I got a call Wednesday pm that Thunder's knee went out. Thunder is a dog who lived with my while I lived with my aunt. We got him when he was a puppy, and he's now 11 years old. We thought that it was just his acl. When they opened his knee up they found out that it was not the case. He has what they believe to be canine rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is an erosive poly-arthritis, it is a noninfectious, inflammatory, immune-mediated disease.
My aunt was lucky enough to be able to "tech" in during the procedure. She said that the moment the vet opened the knee up you could see the erosion on the joint. I was able to see a picture of his knee and he damage. Most of it is nice and smooth until you get to the top of the joint and the way she described it was it looked like someone poured acid on the top of the joint. It was all jagged and rough.
They did repair his acl. He is recovering as we speak. However, they sent a biopsy off to determine if the diagnosis is correct. If it is, they are looking into stem cell injections into the joint. The procedure takes stem cells from fat samples taken from another part on the dogs body. Then they are injected into the damaged area. They easily take on the characteristics of surrounding cells and they tend to grow quickly once they get there.
This is a fairly new thing going on with dogs. They also do it with horses. I think they started the treatments in 03 but it's fairly expensive so not too many people are rushing out to do it. But it is amazing to read the case studies and see how the dogs over all health and body improved through out the treatment. I hope that it works for Thunder. It's not a fast moving disease so there is some time but they prefer to get him started right away. There is a doctor out at UCLA who has been doing this for awhile and was highly recommended for the treatment. It's exciting. I hope everything goes smoothly.
