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Anyone with arthritis can understand the discomfort it causes, but now dog's suffering from the debilitating pain may get some relief from new stem cell therapy.
For just a three-year-old, Maggie is dealing with the mature problem of chronic osteoarthritis on her enlarged ankles. "She's very overdeveloped in the front part of her body which takes a lot of the weight off of her hind, her hind legs," her owner said.
Maggie is getting the latest procedure, stem cell therapy, to regenerate the cartilage in her ankles. A couple of ounces of fat are removed from her abdomen and sent to Vet-Stem, a California company that harvests the stem cells.
"If you take these cells from fat for instance, these little baby stem cells and you place them in cartilage, they have the ability to then grow up into cartilage type cells," veterinarian Dr. Sherman Canapp.
Two days later, the cells are ready for injection. First, her vet Dr. Canapp draws fluid out of Maggie's joint, showing just how bad her arthritis is. A fluoroscope machine helps him to guide the injection into the joint. The dog is put under during the procedures so they don't feel any pain.
"We're actually going to be taking this needle and sliding it directly down into Maggie's ankle, so you can actually see that that needle is now down into her little joint." A few months later, Dr. Canapp says Maggie should walk with less pain.
Nine-year-old Mosle has the same treatment in February. Owner Holly McKai says the difference is subtle, but significant. "When I take him on his walks, he was pulling, which he literally hadn't done in years."
The stem cell treatment is generally done after traditional arthritis treatment had failed.
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