Sunday, January 19, 2014

Stem Cell Therapy Progress

When our Union Hill Animal Hospital started to offer this procedure for the treatment for osteo-arthritis (and other degenerative diseases), I knew in my heart that this was something we needed to pursue on behalf of Madison.  Dave and I decided to jump on the opportunity to possibly provide her with any level of comfort we could in these geriatric years.

Snoozing in her Vari Kennel some days before her therapy

Dr. Diane Castle gave us the final okay to schedule her just before the new year holiday based on results from testing and her evaluation.  The date was set, January 16, which coincidentally was Madison's 14th birthday.

I am trying to capture before and after videos of her progress in various activity; primarily her ability to get up from a prone/sleeping position comfortably and her ability to lay down comfortably.  The following videos are of her getting up.

This video is of her getting up in her "condo" after having been resting for some time.  It was taken prior to the procedure and was one of the reasons we wanted to pursue stem cell therapy to see if this every day activity could be made more comfortable.  She often would struggle more than this to get up.






The following video was taken on Saturday, 2 days after the procedure on Thursday.  This is her first time to "get up" after having slept overnight (she was heavily sedated after the procedure, so Friday was a day of rest and she was pretty wobbly).  We are pleased because there is much less vocalization involved with her movement.  She doesn't appear to be able to "pop" up much more in this video, but she seems more comfortable with the activity.



This last video was taken today, Sunday, January 19.  The procedure was done on Thursday, so we're now three days post op/procedure.  This is remarkable and we are astounded by the benefit we are already seeing in her.  She literally just sat up, like a youthful, non arthritic dog.  Wow, just wow!!!!!!!!!



I'll continue to document her progress.  It is exciting and I'm so very, very grateful to Dr. Diane Castle and everyone at Union Hill Animal Hospital for bringing this technology to their practice.  What a special, special gift we are receiving from their skills!

Maybe, just maybe, we'll get to take her to the river again for a walk/trot.  My hope has been ignited.

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