Hallo. My poor boy -- as the vet said: if he has a slipped disk and epilepsy, he is really unlucky. He has epilepsy (and also very itchy skin), now wondering if he has a slipped disk... A month ago he appeared paralysed one morning, could not stand up. Blood tests showed epilepsy meds (Potassium Bromide) in the toxic range -- the meds can cause ataxia. Dose is now halved, will retest blood in about a week's time. Then two weeks ago he would go sleep on the kitchen tiles after his dinner (normal routine) and wake up a couple of hours later, stand, and VERY stiffly walk over to his bed. On two occasions he let out a cry as he sat on his bed. We gave him a canine anti-inflammatory on both occasions. A couple of days after those two cries, we took him out for the day in the car, and he screamed in pain as he was trying to leap through the very thick, soft mud at a lake. Cried all the way home in the car, couldn't find a comfortable position. Got home and wouldn't move for three hours, screamed each time he tried to stand. Gave him two anti-inflammatories (with guidance on the phone from the emergency vet, it was a Sunday) and then the next day Monday took him to our regular vet. On the Monday at our regular vet he was "as happy as Larry" and there was not one ounce of evidence that he'd ever screamed in pain. (The vet must think we are mad!) But she said our description reminded her of her own dog that had a slipped disk, recovered well with surgery. Only way to find out is with an MRI and proper diagnosis from the specialist vet, which we will do in the coming weeks. She manipulated his neck but he showed no signs of pain. She did, however, prescribe anti-inflammatories for 4 days, two per day. For those four days he was unbelievably happy, I guess totally pain free. A few days ago I was in our local park and chatting to a fellow dog owner. The person is a surgeon (for humans) and said a slipped disk always creates pain, that my dog running around as he was did not look like a slipped disk candidate (hadn't been on anti-inflammatories for a few days). He said that if he is in pain he suggested that the problem might be with his hips, because that can recover with rest -- except he can leap onto our bed no problem and his hind leg muscles feel like steel! But there has been an occasion when I had to help him out of the swimming pool, who knows why, but a pain somewhere or maybe a weakness was hindering him from getting out (he has to leap out of the pool from a seat cos our pool steps do not provide easy exit from the pool--bad design!). The surgeon also suggested taking him off the Potassium Bromide and administering valium on the occasions he does have a seizure. I'll ask the specialist about this option, too, as the Potassium Bromide does have side effects, one of them being hind quarter weakness. I am writing on this forum because I'd like to know if anyone else has had this experience of a dog in pain and to guide me on what questions I need to ask my regular vet and the specialist. And any other advice you may wish to impart on any of my poor boy's ailments! It is such a worry, I am in a state of anxiety most of the time worrying about my darling dog. Thank you! P.S. Before buying my Lab, I had researched breeders and selected one based on her reputation. I guess my boy is unlucky, or the breeder used a poor breeding pair in this case, the latter being what I suspect because his brother had bilateral elbow dysplasia at one years old and his sister has snapped both cruciate ligaments. Another brother is totally fine in all respects although can have a sensitive stomach if he eats anything he finds.
I have had very much the same experience with our English Springer Spaniel. Long story short, we decided it must be a pinched nerve post attacks from two teams of huskies. The specialist Vet our regular Vet sent her to after suspecting a broken neck could find no anomalies in her back, spine, disks, nothing. We were unable to wean her off of pain meds without the sporadic pain returning so she was on Prednisone the rest of her life and showed none of the side effects of that strong drug. She lived another 7 years till she was 14 and a half and was able to resume her active life with us, skiing, hiking, canoeing till advance old age. Your dog has a couple of other things going on that our Whisper did not. We could pinpoint a possible cause for nerve damage in the husky team attacks. Still, it might be something to ask your Vet about, a pinched nerve. We had a human friend who went through agony with a pinched nerve too but hers resolved. Good luck. I know that scream, it's chilling. I wanted to have Whisper PTS immediately to save her from what I was told must be excruciating pain but we did find a work around.
Is the screaming in pain always associated with movement or can it be completely spontaneous? This is something your specialist vet will want to know. Spontaneous yelping in dogs is nearly always spinal in origin, often neck pain, and a prolapsed disc is a top candidate as a cause of spontaneous yelping in dogs. Most of these dogs show few signs of pain generally, just the sudden screaming. Something that would be very helpful for your vet would be if you could capture one of these screaming episodes on video, especially the few minutes leading up to one. I know these things are unpredicatable, perhaps investing in a GoPro may be very useful! And I would definitely not take him off KBr without specialist veterinary advice. The more often a dog has a seizure, the more likely it is that they will have another one and so on, so "fire brigade" treatment with diazepam is only usually used to control breakthrough seizures in dogs. Are you based in the UK? If so, your human surgeon should know it is illegal for him to attempt to diagnose or treat any conditions of companion animals......just sayin'....
Some good suggestions already. I would just add if you can keep a diary as to when the screaming with pain happens, what he was doing immediately before, what exercise he'd had etc. It may be that when written down you make start finding a link between a particular type of exercise and the pain. Hopefully a MRI will provide a diagnosis that will help with treatment. Apart from that I definitely wouldn't make any changes to his epilepsy meds. A discussion perhaps with your vet on the pros and cons of a different regime.
Can't help with the slipped disc but you may find it helpful to get in touch with the Phyllis Croft Foundation for Canine Epilepsy. I found them invaluable and my vet even went to a talk they were giving, as most vets are not very 'up' re epilepsy. I would have thought your dog would have been on a low dose of Phenobarbitone plus Potassium Bromide. Valium will only help when the dog is having a fit, ideally the dog should be on medication which helps to control the fits. When my dog first started on Phenobarbitone he was falling about and I almost stopped them, then ten days later he became totally normal and a happy dog. If the fits are not controlled then you are in danger of status epilepticus which is when the dog goes from fit to fit to fit.
Thank you everyone for responding -- it is very comforting! Thank you! Snowie does not scream spontaneously -- it was always in response to movement. Thankfully he has only cried out twice and these weren't screams -- the screams I heard two days later, and yes, spine chilling and PTS was a thought because he had such shock on his face and then did not want to move at all and I could not bear for him to be in so much pain. Thankfully the screaming only happened on one day and happened when he was trying to get out of a muddy lake and again after we got home, when I tried to get him up using a towel under his stomach to support him so that I could get him inside, and then again when he stood to eat his dinner. He stopped screaming when he lay down on all occasions. I had thought then that it was his foot because I found a bloated tick between his pads and felt a lump there thinking it was a grass seed (later the vet said a tick can leave a lump, that it was not a grass seed as grass seeds leave a weeping wound and this wasn't weeping). I think the pattern I am observing regarding his stiffness upon rising is: we go for a longer-than-usual walk, about 1.5 hours on a mountain trail. Later in the evening he will sleep for a long time on cold tiles and then stand up very stiffly. Our usual walks -- about 45 mins -- do not have the same effect. I did wonder if it was a pinched nerve or a seized muscle. He has been very itchy of late -- I think due to the moulting season (I'm in South Africa) -- and has been bending over double to chew his hind quarter area. He goes delirious when I scratch his back -- why doesn't he know he can lie on his back and rub it on the grass like his doggy friends?! So I wonder if a very tight muscle could cause a pinched nerve? I have been massaging his back as well -- he loves it! (Wish my husband would do the same for me every day like I do for Snowie!!!) The other thought is that he has an old injury from when he was about 6 months old. The dog school we were members of then made the dogs wear head halters. Snowie hated it but we persevered because this was the only option allowed. We were doing long-lead training and a long down stay. Snowie, being very social and very immature, saw some dogs playing in the distance and leapt up to join them. The instructor told me to put my foot on the end of the lead to stop him getting away. The poor boy raced at full tilt and met the end of the taut lead and did a somersault, not to mention the whiplash. My heart stopped in that moment. He tended to limp after training and I'm pretty sure it was the head halter. I did have him checked by a vet but there was nothing to find then. The head halters really are no good for inexperienced handlers and dogs that want to race off. Thankfully we found another school who provided a rewards-based approach to training and the use of a chest-fastening halter to control a very powerful dog. But sadly I think that whiplash experience might've caused damage, which I presume an MRI can show. I have started giving him Mobiflex again (chondroitin, glucosamine, and green lipped mussel extract). And for the past few days he has been totally fine. In fact this morning he was exceptionally happy, back to his puppy ways of racing around on our morning mountain walk and mischievously stealing the plastic plant pots at home and dashing around like crazy. But if I am honest, he is definitely slower than before so we do need to get to the bottom of this.
I don't know how you think the stiffness interact with the rest of his symptoms, or if they are separate or related..... But this bit sounds like arthritic stiffness - it's best to do exercise in shorter more frequent walks, have a dog stay off cold surfaces (orthopedic beds are good), gently warm up, and cool down, to avoid this type of stiffness. Hope you get to the bottom of it all.
Exactly what Julie said. I would stick to shorter but more frequent walks, and don't let him sleep on the cold tiles.
I have the exact same experience with Euan, our 10 year old lab. Last year when we were on a weekend holiday in Germany, he had to climb just one staircase. He isn't familiar with stairs, it was his first time in his whole life. After a few times he was screaming. We didn't know what was happening. When we got home he started to scream again and was very stif. I went to our vet and she said she didn't want to make x-rays, but sent us right away to a neuro-surgeon for dogs in a veterinary hospital. He got a MRI under sedation. They kept him under sedation and performed a herniated disk operation. He had to stay in for a whole weekend and after that we took him home and he had crate rest for 6 weeks. He was put on opiates for a few days and after that no more medication. After this operation he never became our old spontaneous Euan. We know now that this operation hadn't be so successful. During our vacation in the USA this September he and our other lab were in a dog kennel. With only 10 dogs in a house, so not in a very crowded, unpersonnally kennel. After we were 1 week away he started screaming again. He got the inflammatory medication called carprodyl, but nevertheless without success. Our dog walker happened to hear about Euan and she collected him to her place to take care of him. Gave him crate rest again. And it helped somewhat. We came home and after 3 weeks when we were out in our own holiday house in the woods, he didn't want to come out of his crate, didn't even lift his head... In the afternoon we went to our vet, she put him on opiates again combined with the medication he stil got, the anti inflammatory carprodyl. After a week on being on opiates I gave hime less until he was no more on the opiates. I know that if he gets pain again I have to start the opiates again. No more operations! It didn't help him and it costed us 4000,-....... Not insured either. But hey, we love him, so we tried to help him without success! I hope you find a solution for your lab. Thinking of you in this hard time!
Anne, I am really sorry to hear about Euan, and thank you so much for sharing your experience. I really felt for you when I read how you described that Euan did not want to lift his head at your holiday house -- how devastating. I think my delay in responding is equal to the feeling of being overwhelmed with what is in store for Snowie and us. Although, having said that, Snowie appears to have recovered amazingly well -- I'm not sure whether it is because of the Mobiflex supplement or whether he is less itchy and not contorting so much to chew and scratch. And if there is an underlying disk issue, no doubt it was exacerbated by all the contorting. We are yet to have the MRI and x-rays. My vet said to wait till the new year because all the specialists are on holiday over the summer school holidays (we are in South Africa -- Cape Town grinds to a halt mid Dec and only starts to reawaken mid Jan). And in keeping with my procrastination, I am relieved to put this off. Perhaps to Snowie's detriment because the sooner we learn what skeletal issues he has, the better. And yet, on our walks he is now scampering around -- something we have not seen since he started the epilepsy meds earlier this year. He is now on reduced meds and I do believe he is coming out of that drug-induced stupor. Or they caused such weakness that he was unable to race around. I am not really sure what physiological action they have. He does still appear to be stiff upon rising -- but not always, and far less often now. It is nigh impossible to keep him off the kitchen floor, which is cool -- it is so hot here that he desperately wants to cool off. But I will take that suggestion on board and see what I can do because I have not seen him arise stiffly after sleeping on the carpet in our bedroom. And I am now definitely aware of soft vs hard surfaces for him to lie on -- I lay on his day (downstairs) bed a few evenings ago and it was really hard!! He does have two blankets on his bed that he squishes up to lay his head on. Upstairs in our bedroom he circulates between the sofa, the carpet on the floor, and the balcony, and early morning on our bed (he won't sleep all night on the bed, too hot for him). But perhaps I need to relook at his downstairs bed and find something softer for him Thank you everyone for alerting me to this! Thankfully we have medical insurance for Snowie so the bill for an MRI and operation are not too daunting.
