Hello. (Aloha Laurie!)
I was wondering if anyone has experience doing rehab on a dog with Myasthenia Gravis? We have a 9mo male intact Great Pyrenees patient that is non-ambulatory (on land). He has only a very mild response to medications prescribed by his neurologist so far (its been about 8 weeks). As far as rehab goes we do massage and try to do ROM but he's very resistant so basically we have him stand and do a little walking in the UWTM (we just do small intervals and only with pelvic limbs as he will not walk on all 4).
Thanks for reading
Oy! These are tough ones! I'll have to dig up some articles on this to create a document or presentation of some kind. From what I have figured / can figure is that you simply try to get any kind of function and work with it as the body either does (or does not) heal itself.
Get him upright (over a peanut or ball) and work with him there, work with reflexes, con't in the UWT. Massage in this case is just too passive and not targeting the root of the problem.
Check out the training video 27 - 'ways to play with e-stim' to try to get flexor withdrawal using an e-stim pad on the bottom of his foot.
Good luck - fingers crossed!
Laurie
Thank you Laurie!
Update: He was seen at neurologist last week and was able to walk 50 yards (for the neurologist). The tensilon test was performed and per owner not much improvement but he walked 100 yards. Last UWTM session he walked 10min (with breaks) and used all four limbs which is an improvement (he saw my co-worker).
Follow-up question regarding laser therapy in this pup - as he is so young I do not want to use the class IV laser as he is still growing and I don't feel there is a true indication. There is some discussion about using it over thoracic spine for tight muscles but I feel that a massage will be better indication rather than class IV laser as there is no sign of back pain in this pup. Thoughts?
Happy news about your case! Hopefully everything continues to improve!
Well, as you likely know. I LOVE laser. However, if there is no back pain in this case, and the laser if not being directed to heal a region either, then to be honest, likely massage with have more of an impact, in that it is a sensory stimuli as well as helpful for increased bloodflow (or muscle tension) as need be.
I thought I'd update you because I am always interested in how cases are progressing/end up. The dog was placed on Mestinon by the neurologist as he was not as progressed as neuro would have liked to have seen. Anyway, the dog is walking more and more; still somewhat stiffened gait but I think part of that is that he's afraid of falling since he hasn't walked on his own in so long. He has progressed to the point of a home exercise program with occasional check ins with us!
