{10june2010: needles}

Good news!

So Darwin's neurologist called last week with basically the same results.  He got Darwin's xrays from our vet and looked over them with the radiologist and two other surgeons and they all couldn't determine her pain or rear end weakness.  Dr Sanders thinks Darwin is a "rare example of hyperproliferative soft tissue".  He thinks she "may be subject to a limited activity lifestyle" if we cannot control the pain.  I asked again about what he thinks about taking her to see Dr. Kelleher and he thought it would be the best thing.  

Ok, that's not the good news.

Here's the good news.  So I emailed her last Tuesday to get on her waiting list and figured it would be a while till we could go in and see her.  She emailed early Saturday morning saying she had a cancellation for Monday and we could have that appointment!  Woo hoo!  

So Monday afternoon Darwin and I jumped in the car for a 30 minute drive north to see Dr. Kelleher.  I brought along all of Darwin's records and we went over how all of this started with her staying with her doggy mom and dad.  She was very excited about Darwin's case as we had done everything we could with traditional medicine (xrays, neurologist, MRI, Meningitis treatment, more xrays, etc) and after checking Darwin out she felt like chiropractic and acupuncture would totally help.  She said in checking out Darwin's spine she confirmed my suspicion that she was probably t-boned from the right side by her dad.  She found Darwin's right shoulder was really stiff, many disks were out of alignment going down her back, her pelvis was a little crooked, and her left side was super sensitive.  She did a few adjustments along Darwin's spine and then started with the acupuncture.  

Darwin did really well with the acupuncture, which surprised me, the only time she seemed to be uncomfortable with it was when Dr. Kelleher tried to insert a needle in her lower left side (her sensitive side) and Darwin jumped up.  

Dr. Kellelher noticed that Darwin is a tad overweight due to being on the Prednisone, so Darwin's now on a diet!  We're looking for her to lose around 7lbs to get her back to her 115lb range.  Now Darwin will only get 3 cups of kibble (she was at 5, and up to 7 with the Prednisone) and 2 cups of homemade food.  She gets to eat more raw meat and hard boiled eggs, and a mix of ground veggies.  Dr. Kelleher says vegetables like broccoli, kale, parsley, carrots and cauliflower are good "back building" veggies.  She also said Darwin could get raw chicken necks.

Sorry, iphone picture.... but doesn't that look appetizing?! 

Darwin seems to like her new diet, but is not a fan of chicken necks.  Monday night she ate them, but she won't go near them now.  If they are in her bowl, she won't eat.  Last night I took them out of the bowl and she ate just fine.  I tried to give her a chicken neck on its own and she totally rejected it.  She sniffed it, gave it a lick and turned her head away!  Thank goodness they are cheap ($0.99/lb) because I threw them out! 
Darwin also getting new supplements.  A Chinese herb mixture, doggy daily vitamins, Vitamin E, fish oil (she was getting this salmon oil but Dr. Kelleher recommends getting a human grade fish oil high in DHA), cod liver oil, Choline, and Lions Mane mushroom.  These are supposed to help her brain and nervous system.  It's a lot to get used to in terms of how much and how often, but I'm sure we'll get the hang of it soon.

The only slightly bad thing is that our insurance doesn't cover holistic medicine so all the visits we make to Dr. Kelleher will add up.  Eeek!  We'll see how it goes!  We have another appointment next Monday and then another one in early July.   I'm feeling pretty confident that she'll be able to help Darwin and get her back to her normal self!