“Tau” Benadie
Meet “Tau”, a sweet and lovable 5-year-old Chow Chow. Tau was brought into our practice in severe pain, barely able to stand up or walk on his hind legs. Radiographs (X-Rays) were taken and Tau was diagnosed with severe bilateral Hip Dysplasia.
Hip Dysplasia is a common inherited condition that causes the hip joint to form abnormally during growth. This can lead to joint looseness, arthritis and permanent pain.
Above left is a x-ray of normal canine hips, showing nice round femur heads correctly positioned deep within the hip socket.
Above right is Tau’s x-ray, showing severely malformed femur heads sitting partially outside of severely malformed hip sockets.
Tau went into theatre on the same day he came to our practice and Dr Ryan performed a Femur Head Amputation. This procedure involves surgically removing the femur head from the hip joint and therefore removing the source of all the pain. All the muscle attachments to the femur are carefully preserved so that the limb still has full function – in fact better function because it’s now pain free.
On the right is Tau’s x-ray after his surgery, showing his left hip joint now missing a femur head – no more painful, bone-on-bone grinding.
Tau’s left hip was operated first because it was the more severely affected joint but a second surgery to do the right hip will be needed in the months to come.
And just 2 days later look at the massive difference this surgery and pain management have made to Tau’s life. From “crawling” into the practice to walking out, ready to go home. Well Done Tau!!
