Riley knee problems...kinda long, sorry

[Erica&Riley]

Hi everybody,

have posted on here before about Riley's knee problem, but just to
refresh your memory. Riley is a 10-month old boxer puppy who started
limping around the end of October. I took her to the regular vet in
the beginning of November. She took x-rays and gave her a week's
worth of Rimadyl and recommended 2 weeks of rest and I did see
improvement. However, a week later I took her to the orthovet and he
reviewed the x-rays and didn't see anything conclusive. He suggested
that the next step be to sedate her and do a joint tap on the knee
looking for infection in the knee fluid (lyme's disease, OCD, etc).
He also ran a full blood panel. During this time we were only doing 5-
10 min leash walks like 3x a day. The joint tap came back clear as
did the lyme test, and the orthovet didn't find any signs of cruciate
ligament damage. However, he mentioned that the fluid seemed a little
bloody which might indicated soft tissue damage. He said to let Riley
return to normal activity and that if the limp returns then they
might have to go in exploratory surgery. The day that Riley went in
for the tap and manipulation of the knee her limp was pretty much
gone, but she was limping for about a week afterwards because I guess
the vet worked it over pretty well. Eventhough the vet gave us the
okay to return her to normal activity, I didn't feel comfortable
doing that right away and decided to keep "resting" for another few
weeks. Since then there hasn't been any off-leash activity but we
have been going for longer walks - up to 45 mins and an hour
yesterday. And she also runs around my apartment and does her
boxer "burns." Yesterday I noticed that she was kinda limping a
little bit (not very pronounced) so now I am worried again. I don't
know if the knee isn't healed 100% and maybe the hour long walk was
too much. Or maybe she did something else to agitate it. I did notice
that sometimes if she is laying on the knee oddly (bent at a weird
angle or something) it is a little stiff until she walks it out. I
started Riley on glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM supplements about
3 weeks ago too (1500mg/1200mg/500mg a day).

My question is how long do you think it should take for soft tissue
damage to heal? Is occassional limping after too much activity and
stiffness after a nap expected with such an injury? What kind of
exercise regimen/physical therapy regimen do you suggest for now? I
spent $800 getting her knee diagnosed and am so worried that she is
going to hurt it more. I don't have the money right now for exploratory surgery and don't want to put her through that.

Any thoughts from people with similar experiences?

Thank you,
Erica

 

[Thomas Liggin]

It sounds as though Riley hasn't had sufficient time for the problem to resolve itself.

That it does show improvement when his activity is restricted then begins to return when he resumes normal activity indicates to me that he need to "rest" that joint for a longer period of time.

It sounds as though it hasn't completely healed, then he aggravates it by overdoing. I'd try to prevent Riley from doing the burns. That is really strenuous activity, and they change directions in a hurry which really stresses the joints and the supporting tissues.

I'm not a vet, but I have had injuries, and I tend to be impatient. My impatience has at times prolonged my recuperation.


Tom

 

[Erica&Riley]

Thanks Tom, you're probably right about Riley not having enough time to heal. I think the orthovet was too presumptous in giving Riley the go ahead to resume normal activity, so I figured a happy medium would be longer on-leash walks. I think the long walks combined with the fact that Riley stills pulls on leash put too much pressure on the knee.

Thanks again for your advice.

 

[misandter]

Swollen knee...knee problem...septic arthritis

I was just wondering if Riley's knee problem has gotten any better with time and how long it took for recovery. My puppy Sadie is experiencing the same exact thing with her knee. The vet took tons of x-rays, all of which were negative and then we were referred to a specialist. The specialist took additional x-rays and had fluid from her knee sent out to be cultured/analyzed. The results came back with a staph infection and a high amount of white blood cells. The specialist said that she likely got an infection in her bloodstream. She had ran into some nasty barbed wire a few weeks prior to this so we are assuming that was the initial cause of the joint infection.

We had her on Clavamox for about 3 weeks and she seemed to be getting better and the other day she had a relapse and starting limping really bad again. We took her to the specialist again and he had to drain 1 liter of fluid from her knee. Sadie's only 6 months old and about 50 pounds so that's a lot of fluid for such a little gal. Anyway... he also took additional x-rays of the knee, hock, chest, belly, spinal area, which again didn't reveal anything. Our vets have been wonderful but we have spent about $2000 and our baby girl is still limping and in pain. She is currently taking two antibiotics while we await the results of the latest fluid that was sent out to be cultured.

If anyone else out there has experienced this with their boxer, I would really appreciate some advice/input. I just want my baby girl to be better. We have also been giving her glucosamine/chondroitin daily as well.

Thanks so much...