Plan of Action

I've emailed back and forth with Jennifer Brook, the physical therapist letting her know what the vet's at ABC clinic had said when they examined Louie and trying to come up with a plan of action. Though I found Dr. Boulton to be very nice, and he was very thorough in his evaluation, I am not totally buying the gloom and doom diagnosis. He may very well be correct. But, there is still no hard evidence of it. All we know for sure at this point is that Louie's problem is in his pelvic region.

I asked Jennifer her thought's on treating Louie as if he had a soft tissue injury. My thought being if he does have one, then obviously that is what we need to do. But, if Louie's problem is the worst case scenario such as DJD or a malformed hip, rehabbing him for a soft tissue injury is not going to do him any harm at all. Jennifer thought this was a good idea and gave me the outline for a rehab plan and just wanted me to check with my vet on bute therapy.




This morning I got a call from Dr. Lund. She was one of the vets at ABC Clinic that examined Louie the other day. She had been fairly quiet through the exam mostly deferring to Dr. Boulton. Dr. Lund called to check on how Louie was doing. And he is not doing too bad. He is still lame but not any worse then he was before the exam. Dr. Lund mentioned again that we could inject Louie's hip to see what effect that has. And Dr. Lund told me that she didn't feel that things were as gloomy as Dr. Boulton may have made them seem. She feels that Louie could very well have a soft tissue injury. She mentioned that when Dr. Boulton did the nerve block, he got some fluid out of the joint. The fluid was thin and bloody. Dr. Lund said this could well be an indication of a soft tissue injury. She said the blood might have just been from poking around with the needle, but the thin fluid in and of itself was not normal. She feels that Jennifer and my plan to rehab Louie for a soft tissue injury is a good plan. And, as I felt, won't do a bit of harm if that is not the problem.



So, Louie is to be confined for a week to a small area to discourage any running around. I am to give him bute 2x's a day for 3 days, then 1x a day for another 4 days. If Louie seem to be more comfortable at that point, I will start doing the physical therapy as directed by Jennifer.