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Cranial cruciate rupture

10 replies

wispaxmas · 25/04/2016 19:29

Hiya, I don't spend much time in the doghouse on here, but I would love to hear stories about dogs who've had this and had successful surgery. My labradoodle Wispa is going in for sedation and X-rays tomorrow to confirm the diagnosis, but the vet was pretty sure that it's a torn cruciate ligament in the back knee. He made it sound like it happens to most dogs at some point, but it didn't happen to my old dog, or my brother's dog, and she was only 4 years old last week. SadSadSadSadSad

OP posts:
elephantpig · 25/04/2016 19:32

oh no Sad

No first hand experience. I know a few dogs it has happened to. All of them have had a lovely quality of life after lots of crate rest, care and money.
Maybe not 100% physically better but 95% - no actual stats there, just my head.

I hope you have the resources for this, it can be very draining Flowers

wispaxmas · 25/04/2016 19:43

Luckily we have very comprehensive insurance cover - up to £6k per condition lifetime cover and the vet said it would probably come in at about £4 after the X-rays and surgery costs.

OP posts:
wispaxmas · 25/04/2016 19:43

Luckily we have very comprehensive insurance cover - up to £6k per condition lifetime cover and the vet said it would probably come in at about £4 after the X-rays and surgery costs.

OP posts:
tabulahrasa · 26/04/2016 11:26

It's fairly common in some breeds and I believe surgery is usually very succesful, as in she should have totally normal use after recuperation...

What you will need to watch for though is the other one going, I believe if one tears the other is likely to as well.

KinkyAfro · 26/04/2016 12:32

Our dog, 3 yr old lab, had cruciate surgery 3 months ago and it has been very successful. You'd never know she'd had it done, no stiffness or lameness and she's back to full health

KinkyAfro · 26/04/2016 12:33

Photo

Cranial cruciate rupture
KinkyAfro · 26/04/2016 12:35

Posted too soon. That photo was a month post surgery. This photo is a couple of days after

Cranial cruciate rupture
SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 26/04/2016 12:56

DDog2 managed to rupture the cruciate ligaments in both knees, late in 2014. She had surgery on both, in 2015 - different procedures on the two knees, because she had different surgeons for each.

The first procedure was a Tightrope procedure - basically, they use a braided nylon wire to stabilise the joint whilst scar tissue forms to support it.

The second op was a Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy - where a wedge of bone is removed from the tibia, to reduce the slope of the tibial plateau - changing the geometry of the knee makes it more stable.

After the first op, she had 9 weeks cage rest, with gradually increasing exercise after the first two weeks, then had her second op, with another 6 weeks cage rest. During the first few weeks after each op, she needed a sling under her tummy, to support her when she went out to the garden, and to help her up and down the couple of steps to the lawn, and to prevent her slipping on our hard floors. She hated doing her business on the lead, so we made a little enclosure on the lawn, in which she could do her business off lead - but where there was no space for her to run, jump or slip, and where I could catch her at the entrance to put her back on the lead.

Initially, she did very well after the operations, and by the late summer, she was starting to build her stamina and muscle tone back up (all that cage rest did take a toll on her) - but then she dislocated her kneecap, and needed a third operation - and went straight back on cage rest. Unfortunately she developed a gastric ulcer, as a result of the anti-inflammatories she was taking, and had another admission to the vet hospital, but once that was sorted, she did recover pretty well - though more slowly than they hoped - she ended up on cage rest for over 10 weeks that time.

She was finally discharged by the vet hospital, early this year, and has been building up her levels of activity, stamina and muscle tone - and she is now 100% fit, happy and active. It has been a long road (for her and for us) - and an expensive one too (thank heaven for PetPlan), but it has all been worth it, because she is now pain-free, and fully active again - if anything, her gait is better now than it was before she ruptured the ligaments in the first place!

wispaxmas · 26/04/2016 13:46

SDT, what an ordeal Shock. I'm so glad it's over and your dog is doing better, how stressful it must have been.

Afro, wow, impressive scar, glad to hear recovery has gone well.

I've just heard back from the vet that she's ready to pick up from the day of x-rays, so will soon know whether she needs surgery. The surgery they proposed is the cutting of the bone to level it out and stop the slippage, which just sounds so invasive, but they've said would have the best outcome for a dog her size and young age.

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SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 26/04/2016 14:31

That sounds like the second op that ddog2 had - and the outcome has been absolutely wonderful for her. She isn't young, but she is very active - loves running - and she's now running even better than before the operations.

Hopefully your dog's op will go well, and her recovery will be a bit less eventful than Mia's was.

It is worth investing in a big cage - we put ours in the front room, so she could see us most of the time. I was worried that, being so active (and somewhat neurotic) she would struggle to settle in the cage, but she didn't - she seemed to accept and understand that this was how things had to be.

Oh - and your vet might try to sell you a proper sling to go under her tummy - ours did, but we boggled a bit at £60 for it, and I made a perfectly satisfactory one out of a spare lead - I rolled a towel round it, and tacked it on, for padding, and it worked perfectly, at no cost whatsoever!

What surprised me was how quickly she was able to walk on the leg - she stayed in hospital for one night, after each op, but was partially weightbearing by the next day, when we collected her (just needing the support from the sling). Iirc, a fortnight after the op, we had to start giving her two five-minute walks a day, going up by another five minutes each, each week, and after 6 weeks, she was able to be let off the lead, though the cage rest had resulted in some loss of muscle tone and stamina - she was obviously baffled by not being able to run as far or fast as she used to, bless her!

This is a picture of her, recuperating in the conservatory, in the summer.

Cranial cruciate rupture
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