifting his leg to take the weight off.
I don’t understand how he can limp around and then act like a crazy dog in the yard (running back and forth)..