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Strange Pain Symptoms in my griff

This is a forum for bonding with your fellow Dogsters about the traits, quirks and idiosyncrasies of your favorite breed. Please remember that there are absolutely no animal sales or requests for studding or breeding allowed on our sites. All posts and interactions should be in the spirit of Dogster's Community Guidelines and should be fun, friendly and informational. Enjoy!

  
Ernie

Dogs Rule		 
 
Barked: Wed Feb 4, '09 6:01pm PST 
Im reaching out to fellow griff owners to see if anyone else has had the experiences I have had. My dog Ernie is 4 and half years old and he has developed odd symptoms that the vets cannot diagnose. It started about 4 months ago when he had the first spell which involved constant sitting, flipping his head backwards as if to tell me something was bothering him in his rear area, and loud frustrated sounding barks and crys. (Mind you my griff is too tough to be pitiful so he gets mad instead)
Initially thinking it was an anal gland issue I brought him to the vet multiple times, had xrays, and bloodwork done and still the symptoms remained. He ate and pooped fine. It came down to the possibility of it being a back issue or syringomyelia, or which he showed none of the other symptoms for both diagnosis, being weakness in hind legs for disc issues, and neck scratching and gait deficiencies for syringomyelia. Just as I was about to consuslt a neurologist and get and MRI for my poor guy he seemes to all of a sudden stop complaining. Mind you he had been on anti inflammatories Rimadyl and Tramadol for the entire duration. So that brings us to now, i thought he had an acute episode , hurt himself somehow, and i dodged at 3500 dollar bullet at the neuro. But he has a few days ago started to exhibit the same symptoms. Starting him on pain meds right away has possibly minimized the severity, but if i had to describe the symptoms they are ususally at first walk after sleeping. Morning, when i return from work they are most apparent. (also the times right before pain meds administered) And I have noticed that it affects his bowel movements in that he usually is quite the pooper and he has only been pooping 2 x a day. Seems to be most distured around bowel movement time and much more comfortable after. (But again these times overlap with just waking, and after work, and when pain meds are administered) So i could quite possible still be a back issue and not a bowel movement issue as strain is being placed on the lower back to pass a movement. Anyway im kind of at a loss of what to do to help my guy. Do i just wait it out again? Go for the big bucks MRI only to have them tell me its a back issue and suggest either surgery or pain management?
Basically im just reaching out to see if anyone else has ever encountered any of these symptoms. I mean my Ernie still jumps up on things, hump his stuffed girlfriend, and plays with my other puppy.....it just seems so unexplainable and frustrated the both of us . HELP!
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Rufus

His Royal- Highness		 
 
Barked: Sun Feb 8, '09 1:03am PST 
Hi there, sorry to hear young Ernie is in pain and I hope he feels better soon. Could he have a bowel obstruction?? Something quite small that is causing the discomfort?
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Tinker The- Stinker

Tinker the- Stinker born to- kiss		 
 
Barked: Sun Feb 8, '09 7:28pm PST 
It is really hard to tell why he is having these symptoms. I just adopted my first BG in August, and while he appears to be healthy right now, I also have pugs and have experienced more illnesses and diseases then I would have ever imagined. I recently took my female pug to have an mri, and I am glad that I had it done. However, I already knew 100% that it was something spinal or a tumor in her spine. She was dragging her back legs a little and had become fecal incontinent. She has degenerative disc disease which could not be fixed with surgery. It can get worse so we were told that she is not allowed to do stairs now, no jumping up and down furniture, etc... So, we built a handipug ramp for her to get into the back yard. If your BG does have something spinal going on, the sooner it is determined, the better chance of 100% recovery. I would strongly recommend taking you baby to one of the teaching veterinary schools. I've had great luck on numerous occasions with 3 different universities dealing with liver shunts, chronic bronchitis and most recently with spinal issues and urinary issues. Good luck in finding what is causing the problems.
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Oliver (of- Oliver- street)

Oliver - little studly- boy		 
 
Barked: Tue Feb 24, '09 6:26am PST 
Glad to find this topic since my Oliver was just diagnosed with this awful SM. Had not heard the theory on vaccines possible contributing.
Let me first say that you could (ASAP) get in touch with the study funded by AKC at Univ of GA med school. just search Brussels Griffon study and fax them your info. They are still excepting dogs as of now and it is free to have the MRI.
It may just be the tip of the ice burg in the search for those affected. My former Boston Terrier had some symptoms also.
I found out about this disease only recently when doing a symptom search. We had taken Oliver to vet and nothing found as problem.
I read that some dogs can be labeled babies when they begin crying out for no reason. Poor little mute dogs!
Oliver began to cry out for no apparent reason when we would come home and he was excited. Also in the morning. This only happened about 4 times but yesterday he seemed to be feeling the after effects. He just sits and trembles for a while and wont even eat a treat!
He has always been a bit of a restless sleeper and does shake his head some and scratch his ears but not a lot.
My hope is that he won't progress fast. He is 2 yrs. and that is considered early, it seems.
I hope others will tell their stories because medical journals dont tell you the nitty gritty details as far as how dogs are reacting, etc.
good luck and please check out the UGA study.
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Cowboy

283659		 
 
Barked: Wed Mar 25, '09 5:41pm PST 
I just read the post about Ernie and was absolutely amazed that someone has been going through the EXACT same thing as me. I have two griffons, Tansy and violet, and Violet has exhibited those same symptoms a few times over the past few months. It starts out of nowhere and she yelps, runs in circles, stretches, and tries to get at something that seems to be in her butt area. We have tried giving her Tramadol and Pepto Bismol, but it is hard to tell if they work because the symptoms usually go away within a few hours. We took her to the vet the first time it happened and got an X-ray done and there was what looked like a small rock in her large intestine, so we figured that was the problem. This has happened a couple more times, but we aren't really sure if she is eating rocks or if it is something else. It is soo frustrating because there doesn't seem to be any solution!
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