# DNM: A Simple and Effective Guide to Cruciate Tear Management



## Huly (Mar 5, 2012)

Ruta-Rhus â€” Dogs Naturally Offers

My Dog is Tip Toeing on One Rear Leg!
If your dog is active like most, he’s constantly using his joints: bounding up the steps, hurtling off the porch, leaping to the bed, racing after that foolish squirrel who dared come into his territory. And if he’s truly a healthy, vital dog, his joints keep up with all the challenges he brings them: flexing, extending, stretching, and absorbing poundings like a high quality shock absorber in an expensive German car.

When inflammation is present, this finely tuned part of the skeleton gets challenged, especially the soft tissues like ligaments, tendons, and in the knee, menisci, the shock absorbing pads between the contact points of the long bones.

In dogs, the knee is often one of those joints that gets damaged. The classic case is a running dog, mistakenly stepping in a hole, where the knee has sudden untoward stress placed on it (hyperextension), and lameness results. Your dog comes back to you three-legged, carrying that affected leg without bearing weight. Even standing, he’d rather not put it down. You see him touching his toe nails to the ground, but not much more.

Odds are, he’s ruptured his cranial cruciate ligament, the same ligament injury that often brings football players to the end of their career.
A Simple Diagnostic Test: The Drawer Sign
In a veterinary exam to assess this lameness, a diagnostic test is done which you may be able to do yourself at home. It’s an exam to see if the tibia moves forward, like an “opening drawer” relative to the femur, the larger thigh bone above the knee.

In a standing position, you place a thumb and forefinger of one hand on the front and back of the femur, and with your opposite hand, you place your thumb and forefinger on front and back of the tibia. Rocking the tibia forward, an attempt is made at pushing a “drawer” open relative to the femur. If this drawer-like action is possible, it indicates a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament, and maybe a caudal cruciate ligament as well. Your dog has a “positive drawer sign” in veterinary lingo.

The upper hand is firmly grasping the lower end of the femur, and the lower hand is grasping the tibia’s upper or proximal end. The arrow in image two is the direction the lower bone or tibia is being pushed.

If you have any doubts, bring your dog to your veterinarian for the final diagnosis. You can listen to treatment options, but you’ll want to read the next section before you do. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.

Anterior Drawer Test

Stifle anatomy during drawer
Expensive Options, Poor Results
If you see a conventional veterinarian for this condition, you’ll likely be given the recommendation to have a surgical repair on this joint. And it may sound like the only choice you have, or perhaps two or three choices are offered as to the type of surgery performed. (Don’t be fooled, you have more choices, that’s why we’re here!)

These canine knee surgeries often cost multiple thousands of dollars to perform. What’s more, they are usually followed by strict limited use of the limb afterwards for two months of healing. And an armload of drugs, often including antibiotics and perhaps NSAIDs (which actually impair the joint’s ability to make new cartilage. Ahem.)

The vets who do these surgeries often neglect to mention the success rate or the likelihood of recurrence on the opposite knee, both of which should be enough to give you pause.

Statistically, a large percentage of dogs fail to end up with a sound knee after this expensive surgery. By some estimates, that failure rate approaches 90%!

Here’s what a study published in the The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2005 found:

“…10.9% of the dogs treated with tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO, one of the most popular surgical procedures) regained normal leg function subsequent to surgery. …” J Am Vet Med Assoc 2005;226:232–236 DOI: doi: 10.2460/javma.2005.226.232

That’s a one in ten chance of a fully normal joint after surgical repair. If your head is feeling a bit light right now, sit down before you read the next section.

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Muir P, Schwartz Z, Malek S, Kreines A, Cabrera SY, et al. (2011) Contralateral Cruciate Survival in Dogs with Unilateral Non-Contact Cranial Cruciate Ligament Rupture. PLoS ONE 6(10): e25331. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025331
Now The Other Knee? Oh No!
The odds are also high that, once the problem knee is repaired, the opposite leg will undergo cruciate ligament rupture in the future. That can even happen during recovery from surgery, as inordinate weight is being carried by the opposite limb as your dog favors his wounded leg. Statistics from a large journal study of 171 dogs revealed that 47% went on to rupture the other knee’s ligaments, at an average of 2.5 years post-surgery on the initial leg.

The same study indicated that a large percentage of the knees studied had inflammation present before the ligaments ever started to fray. That’s significant, as the authors deemed it autoimmune inflammation, meaning the dogs’ immune systems were attacking their own tissues. This can be the end result of vaccination or early spay/neuter – but that’s a topic for another time.
A Homeopathic Treatment of Cruciate Ligament Injury
Homeopathy has a very long history of helping injuries heal quickly. It’s not unusual to see recoveries in the realm of 50% less time than normally expected. Joint injury, and cruciate ligament injury in particular is an area that’s often had striking homeopathic success and has saved many dogs from surgery.

The protocol that follows will, in a large percentage of cases, relieve the pain and inflammation present and start the joint on its way to healing.

A caution is in order, however. Remember the large study showing dogs had inflammation in the joint before they had their ligament rupture? Another way of saying this is that chronic disease underlaid the ruptured ligament.

This homeopathic protocol will not address the underlying disease. It will only help the damaged joint to heal. It’s highly recommended that you seek help from a qualified veterinary homeopath to get the deeper work done of rooting out the chronic underlying disease. That work can be started even while the knee is healing, but ideally within the months following return to function.
The Homeopathic Cruciate Protocol
We’ll need two very common remedies known to rapidly bring about healing of joints that have undergone trauma. They are:
Ruta graveolens 6C
These can be purchased from any online homeopathic pharmacy (or order here)
Rhus toxicodendron 6C
These can be purchased from any online homeopathic pharmacy (or order here)
These remedies can be obtained from any homeopathic pharmacy.

What you’ll receive when you order these are tubes full of BB sized pellets, most likely. Here’s how we’ll use them.

Each morning, you’ll take a few of those Ruta 6C pellets, three is plenty, and place them in a folded 3X5 card. Roll over the card and pellets with a heavy glass or bottle to crush them into powder. That’s your morning dose for your afflicted dog.

Pour it in his mouth, and allow no food for at least ten minutes before or after dosing.

Each evening, you’ll do the very same procedure, but with a new card and the remedy Rhus tox 6C.
Bonus: Multiple Doses from a Single Dose
Here’s a way to make your remedies last longer and have an easier way to administer them, especially if your dog isn’t fond of you opening his mouth:

Pour that first remedy into a bottle or a glass with a 1/2 cup of purified water. Add the second remedy to a second bottle or glass with water, and add a small amount of drinkable alcohol (brandy, vodka, etc.) to each vessel. A teaspoon is plenty of alcohol to stabilize the remedy and prevent bacterial growth.

Now label each bottle appropriately, store them at room temperature, covered with a napkin, and out of direct sun. Your dose will be a bit on a spoon. If you have a syringe, you can use 1-3cc or ml as a dose. The amount you give is not critical. Dosing is accomplished by getting a small amount of the solution onto your dog’s mucous membranes.
How Long to Go
You may continue this protocol daily until you see your dog get sound. You’ll want to restrict activity somewhat, but in the absence of pain killers, your dog will naturally know how much to exert.

Some pain and inflammation in this case is desirable, and part of the healing process. Your dog will innately know when to rest and when to take it easy when he’s allowed to feel these sensations.

Pain killers and anti-inflammatories will mask sensation coming from the injury, and this is dangerous, analogous to you putting black tape over the oil warning light on your car and driving merrily along! The NSAID drugs will also interfere with healing directly, and should be avoided. These drugs commonly include Rimadyl, Metacam, Previcox and Deramaxx.

Homeopathy is sufficient to get this joint healing quickly, and you’ll be able to watch that healing in its pure, unadulterated form.

Now, isn’t that a whole lot better than spending thousands of dollars on surgery that has a lousy outcome in the majority of cases?

We thought you’d agree.


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