Laurie, I just have a quick question about spondylosis, mobility in the spine and back pain in a geriatric dog.....When you can hear "popping" along the spine (T-L in this patient) and there is spondylosis and back pain present, how do you address this? This dog also has thick epaxial muscles at T13, L1, L2. If there is mobility present in the spine, do you avoid joint mobilizations? and do you want to avoid doing joint mobilizations where spondylosis is present? (sorry for the stupid questions, I just don't want to cause any harm!)
Thank you so much,
Juli
Spondylosis, mobility and back pain
Re: Spondylosis, mobility and back pain
Hey Juli,
Okay... so first off, we need to think about Spondylosis differently. It is not necessarily a bad thing.
It is a way for the body to stabilize itself - likely stabilizing a hypermobile or painful segment.
As such, the popping would be coming from an adjacent segment / segments that are NOT spondylosed. These are the joints that are subsequently doing all of the movement (and likely BECOMING hypermobile).
So, you can do some mobilizations, that's fine. But you ask yourself, the why?
You mobilize because a joint is stiff OR because a joint is painful. If the dog in question is painful, then go ahead and mobilize. It's not going to hurt anything. I've seen cases like this, and they actually do well with mobilization.
The next aspect, is what else can you do to help those joints? Exercise to strengthen might be useful. Anything that is controlled exercise - even if just cookie stretches, or balancing exercises. For a geriatric dog, that can make a difference.
Back to the question about mobilizing in the presence of spondylosis. You won't hurt the spondylosis. You won't change it either. But you can help the joints that are adjacent to spondylosis and/or the joints that are not quite spondylosed yet.
You won't do harm! All the best!
Cheers,
Laurie
Okay... so first off, we need to think about Spondylosis differently. It is not necessarily a bad thing.
It is a way for the body to stabilize itself - likely stabilizing a hypermobile or painful segment.
As such, the popping would be coming from an adjacent segment / segments that are NOT spondylosed. These are the joints that are subsequently doing all of the movement (and likely BECOMING hypermobile).
So, you can do some mobilizations, that's fine. But you ask yourself, the why?
You mobilize because a joint is stiff OR because a joint is painful. If the dog in question is painful, then go ahead and mobilize. It's not going to hurt anything. I've seen cases like this, and they actually do well with mobilization.
The next aspect, is what else can you do to help those joints? Exercise to strengthen might be useful. Anything that is controlled exercise - even if just cookie stretches, or balancing exercises. For a geriatric dog, that can make a difference.
Back to the question about mobilizing in the presence of spondylosis. You won't hurt the spondylosis. You won't change it either. But you can help the joints that are adjacent to spondylosis and/or the joints that are not quite spondylosed yet.
You won't do harm! All the best!
Cheers,
Laurie
LAURIE EDGE-HUGHES
-
JuliPotter
- Posts: 75
- Joined: Sat May 28, 2016 5:35 am
Re: Spondylosis, mobility and back pain
Thank you so much, Laurie! You are the best!