My dog, Lady, has ED and both elbows were operated on 3 years ago very successfully really. She'll be 7 in September. Last year she did start getting some problems in one of her elbows when executing tight turns at full speed. She obviously had some very severe pain that caused her to scream and drop to the ground. Her vet thought it was a bit of bone-to-bone contact taking place and suggested we try her on Cartrophen. He reckoned it seemed to work in a proportion of dogs and was worth a try. If it did help, then to repeat in 12 months or earlier if necessary. Well the 12 months are up and Lady has just had the first of 4 repeat injections. She has been much improved over the last 12 months. The high speed turn pain hasn't reappeared at all and her movement has been a lot freer. She's just recently started to show signs of returning stiffness. I had her out working all yesterday afternoon for 3 hours of pretty frequent excitement on pigeon duty moving on clouds of birds and Lady picking up. She did just fine but this morning I didn't walk her far as she was very stiff. Her vet said her elbows weren't showing any changes since he saw her a year ago. The only way you can tell she has ED is that her shoulder muscles aren't as developed as they should be in a Lab, but her hind leg muscles are really well developed indicating she's relieving pressure on her elbows by transferring weight to the back. In other respects fit as a fiddle with good teeth, and good weight. Here's hoping the booster jabs work as well this year.
It sounds great! I was telling my friend about this the other day, saying I know of a couple of dogs who have had success with it. The vets in Andorra aren't really that up to date, so I doubt any of them have used it (I may be doing them a huge disservice) but he's going to the UK with her soon and is going to ask about it them. He was told about some procedure where they inject gold balls into the socket! I've not looked it up yet, sounds expensive!
I have used Cartrohen Vet on two dogs and one cat and been pleased and impressed with all. I believe the gold balls are in relation to acupuncture. Once a successful acupuncture point is determined a gold ball inserted ensures the point is active all the time, not just when the person, or animal, goes for a treatment which might be only once a month or week. I think, since it saves trips to the Vet or Doctor and the fees, it might even be cheaper over the long haul.
I don't think it's acupuncture. I think it's this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1851017/ - although it does state than initially attempted by acupuncturists.
Ah, I just read it a bit more closely. The beads were injected by an acupuncturist. I assume that means they were implanted in specific places, but I don't know if it means that acupuncture needles were being used!
This was on YouTube The points that they chose are acupuncture points - at a guess I would say these ones in the video were on the bladder meridian. Looks like the device for implantation is similar to that used for implants such as hormonal contraceptives, maybe similar to the supralorin, but looks a bit more crude! They look a lot deeper than I would have expected to be honest. Edited to add - these are NOTHING like acupuncture needles LOL
The on-line info on Catrophen says you can expect to see an improvement in mobility after about 2 weeks ie after the second injection. I can actually report an improvement after just a few days following the first injection. Lady is noticeably moving more freely and also running much more already. This was exactly how it was during the first course of injections 12 months ago.
Hi Maddie has a Catrophen booster every month. She's got arthritis in her spine and most joints, is on the full dose of previcox and has tramadol three times a day. The Vet ( who's great) suggested a monthly booster of it as he's had success with other dogs. We do see an improvement but it's all relative to her condition, she's never going to be a sprinter again!
I haven't seen it mentionned, maybe you are all doing this anyway, but Cartrophen Vet injections are sub-q and you can do them yourself if your Vet agrees. I used to buy pre-loaded syringes from my Vet, kept in refrigerator, took empty syringes back to Vet. This was much cheaper and saved the cat in particular the stress of going to the Vet every other week. Not to mention the mileage saved for me. I do know someone who buys enough CV that they load their own syringes.
