Cleo Update - Acupuncture Here I Come

First of Mom would like to thank everyone for all their great words of encouragement and advice.  She absolutely says that blogville rocks and she is so thankful that she has a blog to receive this great advice from great friends, human and furends.  I thought I would give you all an update on how I am doing after my follow-up appointment and where we are at with moving forward.

I continue to take it day by day, I have good days and bad days.  All last week I was doing really good, my tummy is feeling much better and I just cannot get enough to eat.  The W/D food I am on and the small quantity they are allowing me to have is just not cutting it.  So on Friday I decided to take things into my own account and see if I could scarf up some foodables around here.  All I can say is "THANK YOU, DAD" for staying home Friday and leaving that Fridge open just a little bit to allow my paw to fit in to that opening very nicely.  Mom came home to be guarding the kitchen very intently on Friday afternoon.  All, I can say is that 6 sausages and 1/2 pound of Deli ham filled my tummy up very well.  BOL.....(Note from HDM:  Actually Cleo was guarding the kitchen and her plastic wrappings, Amiee was in the bedroom with the empty container from the ham, and poor poor Winston is sitting in the living room with the saddest eyes that he had failed at having any of these yummy treats.)

Of course, Mom, had a full blown panic attack about my treats I had.  With all my tummy issues, she said the only thing that came to mind was "BLOAT", and my tummy was quite large and bulging out the side when I would lay down.  She immediately called Dr. T so they could talk and find out if he needed to see me, again.  He told Mom to not give me my normal feedings for supper, only like 20 pieces of Kibble for supper and nothing else.  He said that I was already on anti-acid meds so that would help and the small amount of kibble should begin to move things out of my system.  Needless to say Mom did not sleep much Friday night and all I could do was drink like 29 gallons of water and pant like crazy.  She told me that the sausages were really not fit for a human to consume let alone a fur-kid.  BOL  Then of course, before she hung from Dr. T he proceeded to tell her --- Well this is not really what we wanted Cleo to do at this stage of her treatment, but I am just really glad to see that she is feeling that well to RAID THE FRIDGE.  All, Mom could do was Agree, WTF.......I woke up on Saturday feeling fine and ready for my breakfast, also I visited the backyard several times throughout the day to expel said sausages and ham.  BOL....

Okay, back to my follow-up visit Monday (June 25th).  Dr. T stuck me again in my shaved leg to draw more blood so he could check my counts for my tummy.  He said that after the blood work was processed all my counts were back to normal and I was healing nicely for my tummy, but I have to stay on W/D food for 6-8 weeks just to make sure everything is balancing out okay.  We then moved to the more important part of the follow-up visit, my spine, back, vertebrae out of alignment.  Dr. T was not very impressed with what he was seeing in this exam.  It appears that my response time to bring my feet back to being firmly planted on the ground, is still very slow, extremely slow and he felt that we have not made any improvement at all.  It basically has stayed the same for a week, it appears we are just maintaining the swelling in her spinal column but not see the improvements we would like.  He feels like with humans and back trouble that it just takes time and lots of rest, normally 6-8 weeks.  But he is very supportive of Mom taking me for another opinion and proceeding with looking into acupuncture and chiropractor treatments for me.  We talked about the Chinese Herbs that this lady also will recommend, but he really wants her to stay on her anti-inflammatory meds while she goes through this treatment with Dr. A.  He said if she wants to use herbs to please let him know so that they can work together.  He said you don't always want to continue with pills if you are applying other things.

Mom informed him that she really just wants a second opinion confirm that I have Wobblers' Syndrome and it is not something different.  She also really wants to focus on acupuncture and chiropractor care for me and maybe skip the Chinese herbs and stuff.  She worries about having 3 different things happening to my body and not really knowing which one is helping my situation out.  Well Mom has told me that she called Dr. A and we have an appointment set up for next Wednesday, August 2nd at 2:00pm.  She would have like to got me in sooner but since Dr. A is the only near this area that does this treatment she gets booked pretty quickly.  She asked Mom to get ALL my medical records, lab reports, and doctor notes faxed to her this week so she can review them.  She also asked that we get our X-Rays as well sent to her.  Dr. T is being very accommodating for us at this stage of the game and he is working on faxing, mailing all my medical records to Dr. A.  I can't tell you how excited I am about getting to move forward with this phase of my treatment.  I have heard nothing but great things from everyone in blogville about how this treatment is going to help me regain my strength, so I can hopefully chase that squirrel or capture that snake in the backyard. 

My Mom got some great information from the SlimmerPugs and their Momma.  She forwarded us an article that was in Dog Fancy about Gold Bead Implants that are a form of permanent acupuncture that is implanted under the skin.  We talked to Dr. T about this and he said they they have used these for years, as GOLD is the most successful with treating this type of stuff.  He said, that Copper and other things are used but GOLD is the ultimate source to use if you can afford it.  Mom told him that she was just going to wrap me in a GOLD sweater and that should solve everything.  BOL....We are going to take this article with us next Wednesday when we see Dr. A and get her feelings on it as well.  It maybe something we may have to pursue in the future for me.

So for the time being, Dr. A has said that I must be kept quite and not allowed to jump on furniture or take stairs.  She feels that I should be okay tell next Wednesday since I am moving around on all fours really well.  She told Mom that if she seems me getting worse over the next few days and if I having trouble with my lameness more I should call her immediately and she will figure a way to work us in.  Mom told her she is willing to come at anytime of the day or evening, she will leave work in a heartbeat to get met there.

Thanks again for all the great thoughts and advice for Mom, she says I have given her a pretty good scare and this is not something she has faced before in any of her other bassets.

Sniffs,
Cleo