hottiescientist
Cathlete
Yes, I am back with another dog question...and I have a massive prologue for it too!!
For those of you who don't remember (why should you?), I have a grey/lab/pit mix named Evee. She's freaking gorgeous and awesome. One day in august, she went to doggie day care and she came back exhausted but I thought it a good way. She crawled her way to the sofa and slept there.
Then a couple days later she really wasn't quite herself. It wasn't that she was limping per se but just not as animated. This is the same pup that people thought was only 6 mos old based on her energy (she's over 3 now and at the time). She came to my bedroom where I was working on the bed and whimpered to get on. I looked at her funny and was like, get up if you want. She got ready to jump up, barked in pain as it happened, and hadn't jumped in months after that.
She started looking like an old arthritic dog when she'd get up from her bed. We took her to the vet and said she couldn't tell anything and prescribed Rimadyl. We got the generic novox and it did seem to help. She was at least moving around again even if she wasn't the fastest dog in the park anymore.
Then we rescued another puppy (Min Pin mix named Hanu) and they had their pack issues in the beginning. then she got REALLY sick. Like, going to die sick. It turns out because the first vet we took her too when she showed symptoms screwed up (same place I went to when she started to limp), she had a horrid infection that just needed antibiotics but because the first vet screwed up, it kept on festering and festering. Long story short, $1500 later all she needed was antibiotics. They put her on it for SIX weeks (which I thought was excessive) and she's been off them now for a month+. Also, I've been weaning her off the Rimadyl, giving her less every day and then every other day and now she's been off any prescribed meds for 4 days now. This was just to observe if it had any effect because I don't want to pump drugs into her system unnecessarily.
Now, here's what I'm coming up to -- the vets who figured out the infection (after $1500!!!) wanted us to come back to look at a possible ACL tear. We figured we'd do it in the new year after still limiting her rest. Up until a week ago (when she was still taking meds for pain), we were still rearing up to go, it was just a matter of scheduling a day with the specialists. Then the last two days something weird/amazing has happened. Evee has been acting like a puppy again. She constantly wants' to play/brawl with Hanu (who we have to be wary of since he just got his balls removed last week and is about 30lbs lighter than Evee). At first, I was concerned she was lashing out because of pain. But her tail is up and wagging and her eyes look like she's having fun. And then last night, hanu was on the bed with us and evee was running around the bed like she was a crazed puppy again -- its hard to describe, I do have video of it on facebook from before the injury -- running really fast, turning tight corners, and then all of a sudden she LEPT on the bed like the old days. I actually told my DH that we needed to stop everything right then because I didn't want her injuring herself again because she was so excited but it was freaking promising.
thus the question: can rimadyl/nsaids make your puppy less alert/sluggish? and is it possible that the initial problems were just septic arthritis? has ANYONE gone through anything similar with this? TIA!
For those of you who don't remember (why should you?), I have a grey/lab/pit mix named Evee. She's freaking gorgeous and awesome. One day in august, she went to doggie day care and she came back exhausted but I thought it a good way. She crawled her way to the sofa and slept there.
Then a couple days later she really wasn't quite herself. It wasn't that she was limping per se but just not as animated. This is the same pup that people thought was only 6 mos old based on her energy (she's over 3 now and at the time). She came to my bedroom where I was working on the bed and whimpered to get on. I looked at her funny and was like, get up if you want. She got ready to jump up, barked in pain as it happened, and hadn't jumped in months after that.
She started looking like an old arthritic dog when she'd get up from her bed. We took her to the vet and said she couldn't tell anything and prescribed Rimadyl. We got the generic novox and it did seem to help. She was at least moving around again even if she wasn't the fastest dog in the park anymore.
Then we rescued another puppy (Min Pin mix named Hanu) and they had their pack issues in the beginning. then she got REALLY sick. Like, going to die sick. It turns out because the first vet we took her too when she showed symptoms screwed up (same place I went to when she started to limp), she had a horrid infection that just needed antibiotics but because the first vet screwed up, it kept on festering and festering. Long story short, $1500 later all she needed was antibiotics. They put her on it for SIX weeks (which I thought was excessive) and she's been off them now for a month+. Also, I've been weaning her off the Rimadyl, giving her less every day and then every other day and now she's been off any prescribed meds for 4 days now. This was just to observe if it had any effect because I don't want to pump drugs into her system unnecessarily.
Now, here's what I'm coming up to -- the vets who figured out the infection (after $1500!!!) wanted us to come back to look at a possible ACL tear. We figured we'd do it in the new year after still limiting her rest. Up until a week ago (when she was still taking meds for pain), we were still rearing up to go, it was just a matter of scheduling a day with the specialists. Then the last two days something weird/amazing has happened. Evee has been acting like a puppy again. She constantly wants' to play/brawl with Hanu (who we have to be wary of since he just got his balls removed last week and is about 30lbs lighter than Evee). At first, I was concerned she was lashing out because of pain. But her tail is up and wagging and her eyes look like she's having fun. And then last night, hanu was on the bed with us and evee was running around the bed like she was a crazed puppy again -- its hard to describe, I do have video of it on facebook from before the injury -- running really fast, turning tight corners, and then all of a sudden she LEPT on the bed like the old days. I actually told my DH that we needed to stop everything right then because I didn't want her injuring herself again because she was so excited but it was freaking promising.
thus the question: can rimadyl/nsaids make your puppy less alert/sluggish? and is it possible that the initial problems were just septic arthritis? has ANYONE gone through anything similar with this? TIA!
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