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.