I have heard that some countries outside of the US have significantly cheaper deals— and am curious whether anyone has actually tried this!
My pitbull suddenly lost most of his ability to walk due to stage 3 IVDD almost 11 weeks ago. He is 13 years old and did not seem to be in much pain so we decided not to go through with surgery, and instead tried strict crate rest.
We were super strict for about 5-6 weeks, but after that he started getting very anxious in the crate we would let him out and have him sit with us on the couch or in the same room on his bed. We have not let him jump on any furniture or use the few stairs we have (we lift him with the “help em up” brand harness which has been a huge help).
We also used a Bemer pad which was loaned to us from our local vet for 4-5 weeks 2x a day which apparently helped stimulate his muscles/blood flow— and given him disc and spine soft chews we have been getting from Amazon.
Slowly from weeks 6-10 we have let him walk without us lifting his hind legs in the backyard. We have kept him from running and jumping. He can hold himself up while peeing, but struggles to go #2 without us holding him up slightly so we hold his harness for that. I thought his progress had completely stalled and this may be the best we will get with him being 13… but tonight something exciting happened. I took him out and he started running in the backyard. I didn’t think I’d ever see him run the full length of our backyard again! Of course he doesn’t run perfectly… and I didn’t want to overdo it so I only let it happen for a minute or 2… but it was really nice to see.
Progress with IVDD doesn’t always feel linear… but I wanted to share this to say— celebrate the small things, hang in there even when it is hard to feel hope, and you will have moments where all that you did for your dog feels worth it… and where you feel like you did the right thing for them. Rocco still struggles and has his ups and downs but tonight we are celebrating his little backyard prance and hoping that we see more of that in the coming weeks ❤️❤️