Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Hypertrophic Osteodystrophy (HOD).

I had a message from Kevin this morning to say that MalaKai was not well, he'd started to get lame yesterday but by this morning he struggled to bear weight on his leg, was lethargic and didn't eat. Kevin was so concerned he'd made a vet's appointment for later in the morning.
My gut instinct was panosteitis, (Pano) which is basically a growing pain. Pano is a condition that affects the long bones in the legs of young dogs. Some like Ross are lame and have poor appetite, but others, like Lia are more severely affected. Lia was in agony with it and typically the condition moved from limb to limb. 
Anyway Xrays revealed that Malakai doesn't have Pano, he has Hypertrophic Osteodystrophy (HOD). I was not familiar with this condition so google came to my assistance ".. Hypertrophic osteodystrophy is a developmental, auto-inflammatory disease of the bones that is usually first seen between the age of 7 weeks and 8 months. In general, most cases will appear for the first time when the puppy is between 3 – 5 months of age. Relapses may occur until about 20 months of age." 
Should you wish to know more, like I did, then follow this link. 
Kevin writes "The lesions are on both legs but only presenting with lameness and pain on the left leg. He had a real growth spurt over the last week and very likely brought this on. They are very minor and Pat (Vet) is very optimistic like pano he will grow out of it as his skeleton matures."
So good news for MalaKai long term, and just pain control for the time being. Hopefully we'll get updates and some photos as he recovers.