My German shepherd is a 3 year old female, her problem is she is losing muscle in her front legs (from her feet to her shoulders), you can literally see her bone structure now. Every-time she is walking she will flap her feet on the ground as she has nerve damage now from this. She can barely walk, cannot run, cannot jump up on bed or couch, needs assistance to get up on couch or bed, does not have good balance, she falls when she walks most time. Now she does not wimper in pain, but up until 5 weeks ago, she was fine. I have taken her to the vet 4 time the last few weeks, they had done blood-work on her and came up with nothing, it was thought it was some type of auto-immune, but was not.
The series of event prior to her having these problems, she had her nails clipped. Her dew claw was clipped too closely and she started chewing on it. We took her back in as she had to have this removed because of the infection, it wasn't but a week after she started showing these signs and the vet dismissed it as her healing process. I am not sure the two are actually related, but this is what happened leading up to her having the issues above.
Has anyone heard of this type of problem?? Does anyone know what this might be??
I'd request copies of her records (so that you aren't paying for repeat tests) and have her evaluated by a vet other than the hospital that performed the dewclaw removal.
I've never had personal experience with anything like this, but I also recommend you get her records and find a vet that specializes in nerve and muscle issues, or skeletal issues.
Did her parents have medical evaluations and health tests done on them?
If I were you, I would have xrays done to check on spinal problems. Front leg weakness can be a result of a disk problem in the neck and can occur anytime. Many other reasons but a place to start?
I am thinking a site of trauma bacterial infection which turned into some form of myositis .
Staph Aureus will cause muscle wasting.
there's your clue "
The series of event prior to her having these problems, she had her nails clipped. Her dew claw was clipped too closely and she started chewing on it. We took her back in as she had to have this removed because of the infection, "
why did the vet not even look at this chain of events?
We have a appointment scheduled for a specialist, was looking to avoid this, but seems inevitable as she means a lot to us and i want to make sure she gets better.
Problem is with getting her records is i bought her from an unknown breeder and i was looking to save a few bucks, the people i bought her from will not return my phone calls or emails and they live like 500 miles from me. I have my girl now, i wouldn't change it for anything, i just need to focus on figuring out how to get her healthy again...this essentially is not the only problem i have with her though as she takes allergy shots every month as she is allergic to basically everything
Ah, sorry to hear this. There are risks involved with buying from people like that, but you seem to have found that out.
Can you at least get her medical records from the vets you've taken her to? Then you can bring those to the specalist. If you know the names of her parents you should also be able to look up their pedigrees and see some of the testing done on them.
Flapping feet is can be neuro sign (as opposed to orthopedic sign), and that's also true of muscle atrophy down the entire leg. I've recently seen this in a dog that had a a nerve issue in the spinal cord, going down the leg. I would ask your general practice vet to discuss a referral to a vet neurologist or internal medicine specialist -- not an orthopedist.
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