Arthritis in the vertebrae of the back...

That's just the utility room which they were in overnight and it's Lino on the floor (the non slip kind which is a little easier than the shiny kind!). They have Lino in their shed too and don't have any troubles but I will soon be putting a nice thick stable mat in anyway just for extra cushion/bounce so that will end up being more grippy anyway

After his tramadol last night and this morning i've gone into the shed to find him somewhere else other than stuck to his bed, so I think the tramadol is helping, yay! Just going to continue with the painkillers and abx now for a week or so until I review them with the vet, and hopefully things should stay a bit more stable during that time. I hope we have his pain under control now. TBH I can't believe he's already on tramadol but I hope he just needs it temporarily/sporadically and that we can go back to metacam in between. Hopefully once the infection is under control and his anaemia improves his general demeanour will too.

yaretzi said:

That's just the utility room which they were in overnight and it's Lino on the floor (the non slip kind which is a little easier than the shiny kind!). They have Lino in their shed too and don't have any troubles but I will soon be putting a nice thick stable mat in anyway just for extra cushion/bounce so that will end up being more grippy anyway

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It's a lovely big area for them

I'm glad to hear that he's been moving around a little. Sounds like he may be feeling slightly better :thumb:.

yaretzi said:

That's just the utility room which they were in overnight and it's Lino on the floor (the non slip kind which is a little easier than the shiny kind!). They have Lino in their shed too and don't have any troubles but I will soon be putting a nice thick stable mat in anyway just for extra cushion/bounce so that will end up being more grippy anyway

After his tramadol last night and this morning i've gone into the shed to find him somewhere else other than stuck to his bed, so I think the tramadol is helping, yay! Just going to continue with the painkillers and abx now for a week or so until I review them with the vet, and hopefully things should stay a bit more stable during that time. I hope we have his pain under control now. TBH I can't believe he's already on tramadol but I hope he just needs it temporarily/sporadically and that we can go back to metacam in between. Hopefully once the infection is under control and his anaemia improves his general demeanour will too.

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Endeavour has early onset arthritis (he's almost 4) and he has had times when he has needed to be on both Metacam and Tramadol. He has had acupuncture too. But he does not need to be on Tramadol all the time. Infact it is a few weeks since he has required any and he has not had any Metacam so far this week. So you are right, the pain can fluctuate and medication can be adjusted accordingly

Winston has been back to the vets today, and the vet took me through his X-rays... it turns out that he has severe arthritis in either 7 or 8 of the vertebrae including all but one of the lumbar ones. Poor little poppet.

Without doing a CT scan we can't be sure what the discs between the vertebrae are doing, so there's a risk of one of them slipping and paralysing him. However the CT scan is ~£700, and he has used £750 of his £1000 Petplan amount already so I'm worried that he will blow through it all and I'll end up with no options for him. Also the CT scan would be nice but it would mainly be to facilitate surgery to smooth out the vertebrae and sort out the discs, which I am not yet sure as I haven't thought about it but my gut tells me I'm not willing to put him through. Even if the discs were sorted he still has severe arthritis.

So I need to build a shelf and a ramp in the shed rather than the wooden pieces of furniture they have now, which I've spoken to my stepdad about and we're going to get working on that. I'm going to get him a dog bed so that he doesn't have to jump so far into the litter tray, as the ones I have at the moment are rather deep to stop Tapla digging their hay out!

Pain wise he is still on 1.2ml metacam twice a day, and we stopped the tramadol a few days ago. In 7-10 days I'm to reduce it to 1.0ml twice a day for a week and then go down in 0.2ml increments from there, until we find the right dose for him at the moment. I have tramadol on hand in case he needs it and gabapentin is the next option too which I've never used but I know plenty of people on here have.

It also means he is unlikely to ever manage their runaround tube again so I'm very concerned about how he can have more living space... the shed is 6 x 4 ft so not okay as his only space. But without buying the entire setup I'm not sure whether the larger diameter runaround tubes would help. I'm going to contact runaround again and see what they think as they have been really helpful over the last few months.

Could you attach a run to the shed that they can access via a cat flap? That would avoid the need for runaround pipes.

Mackers said:

Could you attach a run to the shed that they can access via a cat flap? That would avoid the need for runaround pipes.

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I'm not sure, I can't think of a way but I've put some pics below in case anyone can think of anything I haven't?

Either side of the shed is flowerbeds so it would need to be on the grass, diagonally, but the ground on both sides slopes quite drastically to the point where the run can't sit flat and it has a massive gap at one end which the bunnies could sneak through. It is about 3ft or more higher where the shed is compared to the patio at the end of the flowerbed nearer where I'm taking the picture. My mom and stepdad are very garden proud and since I upgraded to the 8 x 4 x 3 run it is no longer possible to move the run as often as we need to keep the grass in good condition as it is so very heavy, and also we can't move it to cut the grass either so it is now on the patio... which is 30ft away, as you can see here (the thin narrow one is the one I added in recently to see if Winston could manage the tubes with a break in between them, before he went into stasis and was diagnosed with the arthritis). The tube from this narrow run leads into the 8 x 4 x 3 run on the patio.





If it was my garden I would sacrifice the lawn and flowers and everything without a second thought but I'm not sure I could manage it in their garden. I'm going to build this shelf in the shed and build another shelf from that up to one of the shed windows so at least he can hop up there and get fresh air, and I'm possibly thinking of replacing the panel on the shed where the runaround tube comes out and putting a mini window next to the runaround hole there so at least he can see out but I still want him to be able to get out.

I did think of making a very narrow wood and mesh tube leading from where the runaround tube is, down the side of the shed, along the back of the flower beds and then all the way down the path to the run but the cost of building it would be much more than upgrading the runaround tube and selling off my older bits... plus it would be difficult to predator proof and build. I so wish that the side of the shed was grass or patio and then I could definitely do that, even if I had to buy turf to resurface it after we left.

The other thing I have seen is a balcony type thing such as this one from Boyle's housing which is a lovely idea for additional space but doesn't compare to space to run around properly.



Anyone got any ideas?

Winston is doing well on metacam since I last posted, and he is going in for laser therapy next week. I received his X-rays a few days ago and thought I'd post them on here for anyone who is interested:

yaretzi said:

Winston is doing well on metacam since I last posted, and he is going in for laser therapy next week. I received his X-rays a few days ago and thought I'd post them on here for anyone who is interested:

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Thanks for posting the Xray image, the lumbar vertebrae are the most effected aren't they. I am glad that he is coping OK and I hope that his laser therapy helps xx