7 year old w/ back injury

[kteggers]

My 7 year old Golden/Cocker mix Buddy has had seizures about 2-3 times a year for the past few years. Vet doesn't want to put him on seizure meds since they are so far apart.
We believe he had a seizure Thursday morning. I woke to him crying. All signs pointed to a seizure, he was stiff and scared and licking his mouth like crazy, typical signs in the past for a seizure. He was sore all day, but was ok. Friday he was crying and could not get comfortable. We could not tell where the pain was coming from, it didn't appear to be typical hip pain. Saturday was awful, he cried and cried and could not get him to relax. He was/is very hunched over and is holding his head low and slightly tilted. Like I said above, normal vet wasn't open and emergency vet is out of our budget. We found a local vet who squeezed us in. She inspected him and felt up his back, two locations he cried, one close to the right shoulder and the other towards his rump. She said his back felt normal and she felt it was soft tissue damage possibly from the seizure. She did not do xrays or anything, she did watch him and tried to make him step funny with his foot, looking for nerve damage and everything was normal.
She gave us tramadol and methocarbomal. Pain killer and muscle relaxer and said give it a few days. Well it's been 3 days now and he's still acting the same. Granted he's very drugged up now and isn't crying out in pain. BUT, he's still hunched, not comfortable and holding his head low and slightly tilted. How long can a back injury go on?
We are concerned with his head being low and tilted that maybe he had a stroke or something? He's acting ok though, besides extremely sore. Eating, pooping and walking ok.
I guess we are just super scared that we aren't seeing major improvements yet... I'm so worried. When should we take him back in. He only has 2 more days of muscle relaxers and 5 days of pain meds.
Any advice would be great! Thank you

[kteggers]

GREAT idea on the pain meds! I also agree, if he did do this during a seizure, it was severe! BUT now my husband is saying the night before this happened, he was sore and acting like he was in pain. So maybe it wasn't a seizure at all and he just did something on this nightly walk? Hubs does let him off leash to wander a bit down a hill, I assume dogs can hurt themselves just like people, so if he slipped or stepped funny, maybe that did it. Also a combo of having a bad hip. Who knows! We are talking him back tomorrow, hopefully we can get some steroids/anti-inflammatory drugs. Thank you for your ideas and kind words!

[kteggers]

Hi Karla,
I ran out of room explaining everything, the reason for no anti-inflammatory is we gave him baby aspirin when the injury first happened, thinking it was his hip again..he was on that for 24 hours before we took him to the vet. Vet said it will be a week before they can give him anti-inflammatory since we gave him aspirin. Something about liver problems and bleeding if we do too much. SO, that's tomorrow and I plan on taking him to our normal vet tomorrow. He's not better. He has his moments, but not where I would think he should be. I believe he did injure his back and his hip was sore, but this appears to be better, not the shoulder though :( He's still crying if we are too hard on his shoulder (trying to see where the pain is) and he's being very tendor when walking and putting down his front right leg. His head is still down, so now we are thinking maybe shoulder problem. Whatever it is, we need anti-inflam. I believe! Thank you for your response!

[Misfits4Me]

Welcome...Although this sounds like Disk/Disc injury (IVDD), I'm wondering if it's not a neurological issue brought on by the seizure which would appear as the same thing?

Either way, I would want to treat w/steroids for either one....Your guy is on meds strictly for pain & muscle relaxers, but NO anti-inflammatory which doesn't make sense to me......

Also, a physical exam cannot determine if this is a disk injury...From your description, it sounds like a herniated Disk in the cervical area (Neck) to me...

You might want to google canine IVDD and read up on it.......I hope your dog gets better...Please, let us know....Karla

[skydnsr]

A few random thoughts:  (1) If he is going to have seizures that are so severe that he hurts himself like this, then maybe he does need to be on antiseizure medication, even if the seizures aren't frequent.  (2) Anytime that I myself have gotten a severe soft-tissue injury, it was still quite painful 4 days after the initial injury, so maybe it is to be expected that he is still hurting.  (3) I wouldn't want him to have to go cold turkey off of his pain medication and muscle relaxers, so I would start spacing them father apart, especially the muscle relaxers, because you have fewer of them, and see if you can't start getting him weaned off the prescription drugs.  If it turns out he's not ready to go without them, then you ought to be able to get that figured out within the next couple of days, while you still have three days of pain meds left, and then you can schedule an appointment for him to be seen before you run out of everything.  (4) I'm wondering if he fell off the bed or something.  Whatever it was that he did to himself, he really did it, so I would stay curious about just how he got hurt.  You mention that he has hip issues, so maybe the injury near his rump has something to do with that.  Poor guy.

Good luck.  Clearly you love him a lot.  I hope you can find a solution.