Dr. Lera Clone examines Felony, a 14-year-old Labrador with laryngeal paralysis that narrows her airway and causes labored breathing. Treatment options are conservative management with activity restriction or a surgical tie-back procedure that opens the airway but raises aspiration risk. The choice depends on the dog's quality of life and individual circumstances.
Foreign. Hey guys, My name is Dr. Lara. Today I'm here with felony. Felony is a 14 year old, not 14 year old Labrador who's presenting for a couple of different reasons. The main reason is quality of life. And you can see how labored her breathing is. You can see how she's got a pull up and out, out, and you can hear her breathing. Her breathing is. It sounds like she's got something stuck in her airway. So the view, if you want, you can bring her back. So she has something called laryngeal paralysis, most likely. And so that's something that's very, very common in Labradors. And so what ends up happening is if you guys come over here, you can see this particular video. When Labradors, when we breathe, you'll have this cartilage that opens and closes, opens and closes. The reason that the cartilage closes is so that way, when we're eating stuff or if we're drinking, if food tries to go down this path, it's obstructed or closed. So that way it keeps us from potentially having stuff go down the wrong pipe. Versus on this particular video, what you'll notice is we barely have any sort of opening. You can just barely see it right here. The reason that this happens, we anticipate is because of some sort of nerve damage. And what happens is now this dog is trying to breathe essentially through a straw. That is something that makes it very, very difficult for these patients to be able to breathe. This is something where it doesn't always have to happen on both sides. It can happen on just one side. It is something that is typically seen in the older, larger breed. Labradors are kind of like the poster child of this particular condition. With this particular condition, a lot of times, if it's just one side and the patients are able to breathe 7 semi normally, then we will go ahead and leave it alone. Otherwise, if they are having difficulty, like Felony is, and let's say they're maybe a little bit younger and they don't have a whole, they don't have any, any other sort of health issues, then we may do what's called a tie back. And so on the tie back, what ends up happening is the surgeons will come in and they will actually grab a suture and pull this back. And what ends up happening is now you have this permanently open. That is what we call a salvage procedure. The reason it's called the salvage procedure is because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If we leave it closed or if we leave it alone and we don't do anything, the quality of life for this patient is probably going to be very low. Felony with breathing like that. Because Felony was just standing there, let alone Felony having to walk, go outside in the heat. We live down here in South Florida where it's really humid and hot, and that's the primary way that dogs get rid of heat. Otherwise, if we end up doing the salvage procedure, what we do is we tack it open. And now that airway is permanently open, that being the case, they are much more prone to lung infections. And so now we have to weigh the pros and cons and determine, is it worth going ahead and permanently opening the airway and making them more exposed to potential lung infections, or do we go ahead and leave them like this? That's going to be a personal decision. There's going to be a lot of different factors that come into that. Felony's got some other issues that affect your quality of life as well. And you can see, I mean, just just standing there, Felony is having a really hard time breathing. And in this particular case, it's not a decision that I come to lightly or a recommendation that I come to lightly. But I do think that she lacks quality of life. And that's something. That's why I got into this field, is so that we can go ahead and help patients increase and have as long a quality of life as possible. Once that quality of life is no longer there, then we have to go ahead and we have the fortunate gift of being able to help them to move on to a point of in their being where they're no longer on this planet, but maybe somewhere else where they can have more quality. So at the end of the day, this particular patient, I don't think that they have quality of life. This particular disease is something that is usually seen in older dogs and larger dogs. It is something that you'll have two options. Leave it alone. If they're able to get around, you will most likely have to reduce their activity, especially in hot weather. And you do have the surgical option otherwise. If you guys have questions about this video, please leave it in the comment box. If you found this video helpful, give us a thumbs up. And if you know somebody whose dog is potentially going through this, please share it with them. So that way they have some more information as to what to do, what's going on, and what their options are. Thanks for watching. Have a great day and be safe. Sam.
