Thursday, September 27, 2007

Arthritis

Overall, Henry’s report from his annual check up was good news.  The Dr. says he is in good shape and that his teeth, eyes and coat look really good.  However, he has arthritis in both his knees.  This is only a little bit shocking to us.  Henry has had arthritis in his left knee since he was a pup.  But we were surprised to hear that he has arthritis in his right knee (his good knee) and that the arthritis is actually worse in that knee.

When Henry was about 6 months old we found out that he had hip dysplasia.  Hip dysplasia is more common in larger breeds and the Dr. said that if we kept Henry at a good weight he would most likely never require any type of surgery on his hips.  When Henry was about a year old, however, he started to hold up his left leg.  We soon found out that he had luxating patella, which basically means that his knee cap was sliding in and out of place.  The Dr.‘s speculated that this was most likely caused by him compensating for his hip dyslasia.  He did require surgery to fix this problem and after his physical therapy he has done very well.  We were told shortly after his surgery for his knee that he had developed some arthritis in his knee.  It has never been much of a problem though.

Now, however, Henry has developed quite a bit of arthritis in his right knee and the Dr. said that his knee cap is a little loose.  So he may need to have the same surgery on his right knee that he did on his left knee.  The main thing that is worrisome about this is that Henry is no longer the spry young pup that he once was.  At a year old, the first surgery was very hard on him and the physical therapy exercises that we had to do nearly killed him and I both.  Henry is now going on 6 years old and I can not imagine going through the surgery and the physical therapy again.  Nor can I bear the thought of how the arthritis is going to affect him later in life.

Right now, he acts fine and he does not require any type of surgery on his right knee.  Granted, he is not as agile as Benny and he can’t jump up on the bed like Benjamin & Luna can, but that is really nothing new.  He has been that way since he was a pup.  Just the thought of having to go through it all again looms over me.

So for now, the Dr. prescribes lots of swimming since it is very low impact and helps keep him trim and in shape.  That is really the best thing we can do for him at this point.