hip dysplasia and the cold/damp

piperh

My little girl has hip dysplasia and she's doing ok at the moment on arthriaid and cartrophen but i was just wondering what others do in the miserable weather we're having now. Do you still walk as much in the cold and rain?

piperh

Anybody??

Suppose i should be pleased as this means not many people have experience of hip dysplasia

Julybreeze

Hi there,

I have a little girlie with HD too. She had a failed hip replacement last year and ended up having a femoral head excision so she now has a false joint formed from muscle and cartilage.

Thankfully the weather hasn't made any difference to her pain levels as far as I can interpret. She is on arthri-aid and onsior which seem to be working for her.

I find that you can tell on a walk if she's had enough or not, she tends to loose the spring in her step when we go too far.

Some people recommend heat pads but I've never used them so can't comment.

belongtojazz

One of my girls was diagnosed last March and only developed symptoms during last winter. So far the cold doesn't seem to be bothering her at all.
She is a total fire hogger so she does make sure to keep herself warm and comfortable

ppink

one of ours was misdiagnosed with HD years ago and then subsequently it was confirmed as spondylosis.
the advice we were given for both conditions was a maximum of 10 minutes walking 3 times a day on lead only. apart from that we were to let her lounge around the house and swim her if possible. I do have to let her off lead every now and then to blow off some steam or her life just wont be worth living! but I try to keep it to a minimum and keep her busy in other ways. as regards the cold and wet we were again advised not to let her get cold or wet, to keep her dry and in the warm. she has coats and more towels than I do:p.
for the swimming I make sure she is well dried off after it and has a coat for going home in to keep her cosy.

piperh

Thanks, we were told exercise is good for her so we've kept that up but over the last week since the weather has turned we've shortened her walks from 45/60mins a time to around 25/30mins as i was worried and the vet just said to play it by ear. She is not showing any extra signs of the weather affecting her but she is still very young so apart from the bunny hopping gait and strange way she sits and lies you wouldn't really know there was much wrong.