# luxating patellas- symptoms?



## chilady502 (Nov 20, 2008)

I was reading another post & luxating patelllas were mentioned. Now I am wondering what the symptoms of that are & how it is tested. On the post, it mentioned hopping & Zoe has done that before. Is this normal?


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## Ivy's mom (Feb 15, 2008)

Hmmmm....I haven't heard about hopping. Ivy is a hopping fool, but her vet says she has knees of steel! Willow on the other hand has stage 4 but her only symptoms are her legs are bowed. She shows noooo signs of pain what so ever. She runs, jumps and plays like crazy. Some dogs can have stage 1 and have alot of pain, and some like Willow will have none at stage 4. Willows vet said not to fix it if it isn't bothering her. The vet tech. Also has a chi at stage 4 but shows no symtoms either. To check they manipulate their knees to see what stage they are at if any.


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## *Chloe* (Feb 6, 2006)

they can do like a skip when they walk/run and the leg looks obviously outward or they may hold the leg up the knee looks obviously disjointed (well Twigs did at times when it popped out  ) - the best thing if your worried or just for piece of mind is to have your vet check and they will be able to tell you if there is any movement in the knee - Twig had the opereration and although it was awful for her to go through the quality of life she has now is much better and she can play and run fine now


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## guest185 (Oct 27, 2008)

*Chloe* said:


> they can do like a skip when they walk/run and the leg looks obviously outward or they may hold the leg up the knee looks obviously disjointed (well Twigs did at times when it popped out  ) - the best thing if your worried or just for piece of mind is to have your vet check and they will be able to tell you if there is any movement in the knee - Twig had the opereration and although it was awful for her to go through the quality of life she has now is much better and she can play and run fine now


Oh no, how awful that she had to go through that, i'm glad it worked out for the best x


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## pam6400 (Oct 5, 2008)

*Frankie had stage 4 luxating patella. His legs are very bowed. His symptoms were limping, holding his leg up when standing and refusing to go up stairs. Vet checked him with x-rays and showed the results to us, his whole knee appeared out of the joint and could not be popped back in by vet. Needless to say, he had surgery and recovered nicely. 
He also has stage 3 in his other leg, which we could see thru x-ray, not quite as bad. He does not limp or favor the other leg at all so we have decide to wait and see on surgery for this one. 
It's a scary time for our babies. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. I will try to help. Pam*


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## Guest (May 9, 2009)

I've been through luxating patella surgery with a Chi I had several years ago. He had surgery on both knees and got along great. Keeping them quiet after the surgery is the hardest part. He limped and wouldn't jump up onto the couch and was obviously in some pain. My little puppy mill Chi, Kozanna, has luxating patellas in both back knees. The vet found it by feeling and manipulating her legs. Her legs are a little bowed and her toes turn inward. She doesn't limp or anything and doesn't seem to be in any discomfort. I will have the vet surgeon check her one of these days and see what he recommends about surgery. I am very slow to have surgery for Kozanna unless it is really, really necessary. I think it would be a big setback for her progress since coming out of the puppy mill 16 months ago.


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## jesshan (Sep 15, 2005)

Not having a chi with PL it is difficult for me to speak first hand but when I mentioned the hopping, Chole sort of described to better, a little skip normally the skip sort of pops the knee back into place.

A vet will be able to know if there is any movement (more than should be) if there is, they will then do x-ray etc for the grading.


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## Rosiesmum (Oct 14, 2007)

Jago began with a limp and then progressed to not being able to put his leg down on the ground. He was in a lot of pain.

Denise, the vet we saw said it was not necessary to do an x ray to grade patella luxation. He is a vet specialising in small animal orthopaedics and apparently considered by many to be one of the best in the country.

An x ray would be needed to show any degenerative problems within the joint. In a long standing patella luxation, arthritis often develops. Sometimes after surgery too. 

Barbara x


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## mars (May 8, 2009)

We just found out our baby has luxating patellas. We noticed something was wrong because he was running around holding his back leg up. Not we are noticing that he is doing it with the other leg. We have already met with the surgeon and he recommended surgery, said our lil charlie is a stage 4. The recovery time (and the money $2000, yikes!) is holding us back tho. Charlie has total cat syndrome and jumps everywhere. Were trying to get him to stop but it's slow going training, or re-training. 
For those of you that did go for the surgery, how did you deal with the recovery process?


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## *Chloe* (Feb 6, 2006)

mars said:


> We just found out our baby has luxating patellas. We noticed something was wrong because he was running around holding his back leg up. Not we are noticing that he is doing it with the other leg. We have already met with the surgeon and he recommended surgery, said our lil charlie is a stage 4. The recovery time (and the money $2000, yikes!) is holding us back tho. Charlie has total cat syndrome and jumps everywhere. Were trying to get him to stop but it's slow going training, or re-training.
> For those of you that did go for the surgery, how did you deal with the recovery process?


the recovery is hard and pretty long - i thought the worse bit would be keeping her from jumping etc - but actually seeing her in so much pain for the first few weeks - she had her crate for when i couldnt watch her and most of the time she was sitting about and not trying to be active she didnt put the leg down for a long time and it was probably about 3 months before she was getting back to normal Twig only had one leg done the other one is suprisingly ok - shes now about 14 months post op and doing great tho much better than before and i think totally worth it - i dont let either of mine jump on/off furniture or up and down the stairs as its not good for their legs/knees, i think its worth training him not too


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## pam6400 (Oct 5, 2008)

*Frankie is 18 months old now, he had his surgery when he was 8 months old. Yes, the aftercare is the hardest. The first 2 days were the worse, he was on pain meds and looked so scared. He came home without the e-collar and did ok for 3-4 days. I stayed with him 24/7 for a week. I even had to help him go potty the first couple of days. On day 5 we had to take him in to vet because he would not stop licking the stitches so he had to wear the collar which was even worse to watch. We had to keep him from jumping for quite a while, in fact to this day he does not jump UP onto anything and he won't even attempt stairs, just stands there looking at them. He had stage 4 in his right hind leg. At the time the vet x-rayed both legs and showed us the pics. He also has stage 3 in his left hind leg but does not seem bothered by it, no limping or anything. We have decided not to do surgery on left leg as long as he seems ok. He is extremely BOW legged. It is funny to watch him from behind when we go for walks! But seriously it is a very big operation, quite expensive as you know, his cost $1600 for one leg. Hopefully now he is much more comfortable.*


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## chilady502 (Nov 20, 2008)

Thanks! Zoe doesn't seem to be in any sort of pain. I just noticed that every once in a while it's like little hop or skip. I will definitely have my vet check it out next time just for peace of mind. It's good to know that if she has it surgery is not automatically called for. I'm hoping Zoe just enjoys a nice little hop now & again.


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## Ivy's mom (Feb 15, 2008)

chilady502 said:


> Thanks! Zoe doesn't seem to be in any sort of pain. I just noticed that every once in a while it's like little hop or skip. I will definitely have my vet check it out next time just for peace of mind. It's good to know that if she has it surgery is not automatically called for. I'm hoping Zoe just enjoys a nice little hop now & again.


Do her legs look bowed from the back????? But yes your vet will let you know. Ivy is a little hopper. I call her my little deer, because she is prancer. Her legs are perfect though. So hopefully nothing to worry about.


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## Tanna (Jan 29, 2009)

Paco hops also just like a deer. when he runs instead of his back legs moving oppsite each other they move together just like a deer running through a meadow, he dosent do it all the time but he does do it often.


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