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Canine Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA & IMHA) - Which operation for Cruciate Ligament Tears
| Our 6 year old medium sized mixbreed has damaged her Cruciate Ligament. The sysmptoms started off with a mild limp then over the course of 2 weeks it has become more lame and now she does not use it at all and opts to hop around on 3 legs. We have been reccommended to have surgery but we are not able to choose between the 2 options given. I have found plenty of good and horror stories on one option but am not able to find a great deal of information on the other option. We have been told the 2 options are either Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy - TPLO the TTO version or Lateral Extracapsular Stabilisation. It seems they both have Pro's and Con's but I was just wondering if anyone could give some slightly impartial advice which may help make the right choice for our dog. She is a very active dog and I would hate for her to be impaired in her ability to walk or run. Any advice would be greatfully recieved. Michelle |
| Michelle UK |
| Dear Michelle -- I cannot help you on the two specific types of cruciate ligament surgery you've identified, but my dear Wiley injured her left ACL and had surgery to replace her cruciate ligament on 17 July 2003. It was a great success, and her repaired left leg was stronger than her right leg after the surgery. I had been quite concerned at the time, because Wiley was almost 9 years old, but the vet who performed the surgery told me he'd done surgeries on dogs as old as 12 who had recovered just fine. Wiley's problem was that she was an overweight beagle who was still active -- if she'd been a couch potato, the injury might not have happened. She also developed hypothyroidism in 2002-2003, and the vet believes that her ligaments might have weakened because of the importance of the thyroid in all bodily tissues, organs, and functions. I checked her into the vet in the morning, and they performed surgery later that day. She was released the next day and we had to take things slowly, but by 4-6 weeks later, she was doing great. Best of luck to you. |
| Brenda VA |
| My wonderful Stormie had both back legs operated on for cruciate repair. She was 4 and 7 years old when this was done. The first time her cruciate was totally snapped. Both surgeries were completely successful and after 6 weeks we were back to normal. When she was almost 10 she developed AIHA and I lost her within 48 hours. Her leg surgery gave her back to me...and our slow walks of leisure... Hope this helps! Mrs. Gates |
| Mrs. Gates Michigan |
| My yellow lab, Dream had traditional repairs done on both right and left within about 8 months of each other, both were complete tears. They say 50% of dogs injure the other ACL during or shortly after the recovery period. She has done well, she was almost 9 when they were done and has had no problems since. I had just commented to my hubby the other day, her sister who is just a year older is having such a hard time with stairs and such, Dream still can take them two at a time and runs like a pup at 11 years old. The most difficult part of the surgery is the recovery period, with Dream it was 9 weeks of no stairs, leash walking only for potty, keeping her quiet - no running, jumping or playing with the other dogs, etc. My Vet is a no nonsense kind of guy that will not do any procedures that are not necessary, or overly expensive. We discussed the pros and cons of traditional versus TPLO - he felt traditional works just as well and has less risk. I trusted him and am very happy I did, especially after reading some of the horror stories regarding TPLO. There is a yahoo group called orthodogs, they have wonderful information and support on this issue you may want to join that group and ask around. Please feel free to email me, I do have some interesting tips for getting thru recovery (things we found out, that we would have never thought of til it happened to us LOL). blessings, Julie |
| Julie IL |
| I don't know if you've decided already but Orthodogs is great. It's a tough decision based on what medium is. I have a small dog (5 lbs) and was prepared to do the old surgery but apparently (knock on wood), conservative management prior to our appt. solved the issue and she runs arounds on a diagnosed torn ACL including doing agility. Tears are hard to diagnose (ie maybe it wasn't a complete tear for mine?). There is a conservative management group as well so you may want to read there about how much restriction is necessary. The surgery basically stabilizes the knee until scar tissue can form for further stability. On small dogs I did read that many times they can form enough stability overtime since they don't have as much weight to carry around. I was also told that some humans choose not to repair ACLs, which surprised me. One option I wanted to recommend is that there is a group doing stem cell treatments for ACLs and depending on your finances this could be worth a try. Here's the link. http://www.vet-stem.com/smallanimal/ with an article http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1817572,00.html there may be other companies doing this as well so it's worth a google... Mary and Missy in Tx |
| Mary Tx |
This thread was discussed between 13/07/2008 and 30/07/2008
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