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Diskospondylitis

I have an 18 month old male that was just diagnosed with Diskospondylitis, an infection in a vertebra at the base of his spine. There is some degradation of the vertebra seen on CAT scan.

He's a big strappin, 90lb, otherwise healthy guy, minimally symptomatic. Just some nerve pain in the left rear. Not sure yet of his white count, no fever present.

I expect that he will do well but I want to give him every advantage. He'll be on long term antibiotic therapy. We're waiting on cultures to identify the bacteria and will change the current antibiotic accordingly.

We're already giving him fish oil and a joint supplement but I'm looking for suggestions on other vitamines or supplements that might help boost the effectiveness of the antibiotics. There have been no obvious means for this infection to occur so I'm wondering if this was an opportunistic infection because his immune system may not be up to snuff so I'm wondering about long term support for his immune system.

This is apparently not a common diagnosis but if anyone has has some experiance I'd be interested.

Also wondering if anyone has experiance with hyperbaric oxygen treatments on their dogs and if so, how and where they went about it. I can find wound care centers for human treatments but so far nothing in the great lakes area in veterinary use.

Re: Diskospondylitis

I had a dog with this. He was on antibiotics for a long time. Once off, he continued to do well. This dog was crated at night and I learned that he needed a larger than average crate to allow him to turn around comfortably. Making tight turns in the typical lab size crate caused pain. He lived to be 15 years old.

Re: Diskospondylitis

Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear that your boy had a good long life after.

Urine & Blood work have ruled out a UTI and Brucellosis, appears to be staph or strep. His blood work looked good. At this point he'll be on the meds for at least 2 months.

After 5 days on antibiotics, he's already showing signs that he feels better. Keeping him "quiet" is proving to be the challenge, he did a full out vault onto the bed over the weekend. Before, you could tell that those kinds of movements were an issue for him.

Re: Diskospondylitis

Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear that your boy had a good long life after.

Urine & Blood work have ruled out a UTI and Brucellosis, appears to be staph or strep. His blood work looked good. At this point he'll be on the meds for at least 2 months.

After 5 days on antibiotics, he's already showing signs that he feels better. Keeping him "quiet" is proving to be the challenge, he did a full out vault onto the bed over the weekend. Before, you could tell that those kinds of movements were an issue for him.

Re: Diskospondylitis

Only tight turns to the left or right would hurt. Aside from that, a good bump from a puppy or another dog could hurt. The other dogs quickly learned to respect his condition.

Re: Diskospondylitis

Hyperbaric oxygen treatments sounds like a great idea, please post if you find a place that will help you.

I would be cautious of supplementing to boost the effectiveness of your antibiotics. Some vitamins can actually work the other way. Some people like to use probiotics to replace gut flora while on antibiotics but they might be a waste if your antibiotic has a long half life and is effective in killing the probiotic bacteria you're giving. I usually wait until until antibiotic therapy is finished before giving probiotics.

To boost the immune system feed a good food and allow your dog plenty of fresh air, sunshine and exercise. This is the best medicine! Sometimes things happen and we can't explain why, not necessarily an immune system issue. You can cause more harm supplementing than not supplementing. Really. Keep in mind too that vitamins are poorly regulated.

As a side note, I used to take fish oil myself and also gave it to my dogs but I recently noticed it now contains soy! I've been buying he same brand for years and stopped reading the label. I was shocked to see the amounts of omegas were now dumbed down too. I couldn't find any fish oil without soy so I switched over to MSM, works great.

Good luck!

Re: Diskospondylitis

Thanks so much for you comments. I did get some feedback on antibiotic's interaction with Vitamin C and based on that, decided it was pretty complicated and risky to add anything more than what we are already doing.

We won't know for sure how things are going until we compare CAT scans in a few months but he seems to be doing well. He's jumped up on beds when given the opportunity, something he was not doing before. So, I think we're seeing some relief to the inflamation pinching the nerve running down his leg.

Re: Diskospondylitis

A good quality probiotic is beneficial when on an antibiotic. The key is to give it 2-3 hours away from the antibiotic (prevents the antib from killing it off). And then when antib. is finished to continue the probiotic for weeks or a month to keep putting good bacteria back into the system.

For instance when treating for Lyme with a month of antib. I continue with probiotic after antib. for at least a month.

No experience otherwise with what you are dealing with but prayers the treatment works for your boy.