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Growing Pains- An article about panosteitis

It was obvious from the time of his first vaccination that Arnie was going to be the kind of German Shepherd that resembled a shaggy Shetland pony. With paws the size of my hands and floppy ears and that ungainly waddle that puppies have he really was a very cute specimen.

All was going well and we were seeing him fairly regularly at puppy parties and growth clinics. With all this monitoring I was somewhat surprised to see his name on my list of patients in morning surgery.

As I opened the door I expected the rapidly- enlarging Arnie to come bounding in as normal towing an exasperated owner on the end of his lead. Instead a very sorry- looking puppy came limping in, almost unable to put his front leg to the floor. His owner told me he had gone lame literally overnight and as far as she could remember nothing unusual had happened the previous day.

Arnie is a very good- natured dog and, as with all our puppies, we had encouraged his owners to get him used to being handled and examined. Believe me this makes a massive difference to the stress involved with being a vet! Despite gentle handling it was very clear that Arnie was extremely unhappy about me touching his leg. He was most sensitive about the region around his elbow and I started to get a little concerned about the possibility of OCD. This stands for osteochondrosis and is a problem we see more and more in certain breeds and in the elbow joint. It can be a long and frustrating disease to cope with and sometimes has long- lasting implications. I hoped I was wrong.

We decided because it was so sudden and he was such a nutty dog at home that we would give him the benefit of the doubt and treat him for 24 hours as if he had knocked or ‘strained’ something as puppies often do.

The following morning he seemed much brighter but was still slightly lame. Because he was more comfortable now he was much more tolerant of me manipulating his leg. It became clear that he didn’t mind his elbow being bent but the pain was coming from the bone below it. Although this now gave a much clearer suspicion of what might be occurring it also meant I was secretly relieved because it meant that OCD was much less likely to be the cause of his trouble.

We decided to x-ray him to be sure. On the x- ray I could see that areas of his ulna bone looked much thicker than they should do and it was squeezing of this area that gave him most pain. Arnie was suffering from a condition called panosteitis. Unfortunately for German Shepherds they are also prone to this too but it usually not too serious.

It is a condition that usually occurs in large or giant breeds of dog. The bone marrow is affected and this can lead to involvement of the bone. We nearly always see it in dogs that haven’t matured yet, which is why some people liken it to ‘growing pains’ that children sometimes get. The condition can be a little hard to pin down sometimes and really Arnie’s had been fairly straightforward.

Some dogs have lots of different areas of pain and it can vary greatly as to how much pain they seem to be in. In some cases the dog is lame one day and not the next and the lameness can come and go for weeks if not months. In some of the worst cases the dogs feel so bad and are in so much discomfort that they go off their food, get a high temperature or just appear really flat and depressed.

The good news in all this is that the vast majority of dogs do extremely well and no surgery is required as you often need with conditions such as OCD. The long- term prognosis is also excellent because as the name suggests they usually grow out of it by the age of about 20 months. Really all we can do is support them with rest during the bad times and pain relief as and when it is needed.

Arnie had responded well just to the first dose of pain killers. We sent him home on a course of treatment and within three days he was completely sound again. His owner tried stopping the drugs but the lameness returned with a couple of days. We kept him on full dose for two weeks and then stopped and touch wood so far he has had no relapses. I’ve told his owner that he may well need the occasional course but I’m sure the pair of them will take it in their stride. Arnie is convinced that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him and cocks his massive head to one side. One of his ears is standing up now but the other still hangs limp, adding to his quizzical expression that seems to say, ‘Muuummm, come ON, let’s go for a bounce round the park’.

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