Pectoral Myositis

[lehughes]

Laurie,

I have a random question for you... Do you have much experience of rehabbing chronic myositis of the pectoral muscle. I had one diagnosed via ultrasound yesterday (he had an agility injury 4 months ago and a transient left fore lameness which has resolved). He's a 4 year old standard poodle.

Thanks so much!

Best wishes,

T.O.

[lehughes]

Hey T.,

The short answer is NO! Not only have I not treated it, I’ve not ever heard of it! This past summer, we did have a dog that must have ‘run into’ something / some equipment and one of my colleagues found pin point pain and a ‘dent’ in the pectoral muscle. I suppose that based on that kind of an injury (direct trauma), there could be some chronic myositis.
Sounds like you managed it well through the ‘lameness phase’. If you see the dog again, I would do some stretching, massage, and fascial work, and check for associated fascial or muscle tightness (i.e. Stretch same side shoulder and hips into extension, then the diagonals. Stretch neck - scalenes, brachiocephalicus, sternocphalicus), and lift up the skin overlying and tissue of the pectorals.

I’ll post this on the Forum. I’m anxious to know if others has seen or worked with this!

Cheers,

Laurie

[David Lane]

I have not heard of it either, and have a bit of a question mark about the diagnosis. In general, chronic muscle pathology secondary to sports injury or overuse does not involve ongoing myositis. Cases of true myositis are generally secondary to some other larger disease process like parasitism or neoplasia.

Inflammation cannot be diagnosed by ultrasound alone - it would take a biopsy to confirm myositis vs some other problem. Was it the radiologist who made this diagnosis? Are you able to post a copy of the radiology report?

David Lane DVM
ACVSMR

[sblovedvm@gmail.com]

Or, due to an immune mediated etiology. I've never heard of this either. I would really, really love to see the U/S images as well.
Thanks!

[lehughes]

I cut and pasted this correspondence from a private e-mail... I'm hoping to get the original 'question asker' to provide feedback & further information!
Laurie