Our dog had a spinal cord cancer which presented with rear leg paralysis. The vet was able to remove the lesion but stated that the damage to the cord was too great and that there was less than one percent chance of regaining function in the back half of the body.
He did recommend that we take her to a rehab clinic as one never knows. Since I am a holistic provider very accustomed to working with animals, we did the work at home. We took her in to have her stitches out in 2 weeks. The vet was amazed by the recovery in that time and stated that a full recovery was entirely possible. He wanted to hear what we had been doing for her that could make such an incredible difference and reversal of the spinal cord damage. She had made more progress in those 14 days than he expected her to ever make. 10 weeks later we have a very happy healthy dog who does a wonderful job with her daily routine with the aid of a rear end walkabout leash. She continues to get stronger and improve her daily activities. I would like to share our care plan which has done so well for her. Here is the outline of the plan which was started 48 hours post-op (as soon as she could come home-I would have preferred to start immediately post-op). Mind-body care, Chakra balancing, music daily, Healing hypnosis video daily, Constant reassurance that all will be well, that she is very strong, and doing a great job, Supervised play time/social time with our other dogs daily. Energy and movement work* Initial 4 times daily acupuncture 4 times daily high quality magnet care 4 times daily massage and reflexology 4 times daily PT Presently at 10 weeks post op All of these are now moved to the usual schedule of dog routine. Now we are at 3 times per day to match her feeding and walking routine.
We did not do swimming but this is strongly recommended to give the body a chance to remember without having the stress of weight bearing. Our dog is afraid of water and so we held off on this.
Herb-supplements Daily B12 injections Valerian Chamomile Skullcap Vitamin C Essiac tea Diet High quality kibble -Raw diet is always the best, but you must take the time to research this and incorporate it appropriately, especially if your dog already has a chronic illness.
Focus-all of these modalities and routines work to wake up the nervous system, help it to regenerate (which recent studies indicate that does happen), strengthen the immune system (since the original diagnosis was a nephroblastoma), maintain strength and range of motion of the body, keep up the mood (healing is very much slowed with a depressed mindset).
Thank you. Sincerely, Heather Johnstone