Chief has been our little medical mystery. We had noticed that over the last few months he had been pretty uncoordinated. He has always been a "bull in a china shop" but it seemed to be getting worse. He would fall down frequently and lean on us for support. On our walks he would drag his front foot which caused him to scuff his nails down to the quick. That would leave him with bloody nails and a mess on the floor. I also noticed him stumbling on our walks and he would tire out easily.
We did a little Internet research and found that Chief had the classic signs for Wobbler's syndrome. It is a cervical instability where the bones move and pinch part of the spinal cord. It interrupts the messages from the brain and his feet don't move when/where they are supposed to.
We went to the vet and he confirmed our diagnosis. He did an interesting neurological test where he flipped his feet over to see how long it took him to get them right side up. He didn't do very good. It left us with two options....steroids or surgery. We decided to start him on the steroid to see how he responded and they also took a blood sample to make sure everything was looking good on the inside.
I think he is doing somewhat better with the steroids. He isn't getting any worse and he doesn't drag his feet, but he is still un-coordinated at times. The unfortunate thing about the medication is that it makes him drink and pee A LOT. He just took his last dose so now we will just wait and see how he does.
His blood work came back great, except for a super low value on his thyroid hormone. So, we ran another more expensive test which came back with mixed results. One value was normal while the other was sky high. The vet decided to put him on a low dose of thyroid hormone since he was having issues and diagnosed him with hypothyroidism. We will do another blood test in 6 weeks to determine if the medication is helping or not. Unfortunately, it is a life-long disease so he will have to take the medication forever!
To cheer him up, Jonathan took Chief to work for the day to hang out with all the guys. I thin they both really enjoyed it!
We went to the vet and he confirmed our diagnosis. He did an interesting neurological test where he flipped his feet over to see how long it took him to get them right side up. He didn't do very good. It left us with two options....steroids or surgery. We decided to start him on the steroid to see how he responded and they also took a blood sample to make sure everything was looking good on the inside.
I think he is doing somewhat better with the steroids. He isn't getting any worse and he doesn't drag his feet, but he is still un-coordinated at times. The unfortunate thing about the medication is that it makes him drink and pee A LOT. He just took his last dose so now we will just wait and see how he does.
His blood work came back great, except for a super low value on his thyroid hormone. So, we ran another more expensive test which came back with mixed results. One value was normal while the other was sky high. The vet decided to put him on a low dose of thyroid hormone since he was having issues and diagnosed him with hypothyroidism. We will do another blood test in 6 weeks to determine if the medication is helping or not. Unfortunately, it is a life-long disease so he will have to take the medication forever!
To cheer him up, Jonathan took Chief to work for the day to hang out with all the guys. I thin they both really enjoyed it!
No comments:
Post a Comment