3 Year Old Stafford Has Been Limping For A Few Months.may Need Operati

[scolly]

My 3 old stafford starting limping a few months ago.We took her to the vet who took X-rays and didn't find anything.She was put on anti-inflams but the limp didn't improve.she then had a series of infra red treatments on her hock, which is swollen,by another vet who suspects it's a floating piece of bone or cartlige. That didn't work.Another visit to a third vet who thinks the bone chip may be about to break off as it didn't show up in the first set of X-rays.another lot of ant-inflames and bed rest!!!!!!!!, before visiting a specialist vet and an operation.

our last attempt before the specialist is a visit to a chiropractor. she is a very active dog who loves to jumprun around with her mates and go on walks.

has anybody experienced these symptoms with their dog?

[Kiara&Heidi]

I really think you should see the specialist ASAP if she has been limping for so long. Just my opinion but I'm a bit skeptical that a chiro would be able to fix it if you have been to 3 vets and all of them couldn't help. Hopefully it's not anything too serious

[BigDaz]

See the specialist ASAP, the antique x-ray equipment the vet is using may not be able to pick up the real issue. This happened to me, I stuffed around for months wtih medication and vet x-rays, when I finally got referred to the specialist. The specialist x-ray picked up a bone fragemnt in her elbow right away and had it removed but it had gone on for too long and now she has arthritis in the joint as well

[scolly]

See the specialist ASAP, the antique x-ray equipment the vet is using may not be able to pick up the real issue. This happened to me, I stuffed around for months wtih medication and vet x-rays, when I finally got referred to the specialist. The specialist x-ray picked up a bone fragemnt in her elbow right away and had it removed but it had gone on for too long and now she has arthritis in the joint as well

We are going to just eliminating all other possibilities.How did she recover from the operation?

[persephone]

..why waste yet more money , when a specialist visit will probably enable a diagnosis to be finally made ?

[BigDaz]

See the specialist ASAP, the antique x-ray equipment the vet is using may not be able to pick up the real issue. This happened to me, I stuffed around for months wtih medication and vet x-rays, when I finally got referred to the specialist. The specialist x-ray picked up a bone fragemnt in her elbow right away and had it removed but it had gone on for too long and now she has arthritis in the joint as well

We are going to just eliminating all other possibilities.How did she recover from the operation?

My girl had it done 3 years ago and she was doing well. She has recently started limping when first waking or getting up so I am going to request another specialist vet appointment, it may be the arthritis.

After the operation I had to keep her quiet for 3-4 weeks, which is not easy with a Staffy, especially when I have two sisters. Up until the recent issues I mentioned she was doing really well.

The problem with Staffy's is their pain threshold is so high the issue may be worse that it seems, it took me ages to convince my vet there was something wrong.

Edited October 6, 2011 by BigDaz