fourleg.com

Good evening Laurie,

I just want to say I am fairly new to your website and you were helpful in a brachioplexus case I recently had. I treat lots of DM cases but want to make sure I am up-to-date on the most recent treatments. The owner was asking about stem cell and I really have no information on that. Have you heard of any of the DM cases being treated with stem cell?

Other than that we have this guy on a very regimented home program including short but frequent walks a day, lots of different static stabilization exercises on different surfaces, as well as hills, sit to stands on an air mattress, cavaletti rails, figure 8’s and some other I am probably forgetting. I always educate owners that we may not get all the exercises in every day and that short spurts frequently throughout the day are the most important. Owner is very conscientious of his tolerance and monitors fatigue well.

He comes to me twice a week for therapeutic exercises and/or underwater treadmill where we change up speed/height of water/incline, etc.

Just wanting any added information from your brilliant mind! Thank you again for all that you do and for all of your help with us canine rehabbers!

Regards,

J

Hi J,

So, I just did a pubmed search to see if I had missed something big in regards to DM and stem cells. Unfortunately, I can’t find any papers to that effect.
Quite frankly I would have been shocked if I had! That being said, I’m sure that somewhere there is someone trying it. But unless it was free, I’d not be willing to try it.
To be honest, I was sort of disappointed in general with my search. NOTHING about treatment in the last 5 years!!
So, I think that you are doing all the right things and providing all of the right advice for what we know now.

(I am going to add this to the FourLeg Forum however, because maybe somebody has heard something different / new at a conference, but a published paper isn’t yet out. You never know!)

Thanks for asking the question and getting me to look it up!

All the best!

Laurie

There was a conference presentation on using laser on the DRG to increase life expectancy. Full paper is currently undergoing literature review.

Okay David... but what was the conclusion of the conference presentation???

Laurie

Oops - details. Details help.

Time between DM diagnosis and euthanasia was 11 months in controls and 38 months in the treatment group. Unfortunately, although I have read a rough draft of the paper, I have signed an NDA, so am uncomfortable being forthcoming with greater details until it is published.

Got it! Thanks!

L