Teri
Active member
Hi, I'm so happy to find this board, and especially this forum for SM and MVD. I am hoping you can give me some guidance.
We have suspected that my girl Sadie (almost 5 yrs old now) has SM. She does the bunny hop and air scratching when she walks, she scratches her neck/ear area, she's slowed down and sleeps more, she needs steps to get up to the couch because she won't jump up anymore, she won't jump off anything, and we have to pick her up in just the right place so she doesn't yelp, and she sometimes looks like she has a headache. These have all been mild and variable symptoms where they only show up once in awhile since she was two. But lately they have increased in frequency and she also started getting a head tilt (we noticed it just a couple weeks ago after we watched a video of her we had just taken) and she is getting some curvature of her spine at times. We are worried she might be in pain and want to do more to help her.
We took her to our regular vet and she agreed that it sounds like it could be SM and getting worse. She took her through a bunch of exercises and she did pretty well on most of them, she didn't think she had any weakness in her legs for example. But she started her on Metacam and said if that doesn't do anything in two weeks, she'll try furosemide next, and then if that doesn't work she'll refer us to a neurologist and to think about doing an MRI to know for sure what we're dealing with. I am leaning towards doing an MRI sooner rather than later instead of trying this or that and not really knowing what we're dealing with and possibly causing more harm. What are your thoughts on this? Also, for an MRI can we just find any neuro to do the MRI or do we need a neuro who is experienced with SM? I know I'd want to get a very experienced neuro who has experience in SM if she needs surgery, but is that also important for doing an MRI? I'm in the state of Washington (USA) so any recommendations for neuros in the west or for our next steps would be most welcome. We are feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment and want to do the best for our little sweet girl.
Thanks so much!
Teri
We have suspected that my girl Sadie (almost 5 yrs old now) has SM. She does the bunny hop and air scratching when she walks, she scratches her neck/ear area, she's slowed down and sleeps more, she needs steps to get up to the couch because she won't jump up anymore, she won't jump off anything, and we have to pick her up in just the right place so she doesn't yelp, and she sometimes looks like she has a headache. These have all been mild and variable symptoms where they only show up once in awhile since she was two. But lately they have increased in frequency and she also started getting a head tilt (we noticed it just a couple weeks ago after we watched a video of her we had just taken) and she is getting some curvature of her spine at times. We are worried she might be in pain and want to do more to help her.
We took her to our regular vet and she agreed that it sounds like it could be SM and getting worse. She took her through a bunch of exercises and she did pretty well on most of them, she didn't think she had any weakness in her legs for example. But she started her on Metacam and said if that doesn't do anything in two weeks, she'll try furosemide next, and then if that doesn't work she'll refer us to a neurologist and to think about doing an MRI to know for sure what we're dealing with. I am leaning towards doing an MRI sooner rather than later instead of trying this or that and not really knowing what we're dealing with and possibly causing more harm. What are your thoughts on this? Also, for an MRI can we just find any neuro to do the MRI or do we need a neuro who is experienced with SM? I know I'd want to get a very experienced neuro who has experience in SM if she needs surgery, but is that also important for doing an MRI? I'm in the state of Washington (USA) so any recommendations for neuros in the west or for our next steps would be most welcome. We are feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment and want to do the best for our little sweet girl.
Thanks so much!
Teri