Mimi’s miracle recovery
Sometimes at Pittwater Animal Hospital we have wonderfully good news. Little Mimi is a gorgeous 5 year old female Jack Russel Terrier. She presented to Dr Jill as a second opinion, 6 weeks ago, with moderate paralysis of the back legs.
Mimi had difficulty standing on her back legs and dragged them most of the time. She luckily had very good bladder and bowel control.
Xrays at another vet had shown Mimi had calcified intervetebral discs with some evidence of discs compressing her spinal cord. Choices are difficult with these cases. Specialist surgery is the gold standard but would cost more than $10 000 when imaging and aftercare is accounted for.
Her owners were wondering if they would need to put beautiful Mimi to sleep.
Conservative care or “time and patience” was also an option. Mimi’s owners were informed that some spinal patients, especially with good pain perception plus bowel and bladder control, can improve to good function over 6-8 weeks.
Mimi had her pain and muscle spasms managed with medication and was kept very quiet at home.
Five weeks later she was walking (not perfectly), toileting (very well) and most of all happy.
What a wonderful result just be fore Christmas.
