Dr. Lera covers non-surgical treatment for IVDD in dogs: strict rest for 2-6 weeks, NSAIDs like Deramaxx or Meloxicam, steroids, laser therapy, acupuncture, and physical therapy. Surgery isn't always necessary, and wheelchairs can give paralyzed dogs a good quality of life.
Hey guys, My name is Dr. Lara here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. And so today what I'm talking about is a follow up on a previous video that we have about ivdd. IVDD stands for intervertebral disc disease, which is also known as a slipped disc. And so previously one of my clients or somebody who watched the video had asked, they wish that we had spoken about non surgical options for slipped discs. And so, you know, surgery is not necessarily the only choice. One of my dogs has a slipped disc in her neck and I have yet to do surgery on her. One of the things that usually is important obviously is rest. You'll need to go ahead and restrict their activity typically for about anywhere between two to six weeks. So that's something that's gonna be really important. No jumping on and off of furniture, going up downstairs, that kind of stuff. The other thing that I normally do with my dog is I'll usually do some sort of st steroid therapy. The neurologist normally will go ahead and say that they don't want anti inflammatory or they do want. Some do want anti inflammatories like Daramax, Prevacox, Rimadil, Medicam. Others are the mindset of using prednisone or some sort of steroid to reduce the inflammation. The other thing that I will use in combination with the laser therapy with steroids is also correct cold laser therapy. Now I particularly like the cutting edge cold laser therapy just because of the penetration that it's able to get on our patients. It's also something that the patients don't have to sit still for a very long time where other technologies, sometimes they do have to sit there longer. And so this is something that I really like for my patients. The other thing that is an option is also acupuncture. Acupuncture is extremely helpful. It is something that will help. It is alternative medicine. And so if you're open to that, that is definitely something that I would recommend. Okay. Now physical therapy is going to be helpful with getting your patients to recover from any sort of back disease if it's severe enough. And so there are various veterinarians who specialize in this particular area of medicine for veterinarians or for pets, cats and dogs. And so that's something that you may want to seek out at the end of the day. You don't necessarily have to have surgery and you don't necessarily have to put them to sleep if they're not able to regain full function of their legs. You can use a wheelchair, they can have a fantastic quality of life. It's just something that you have to go ahead and you have to consider is going to be different. Okay? So if you have any sort of concerns about them not having the quality of life on or in a wheelchair, that's not necessarily true. It's just different. Okay. At the end of the day, you know, there are also things like stem cell therapy where you do have to have some surgery. The severity of the surgery is not as intense as doing back surgery or neck surgery, and that's something that does hopefully help with the regeneration of the damage that's been done to the spinal cord. If you guys found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up, share it and subscribe. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
