The (old) dog- the (old) cat
Our beloved pets have not much to laugh anymore when they get into elderly age - they get old, and in what the owners are agreeing: they shuffle along like an old man on his crutch, the cat is no longer jumping onto the window-sill and she does not roll in anymore as she used to do it. But what the owners still do not know : Age is not a disease.
Reasons for the decreasing motility of our pets are often diseases which mostly just find attention in the veterinary clinic when almost nothing is going anymore. In many cases diseases of the vertebral column are present, which lead to protrusions and swelling or prolapses of the vertebral disc which decreases partly slowly partly suddenly the life quality. In such cases usually pain killing and anti inflammatory drugs are applied, which do not help to cease the causes of the suffer.
To abolish this painful conditions sometimes orthopedic surgeries like Dorsal Hemilaminaectomy, Discus fenestration and nowadays also the percutaneous Discusresection ( just in case of disc protrusions) are performed. At the Wobbler –Syndrom a strong bridge is builded between the intact and the damaged vertebrae, the same is tried as much as possible in a Cauda Equina situation-a syndrom of inflammed bone tissue which exerts pressuer on the nerves. All these interventions means for the pet owner a high financial afford.
Since two years we perfome in our clinic the minimal–invasive therapy for all kinds of vertebral column diseases. A drog mixture is induced via a needle into the vertebral canal, in order to dissolve disc debris and to diminishes disc swellings. The results are more than satisfactory and even a Wobbler or a progressed Cauda equina syndrom correspond to the results of a traditional orthopedic surgery.
„What have you done with my old dog ? He walks and jumps again like in his best times?“
„My old cat jumps again back to the window –sill, and she sleeps and cleans herself like like she used to do it.“
Of course a minimal-invasive therapy is not magic: there are limits of success, which can be just overwhelmed by Neurosurgery, as an example a progressed stenosis of the spinal canal.
Basically the high success rates and the low costs in comparison to the Neurosurgery are in favour for the minimal invasive therapy.
Our consideration shall also follow similar diseases inspite of the above mentined, which could not find enough attention in the veterinary medicine:
Backpain and lameness of the hindlimbs can be also caused by inflammation of the iliosacral joint, of the nerve roots and the facettes .
The diseases can be controlled in the same way with the help of the minimal invasive therapy.
In case of diseases of the hip joint like coxarthroses wich shows lameness we are perfoming since eight years the denervation technique. The need of an Endoprotheseis became just rarely necessary. The Denervation technique could find a lot of friends underneath the veterinary surgents: In comparison to the Endoprothesis, the Denervation is significantly cheaper method and has a 100 percent success rate, if the operation is perforned in the exact way of Küpper and Kinzel ( from the veterinary clinic in Aachen).
Lamenesses of the front limbs
In the interest are diseases like Bicepstendosynovitis, the OCD of the shoulder joint, isolated bone fragmets in the elbow joint like ununited Proc. anconaeus, isolated Proc. coronoideus and Elbow dysplasy of the growing dog.
Crucial ligament rupture of the knee joint
This quite frequently occuring othopedic problem in young and old animals can be repaired with the help of three different methods:
With the over the top method a connective tissue stripe is transplanted as a replacement for the crucial ligament.
At the extracapsular fixation synthetic threads are used to stabilize the knee joint outside the joint capsule.
In case of big dogs we perform the TPLO-Method,which,once invented by Slocum, is already done without his bless in a considerable cheaper way.
The entire range of the above described orthopedic therapies can be elaborated from interested vets in our institute of veterinary further education www.Hamburger-Fortbildungstage.de