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Panosteitis - Growing Pains

6608 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  TerriB
Hi all, My 11 mo. Harley has panosteitis, (growing pains), I under stand that 5 mo - 18 mo.'s this may last, & all we can do is give him pain pills, I don't like taken pills & most certainly don't like given to my pets. I do see it's helping, but has any one else have this problem, & how long did it last? thanks Angelidiluce
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pano, pano, my boy had it from 4 months old untill he was 8 months old and he had it bad. it didn't go and come with him. he had it steady for 4 months. i use to massage his legs. he seemed to like it. i still massage his legs. i can't think of the name of the medicine the Vet gave him but it's common. the Vet gave him enough pills to last 2 weeks and only give it to him when he was in pain or limbing. we cut his walks down to nothing and no dog parks. we did allow a friend to come over with his pup and they would play for short a period of time. we allowed this once a week. i was told to watch the protein level in his food. i forget the percentage. as time passed you could see him getting better. he started running a little more. there's this nice small field behind a store that we go to and i would take him there to be off the leash. we started to notice how he's running and better and little to no limbing after playing. then one day i was letting out of the car and a rabbit was in the bushes beside the car. the rabbit took off and so did Loki. he was running in full stride and the pano was gone. i've been told it can come back untill they're a few years old. my last Shep had it at 6 months old and it came back when he was 1&1/2 yrs. old. massage his legs and feet he might like it and it might help. good luck, he's going to be fine.
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Rocky had the problem on and off for about 4 months I think. We got lucky when we noticed him limping we would give him his pain pills (rymidal I think) and he was better the next day, however it did keep flaring up. He started when he was about 5 months old.

I know they outgrow the problem. I think Rocky had a pretty mild case, but I have heard of pups having it much worse.
Two of my dogs had pano. My first dog had it off and on for about 2 months and then it was gone. And my second dog had it off and on for about 5 months or so. I did not give either of them a whole lot of painpills even though I had them. They were kept crated and I only did leash walks. For my second dog when she had pano my vet suggested that I watch her and let her decide the walking pace and how far she wanted to go. There were a few days when she did not want to do much of anything and then there were days inbetween when she was fine.

My vet prescribed a combo of Rimadyl and Tramadol, but I would only give it to her on the really bad days.
Echo is now 15 months old and has suffered from long bouts of pano since he was about 6.5 months old. We tried the Rimadyl and another steroid, treatment that did help occasionally.

However more recently with his limp the Dr. was concerned about him being on these meds for so long, so she gave me another medicine,She said a vet in Boston found it worked fantastic on
Pano pain. Its a human medicine, used for arthritis. I can't recal the name of it off the top of my head but when I get home I'll try to log on and post it.

Basically its one pill every OTHER day. and its a non-steroid.
It helped AMAZINGLY well, 3 doses and his limp stopped (6 days on pills with rest, opposed to his normal 2 week stints)

We also keep Echo on a sligly lower protien diet and give him calcium suppliments.

We too would massage his leg, since it primarly sitll hits his front left leg. But the vet says that it probably agrivates it more than anything, even if he doesn't have a pain response.

Everytime it comes back I always second guess the xrays, and the prognosis. Always afraid its something the vet missed. We ended up taking him to a specialist for joints and bones. Simply because Echo is a big dog, and our vet felt more comfortable having him take the xrays and make sure there wasn't a bigger problem like torn cartlidge. Only because Echo never responds to pain when you're manipulating the afflicted leg, the most she could get out of him was a yelp when she rotated his shoulder, "pretty far".

I only hold by the hope that at most we have another year of this.
Hang in there!
Ill try to get that pain reliever name to you tonight.
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**PIROXICAM

he takes 1 10mg capsule every other day.

The vet wrote me a script and I took it to the local pharmacy.
10 pills were like 11 dollars.

Good luck!
Oh how wonderful, for Echo & you. I waiting on the Vet. to call me now, Harley had a reaction last night, around 2:30 AM he started vomiting & crying. Vet prescribed a combo of Rimadyl and Tramadol, on day 3, I have seen alittle improvement up to last night, & then a set back, but he didn't eat hardly anything yesterday & thinking the pills made his tummy upset. we'll talk about Piroxicam thanks.
awww poor puppy!
Well I hope you all find something that works well.
Keep us updated!
Ruger had Pano really bad off and on from 7-12 months. We switched to a lower protein adult diet at the vet's request. He put him on MSM suppliments daily and Metacam for pain as needed. It was very severe until we started treatment. The Metacam is great for pain. We also restricted his exercise.

Best wishes to you!

Terri
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