Thanks so much everyone, your support and love mean so much.
I know that really it's only confirmed what we suspected, but have just taken it pretty badly...after losing my darling Princess Peaches in January, and so much else going wrong, this just hurts too much.
I'm trying to look at it from TedBear's poiint of view...at least we knew what to look for, and pushed to get him treated, and we will do everything possible for him to keep him comfortable and happy. Mybe in another home they would have thought he'd just slowed down as he was no longer a puppy, and was just an itchy dog, and being naughty about grooming...
Just wish I had all the answers and knew exactly WHAT is the best for him...
Well the technical stuff is:
Teddy has some hydrocephalus, the malformation, herniation, dilation all the way down the spinal cord with two largish syrinxes and some very small ones. The large ones around his neck and lower spine, which makes sense with regard to the grooming problems I'm having with him, also his change in gait - he had the most beautiful movement, but it's more of a bunny hop when he's running now.
He has some obvious neck discomfort - he was rather sore and quiet after the examination on Monday, as they had to pull him around a bit to examine him. His only reaction at the time though was to lower his ears, he didn't cry at all, he's such a brave boy. He's never ever cried, not like my precious Rupert who has the dreadful screaming episodes, but fortunately not very often.
One of the most difficult things to understand is that the degree of severity appearing on MRI does not seem to correlate with the symptoms the dogs are showing. Glasgow have MRI'd dogs with a syrinx all the way down the cord who can run and jump and play, but just scratch a lot. Other dogs appear very mildly affected on MRI but can hardly move their heads at all with the pain.
We've started TedBear on Prednisolone 2mg 2 x daily then reducing after two weeks hopefully and Gabapentin, 100mg 2 x daily, but I'm also going to obtain homoeopathic remedies from these medicines to give with them, to reduce the side effects and also hopefully reduce the dosage.
Glasgow are not keen on surgery - both the neurologist I saw and Mr Jacques Penderis came up from the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket {for those not in the UK, it's very famous, it's where they treat the racehorses}, and they are not even doing it there. Glasgow are seeing quite a few Cavaliers for MRI and diagnosing Caudal Occipital Malformation Syndrome (COMS) {they say this is the better name for it}. They are treating them medically. One was a 6 month old puppy who was quite bad, but is doing well on medication.
We are going to run with the medication and see how it goes.
I understand that Dr Dewey will be presenting his results this summer in ACVIM (big American conference), with regard to the new surgical procedure he has been using over the last few months, which seems to be better.
I guess that we are all learning all the time.
As you may know, we tried really hard to avoid having another affected dog, but it's happened again.
We all need to know what to look for and be prepared to educate our vets, and to push for treatment as it's very easy for some of these symptoms to be dismissed as a "dog thing". Please have a look here
http://sm.cavaliertalk.com/
and here
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=32&sid=fbe5297bd4cd66e8f977662e92bc9f11
I don't want to frighten anyone, just to make sure you're aware.
The good news is that TedBear has started on his medication and I'm seeing a big improvement in him already - he was doing circuits in the garden this morning :yikes
Also he got some of his toys out of the basket, something he hadn't been doing.
When the condition has been progressing slowly, it's hard to see the changes sometimes, I'm beginning to realise that he can't have been feeling that great for a while.
He sends you all a kissy and thanks you for thinking of us and a special one for Lulu, thanks for updating everyone and keeping in touch, you're a star :flwr: