Dr. Karen Emerson introduces us to a dog who was recently diagnosed with the bone disorder ununited anconeal process which left her in severe pain.
The good news is, her surgery was a success and she's getting better everyday.
If your pet is showing signs of pain or discomfort, make your appointment today with the Emerson Animal Hospital in West Point.
Dr. karen emerson: good morning sunrisers!
I'm dr. karen emerson and today i have with me my associate dr. stevenson and this beautiful german shepherd.
She's three years old and her name is chloe.
Chloe actually presented a few months ago non weight bearing on her elbow.
I think it was the left side.
Dr. karen emerson: she came in, she was limping.
She was in so much pain.
We went in to try to palpate the elbow.
It's okay chloe.
We actually took an x-ray and we actually found that she had something called ununited anconeal process.
All this means is that as zoe was growing, some bones in her elbow did not basically form properly, so it caused her as she was growing, as she was getting bigger, the bone actually broke off, it ununited.
We actually saw own x-ray a piece of bone and i'm actually going to get to show you guys the actual piece of bone we took out during our surgical procedure.
Dr. karen emerson: we actually had to go in and do surgery on chloe's elbow where we went into the joint and found this very, very large piece of bone fragment and that piece of bone fragment was just floating around in her joint and every time she would walk, it was moving and rubbing on her soft tissue.
It was causing arthritis in the joints.
A lot of you guys out there that have arthritis, just think about that having a free floating piece of bone out there causing severe inflammation, severe pain.
I mean, she didn't even want to get up.
Dr. karen emerson: the good thing is after we did surgery, the next day we called and talked to the parents.
They were so happy and guess who else was happy?
Chloe was happy.
She was actually up already starting to walk and now she has full mobility in that elbow.
Now, she does suffer still for some arthritis.
We've talked to her parents about that.
We've talked to them about her weight control.
We talked to them about different types of nutritional supplements they can put her on and of course we do offer the laser therapy.
Dr. karen emerson: if you have a dog that you notice is maybe have intermittent elbow lameness, like they're walking intermittent elbow lameness, like they're walking and then they'll sit down or they hold that elbow up, or if you go to pet them, they just jerk back in extreme pain, those are all signs of this disease called ununited anconeal process, and we even see it in younger dogs at an age of one, but normally they're going to really start showing major clinical signs when they get about three years of age.
If you have a large breed dog and you just want to have them checked out, if you notice a little bit of limping, bring them in.
We can do those x-rays.
And remember, your pets will thank you.
Announcer: wcbi animal health with dr. emerson was brought to you by emerson animal hospital in west