Archive for acupuncture
Buddy the Dumpster Rescue Dog
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Hi, my name is Buddy, and I am so lucky to be alive! I was found when I was only a few days old, in an alley up against a dumpster. I was taken by an angel person to the wonderful folks at the Center for Animal Rescue and Adoption. My first human Mom Cynthia fostered me and took me to see Dr. Medler and the Veterinary Technician named Beth, to see if they could help me to be able to walk better. Maybe you can see on the video or the pictures of me that my spine is not straight at all — it seems to make an abrupt turn where its supposed to be straight. Everyone is amazed that my spinal cord is still intact and that I can walk at all. I guess that happened because I was so young that my bones were soft and they could just bend instead of break. So I had a rough start in life, but I really got lucky after that! After Beth met me and started to do the rehabilatation exercises on me, she fell in love with me (of course, who doesn’t?) and adopted me!!!! So I get rehab exercises and massage every day, and I am growing nicely in my own way. My big ole heart is finding some room in my chest, not quite where everyone else’s is, I guess, but it works for me. I can’t play or run but for a few minutes, because my lungs don’t have the room they need to expand normally, but I play for a few minutes, then I rest, then I can play some more. It really is a good life! Thanks everybody for loving me so much and not just tossing me in to that dumpster!
Medial Patellar Luxation
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Hi, we’re Amanda and Oliver. We wanted to tell you our story about our knees. Dr. Paula says the name for our problem is Medial Patellar Luxation. What that means to us is that our kneecaps don’t stay in place in front of our knees the way they are supposed to. We’ve always known that we just couldn’t jump like our brothers and sisters could, and they made fun of us that sometimes when we run we have to skip to get our knees to work right, but we didn’t know what was different about us. Dr. Paula says that this Medial Patellar Luxation, or MPL for short, is really common in the smaller breeds like us. It can be inherited from our parents, so it is always something that the vet checks when we are puppies. Sometimes it shows up early, sometimes it doesn’t show up until we are older. The severity of the problem is graded from a 1 to a 5, depending upon whether the kneecap stays in place most of the time or stays dislocated most of the time. If it is really bad, a Grade 5, you usually have to have surgery to correct it, and Dr. Paula says that is best done by a board-certified veterinary surgeon. If it is not so bad, maybe a Grade 1 to 3, sometimes there are less invasive procedures that can help. That’s where we come in. Our knees are only a Grade 2 to 3, not too bad right now, so Dr. Paula is treating us with some natural anti-inflammatory medicine, and acupuncture. We expected to have to let Dr. Paula know how we felt about so many needles stuck in us every week, but you know what? She is using a laser instead of needles, and it doesn’t hurt at all. A few spots are really sore, so it gets a little warm when she treats those areas, but we flinch a little and let her know, and she moves on to another spot for a few minutes. She always comes back to those spots to finish the treatment, but by then it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m feeling a little Chinese already — is my beard looking different? Oh yeah, the other thing is, we are on a diet…….she says we need to be thin in order to put less strain on our knees …… not liking it, but I guess it’s better than surgery. OK, well, it’s time for dinner, gotta go, just wanted to let you all know a little about MPL, since it is such an important problem in us little guys and gals.
Amanda, that’s My bowl, move over…..you’re hogging the food…move over!
