Gimpy

When my dog Mia was 6 months old, she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. Its a condition that 20-30 yrs ago, a dog would have been put to sleep for. Now, there are a several painful and expensive surgeries that you can do. I considered every one of them at some point. Basically, in a normal hip, the femur attaches to the pelvis at the hip joint. Its like a ball and a socket, fits perfectly -- I think that's the right expression, anyway, though I'm not sure what balls and sockets really have to do with each other. Anyway, in dogs with dysplasia (and humans), the femur starts slipping from the joint. And slowly, arthritis develops in the joint. In Mia's case, even at 6 mos., it was pretty grim. The femur was pretty far out of the socket and she already had quite a bit of arthritis, making her ineligible for one of the surgeries. The others she was still too young for -- they won't perform them until a dog is done growing. The most successful is a total hip replacement, which can run up to 5-6k per hip and involves a fairly lengthy recovery period.

Until recently, those were my only options. And as Mia is fairly functional, I was never quite wiling to subject her to surgery. Not to mention that I don't happen to have 12k lying around to spend on my pet. So instead, I gave her glucosamine, kept her well exercised, and made sure she stayed skinny.

But a few months ago, a friend of mine sent me this article that blew me away:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1817572,00.html?cnn=yes

Its a stem cell treatment for dogs! No surgery. They remove tissue from the dog's stomach, extract the stem cells, and reinject those cells into the hips. According to the article, the stem cells develop into healthy cartilage and tendon cells. It turns out that the article is a bit misleading about how it all works, but is on the whole, accurate. If it works, it results in a dog that's pretty close to normal. And the cost is about the 1/3 the cost of replacement surgery. So of course0, Gregg and I have been watching these developments with some interest. And a few weeks ago, there was an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about a vet in SC doing the treatment. Gregg called the vet, and we took Mia into see him yesterday.

At the end of the appointment, I was completely amazed:

1. Her joints have probably been inflamed since pretty much when we found out about her condition almost 3 yrs ago. Other than when I first found out (when she could barely walk), I have never given her anti-inflammatory medication.
   
2. Day to day, she probably experiences fairly constant pain. On a scale of 1-10, the vet guessed maybe a 4 or 5.
3. The x-rays showed that Mia's hips are so bad that its a miracle that she can walk. She has the dubious honor of having almost the worst hips the vet had ever seen.
4. And yet, she walks, runs, backpacks, chases rabbits, tries to climb trees. She won't chase frisbees, and she won't let dogs hump her, but other than that, she seems pretty normal.
   
5. I think the stem cells don't morph so much as block inflammatory molecules. This part is still a little unclear to me, but even if the treatment works, Mia's hips will look exactly the same. She just won't feel pain.
   
6. My dog is a horrible drunk -- she had to be sedated for the xray. Afterwards, she stumbled around the vet's office. AND she passed out again while we were paying our bill and peed herself while she was asleep! I swear, she doesn't get that from me! Well, there was a peeing on a curb incident in the city that ONE time, but . . .
   

Anyway, we're doing the treatment and I'm hopeful!