cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wobblers Disease I think that the Lyme disease is a red herring. I haven't heard from the vet yet but my own research leads me to believe that Simon has something called 'wobblers disease.' Wobblers disease is caused by the compression of 2 vertebrae in the neck which pinch the spinal cord. First you will see difficulty moving the neck (which was his first symptom) and then symptoms basically move back through the body and nerve cells die. Messages sent through the nervous system also become garbled due to the damage to the myelin sheaths around each nerve cell in the pinched area. It is possible to treat the dog with steroids and surgery to regain some or all motor function. However, the more advanced the symptoms, the more permanent damage has been done and the less benefit there will be from surgery. This is a pretty advanced case. It came on him very fast. Normally you get weeks or months in which to act. But in this case he went from exhibiting the first symptom to being unable to stand in only 5 days. I think surgery would be a bad idea. Lots of pain with very low odds of ever being able to walk again. I'll see what the vet has to say. I want to ask him if he thinks it would be worth putting him on steroids for a few days to see what that does. This is probably our only hope. 11:51 a.m. - 2007-10-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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