Treating Canine Arthritis with Stem Cells

Dublin with a Frisbee

A cutting edge treatment for canine arthritis with no cutting and no toxicity.

There’s a widespread, serious, and almost universal welfare issue in dog ownership — perhaps larger in scope than any other health concern because it is certain to afflict almost every dog as they age: chronic untreated arthritis.  I’m lucky that all of my dogs have lived long lives, but this has meant that every one of them has eventually been afflicted with some form of arthritis.  Until now, I haven’t been comfortable seeking a more robust therapy than palliative drugs to mask or dull the pain.  But I’ve been following the use of stem cell therapy to treat arthritis for several years now and am ready to take the plunge and seek this therapy for my dogs.

Stem cell therapy offers the promise of robust and targeted arthritis treatment with limited intervention,  no crippling side effects like liver and kidney toxicity, no lengthy recovery from major surgery and something that drugs and surgery can’t achieve: rebuilding natural tissue to restore function.

That’s why I’m excited to treat Dublin’s arthritis with stem cell therapy from VetCell. I’ll be documenting the treatment and his progress here on the blog.  The process is rather simple. Your Vet extracts a bit of fat from your dog, that fat is processed into stem cells, those are injected into the arthritic joint, and that’s it.

Most animals hide their pain until it becomes too profound to mask.  They literally suffer in silence lest their display mark them as vulnerable or sick to other animals.  Many owners don’t know the subtle signs of pain, and so our dogs suffer.

Even when dogs do show outward signs of pain,  the over-the-counter options for treatment are few and unsatisfactory.  You can find dozens of varieties of pain medications for humans at the store but few if any are effective, safe, and suitable for long term treatment of your dog.

Liver and kidney toxicity of common human drugs (and even most of the prescription drugs you can get at the vet) leave many owners choosing to just not treat the pain.  I’d argue that leaving your animal in pain is a worse choice than harming their kidneys or liver, but I think I’m in the minority on this view.

Drugs indicated for canine use require frequent trips to the Veterinarian and monitoring of side effects.  Finding the right pill can be frustrating,  expensive,  and lengthy.  This additional and recurring cost also leaves too many dogs untreated or under-treated.  And at best, these treatments just mask the pain and do not treat the underlying disease path.

Surgery is available for only a few of the many locations dogs can develop arthritis and the risks,  the extensive recovery time,  and the significant cost are also barriers preventing suffering dogs from getting the relief they deserve.

I’ve never owned a dog that didn’t develop some sort of arthritis as they aged.  And until now,  the options for treatment have been less than stellar.  VetCell’s stem cell therapy is the first arthritis option that I’m actually excited to provide for Dublin, so keep an eye on the blog as I document his treatment and evaluate its effectiveness.

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About Christopher

Christopher Landauer is a fifth generation Colorado native and second generation Border Collie enthusiast. Border Collies have been the Landauer family dogs since the 1960s and Christopher got his first one as a toddler. He began his own modest breeding program with the purchase of Dublin and Celeste in 2006 and currently shares his home with their children Mercury and Gemma as well. His interest in genetics began in AP Chemistry and AP Biology and was honed at Stanford University.