my dog tess is 10 and has suffered from arthritis for 3 years now. It is so upsetting to see her struggling. There is an obvious permanent limp in a front leg but just yesterday she started limping badly on a back leg. She is on cartrophen injections and cosequin tablets. I have been looking through the message bpard and would welcome suggestions. Would you suggest moving to painkillers which i'm a bit scared about... Or do you think it's worth trying this synflex?

I know people who swear by glucosamine (available from health food shops) for their own arthritis as well as that of their dogs.
:)

I'm assuming you mean you have not completed a cartrophen course of 4 injections yet? I think you may need to wait to fully access if it has worked for your dog. My Dandie is now 14 1/2 years old, for a good 5 years she has had some degree of arthritis and for most of that time we managed it very satifactorily with New Zealand Green Lip Mussel although judging from the research I have seen any fish oil may well have helped, Cod Liver was just too cheap for my Nellie :) A few days without the Green Lips and she showed a marked reluctance to get out of bed. Then about 3/4 months ago she refused any food, on examination at the vets it was found that her joints, in particular her hips, had become very painful the Green Lip was obviously no longer enough, because of her age and a long history of colitis we ruled out anti-inflamatories and my vet offered us 4 weekly injections of cartrophen, following each injection we had a day or two of bad diarrhea (that may be just a Nellie thing) but I did not feel we had any choice but to carry on as she could not have been allowed to continue unable to eat because of pain. I tempted food down her by adding fish but I would not say we really saw an improvement until at least a fortnight after the last injection. In addition to the injection my vet advised a twice the normal dose of Pfizer Pet Tabs (vitamin tablets) I think this was more due to her extreme age, to make up for inability to store and utilise vitamins but I gather from research I have read that vitamins are useful in supporting joints. At present it is hard to believe it is the same dog, she still dozes a lot of the day, has hardly any muscle on her bones making her a bit unsteady and wobbly at times but she is eating all her meals and sometimes, when the devil gets in her, chases off to the bottom of the garden after my other dog!!!! my vet thinks I can expect the pain relief to last a few months, here's hoping :)

Hello, our pony has just been diagnosed with arthritis in his front fetlock joint and had been quite lame, our vet suggested we got him a supplement and we gave him a product that contains glucosamine called Cortaflex it is widely used in the horse world and also do it for dogs and humans. I have always been quite sceptical about these sort of things but he is a different pony, instead of limping he is acting like a youngster again and my daughter is showjumping on him again. I would recommend Cortaflex to anyone its brilliant stuff and definately worth a try. You will probably need to do a search on the net for it unless you have an equestrian shop near you. Good luck with Tess, hope she feels better soon.

thanks to all who replied to my post. Thankfully the news is a lot better on tess.
To isabel-she is on regular courses of cartrophen injections which have greatly helped but this recent bout of pain seemed to need something more. I am continuing with the injections for her as they have had positive results. Thanks for the tips on vitamins and cod liver oil i may try that too.
Dear BL, that great news about your pony, tess has been on cortaflex fpr 3 years and now a newer version which called glucosamine which is basically the same.
The recent drastic improvements to her very stiff back leg have been thanks to a short course of metacam. I was very reluctant to resort to anti inflammatories/painkillers but the results have been fantastic. After resting her for a few days she is like a puppy again. I feel so relieved to see her happy and bouncy again. It fills me with hope that there is always something else to try. I was feeling so despairing when i posted that first message but thankfully very positive now. I now have a very happy springer spaniel on my hands!
Thanks to all, Jo