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It's been 4 weeks since my boy had his injections and I thought it is timely to check in and let you know how he is going. I am super happy with the results so far. My boy, who is nearly 8, has arthritis and very cranky knees and elbows. Over the past few weeks he has become much more agile, more comfortable in moving around, in getting up from a laying down position and just happier in general. His endurance hasn't improved but that's not really a bad thing. Ray, his vet, is also very pleased with how he is going. We are back at the vet in 8 weeks time - hopefully there will be some more improvement over that time, but if not, I'll still be happy with the outcome overall.

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Beautiful news Fozzie. Thank you for the update. Congratulations and I hope there is more good news to come soon.

Ain't these little stem cells absolutely wonderful :D

BTW Kluska's endurance has not improved by much either - that's very ok with us. She is happy.

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Endurance is often a cardiovascular issue. Slowly build up their exercise to allow their hearts/ lungs to grow stronger. The osteoarthritis has slowed them down and their fitness has declined.

Very happy to hear how the dogs are responding. Ray is a master at identifying the dogs that will get maximum benefit from the cells.

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My boy is his own worst enemy, his pain threshold is very high, so am comfortable if his endurance doesn't improve as he would only run himself into the ground. I am so pleased his movement has improved, mainly from the perspective that he is in less pain so a happier boy.

Ray has been great, I highly recommend him. Thanks for the referral Inevitablue! I'm glad I took the time to investigate this for my boy - it's been so worthwhile :)

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Spoke to my regular vet yesterday regarding stem cells after my dog has his elbow surgery at the specialists next week and he is dead against it, even more so than the surgeon!! He feels that we are risking infection by even considering it.... I'm not happy that neither one of them is willing to try something new.

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Such a shame, when you see other people in this thread who are really happy.

Regenerative medicine is something new, and some people are just resistant. I will say that the 'risk of infection' is a weak argument. Even when I was doing the fat harvest method we would use some Gentamicin to cover for anything. The cultured cells come in sealed containers direct from thawing at Monash Uni. Some vets like to put the dogs on a course of AB's (often clav) and that's fine, doesn't impact on the cells.

With more and more people talking about it then the percentage of vets using them will grow.

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Just following on from helen's question, is stem cell therapy used mainly for severe cases of arthritis, say where the dog is not responding to nsaids or other medication? Or is it also useful for arthritis that is not so severe.

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It's good to do the treatment when you start seeing the symptoms of arthritis. It's easier to repair 50% damage then it is to repair 90% damage. Dogs with say 90% damage still get good responses, however it makes sense to not wait until the joint degeneration is high.

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I know this is a bit of an old thread but was hoping to get some advice. My vet has suggested I try stem cells on my boy. He is a 10 year old rotti x who has spondylosis in his back and arthritis. At the moment he gets monthly cartophen, accupuncture and herbs (plus pain killers when needed). He also has inflammatory bowel disease.

The vet thinks he is a good candidate for the stem cells and he does the take your own fat type. I am worried as he is a bit older I dont really want him being cut open and sore. I was wondering what people thoughts were on what was the best option use donor cells or his own?

Also has anyone had it help spondylosis?

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Im just over having to fight for new things to be used, i like to titre test not just vaccinate and i havd to fight for that to.

Are they against it forever? I personally wouldn't be rushing to do it so soon after the initial surgery. The tissues around the elbow will be traumatized, leaving them more susceptible to infection. And the stem cell procedure requires another GA ad far as I am aware.

But I wouldn't rule it out once he has recovered fully from the surgery.

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I know this is a bit of an old thread but was hoping to get some advice. My vet has suggested I try stem cells on my boy. He is a 10 year old rotti x who has spondylosis in his back and arthritis. At the moment he gets monthly cartophen, accupuncture and herbs (plus pain killers when needed). He also has inflammatory bowel disease.

The vet thinks he is a good candidate for the stem cells and he does the take your own fat type. I am worried as he is a bit older I dont really want him being cut open and sore. I was wondering what people thoughts were on what was the best option use donor cells or his own?

Also has anyone had it help spondylosis?

Spondylosis - unfortunately stem cells wont help this condition, due to extra bone growth in the form of osteophytes.

The autologous technique of taking your dogs own fat is becoming outdated, which is a pain for vets who did invest in the equipment. Your correct, there is no need to cut him open anymore. If you have kept the weight off him it can lead to a bigger incision, the fatter dogs tended to end up with smaller incisions (no searching for adipose tissue)

It is much less stress on the dog to have the donor cells, only one short GA if you decide on intra articular (inject directly into the joint) or no GA at all if you decide to do intravenous (just on a drip for 30min).

Any vet in Australia can order the allogeneic (laboratory grown) cells. Do some research and have a look here

If he is particularly sore and arthritic in his hips then delivering the cells right into the joint is the best, but if he sore all over IV can be more beneficial. In a older dog they will have varying degrees of degeneration throughout their body so the drawback to IV is that the cells could be attracted to stronger chemotastic signalling from organs and other tissue etc. At the moment it is just straight mesenchymal stem cells being used, but scientists are madly working on starting the cell differentiation pathway to what we want them to become prior to injection, that way every dog treated can just get an IV dose.

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