Giving Joint Guard - Help Please?

[Rottifan]

Just an update. Finally today was our Animal Options appointment.

My dog has hip dysplasia, not arthritis. My local vet was wrong wrong wrong.

I am pretty upset at the thought of my dog having this condition, but very glad I decided to pursue it further. The vet said that he is not a candidate for surgery, so that is a good thing atleast.

Boy, and I thought giving Joint Guard was hard. My dog now has a host of other tablets that all have to be given multiple times a day, some without food, some with. The medication is just a nightmare now. Poor dog had three needles today too.

But gee, when I read through a list of the symptoms of hip dysplasia, my dog has all the symptoms. Last vet appointment with the local vet I was told my dog has arthtiris in both his back knees and his hips were fine. Rowan said today that my dogs back knees were perfectly fine, so I really don't understand why I was told he had arthtitis in his knees by the local vet. I'll just really staggered by this, my local vet is supposedly the best one in the area, and all the locals rave about them.

Dont EVER stop getting second opinions. Every person that you see (whether they have a heap of letters after their name or not) have different experiences with different conditions I have found. My dogs been to many vets, vet specialists, vet chiropractors and other animal chiropractors. He was diagnosed with severe elbow and hip displaysia at the age of 7 - something that I now know vets should have been able to tell by looking at him at a younger age when I had made enquiries due to the amount of muscle wastage he has. When he was severely lame and on pain killers at 7yrs of age (which kept wearing off and symptoms returning) I sought an opinion outside of the vet world and looked to chiropractors. I know that he has these conditions, the same as your dog, HOWEVER the chiropractor I went to that I got the best results from, after a few treatments got him walking like a puppy again. He just turned 10 and a half and has been on NO supplements / pain killers since the age of 7 and is doing superbly. He is a bad case - 2 different specialist centres diagnosed him as being unable to be operated on, no joint replacement or fusing/scraping possible due to how bad he was. The symptoms I now know were not being caused by the displaysia but by pinched nerves in his back and the referral pain caused by this. Nerves properly released and symptoms have disappeare and stayed away and his muscle has now rebuilt. My vet now also refers people to the mobile animal chiropractor I use. Having a mobile chiro - especially if your dog has muscle wastage, also sees more benefits with not bundling your dog in and out of the car or sitting in stop start traffic which can undo the work of the treatment because with muscle wastage it doesnt take much for them to go back out of alignment again at the start. Best of luck but please dont stop looking elsewhere to ensure you get the best results in all aspects of your dogs life, I did and I cant be happier!