amarief
Member
Has anyone had any experience of treating arthritis in dogs with prednisolone??
Our 11 year old cross bred, Jake, has suffered arthritis for quite some time now and was diagnosed with spinal arthritis at just 6 years old. This has always been reasonably well controlled using PLT's prescribed by the vet.
However, a couple of weeks ago, he lost the use of his legs comepletely and we feared that was it as we took him to the vets. The vet, although not that optimistic, decided to give him a chance as he only just spent the weekend running round playing and we felt he had "over done" things to say the least!! He injected him with steroid/anti-inflammatories. To everyones surprise he responded excellently and was back to his usual self by the following day.
Within a week the injections wore off and he again started to cry and became wobbly on his feet. We returned to the vets who prescribed him Prednisolone, which I am aware is a steroid, to reduce inflammation and control his arthritis. He has been taking 2 tablets a day and is doing fantastic, no crying and very steady on his feet - in fact, he has been behaving like a 3 year old again!!!
This is fantastic for us to see but our only concern is the long term use of such drugs. The vet recommended we slowly reduce his dose to one tablet every other day but by the fourth day of taking one tablet daily he began to look uncomfortable so we returned to his 2 tablets daily dose.
Has anyone else used steroid based medications over a period of time and what are your views. Although concerned about the side effects we don't appear to have any other choices at the minute and feel we would be faced with putting him to sleep without the drugs!!!
Our 11 year old cross bred, Jake, has suffered arthritis for quite some time now and was diagnosed with spinal arthritis at just 6 years old. This has always been reasonably well controlled using PLT's prescribed by the vet.
However, a couple of weeks ago, he lost the use of his legs comepletely and we feared that was it as we took him to the vets. The vet, although not that optimistic, decided to give him a chance as he only just spent the weekend running round playing and we felt he had "over done" things to say the least!! He injected him with steroid/anti-inflammatories. To everyones surprise he responded excellently and was back to his usual self by the following day.
Within a week the injections wore off and he again started to cry and became wobbly on his feet. We returned to the vets who prescribed him Prednisolone, which I am aware is a steroid, to reduce inflammation and control his arthritis. He has been taking 2 tablets a day and is doing fantastic, no crying and very steady on his feet - in fact, he has been behaving like a 3 year old again!!!
This is fantastic for us to see but our only concern is the long term use of such drugs. The vet recommended we slowly reduce his dose to one tablet every other day but by the fourth day of taking one tablet daily he began to look uncomfortable so we returned to his 2 tablets daily dose.
Has anyone else used steroid based medications over a period of time and what are your views. Although concerned about the side effects we don't appear to have any other choices at the minute and feel we would be faced with putting him to sleep without the drugs!!!
