Part 3: Healing our 11 year old dog's torn ACL / CCL without surgery (week 7) | Bob's Blitz

Part 3: Healing our 11 year old dog's torn ACL / CCL without surgery (week 7)

Our following 'Zero' -- our 11 year old highly athletic 60 pound German Shepherd following a CCL ACL tear where the vet recommended TPLO surgery but we attempted a non surgical treatment approach (dog acl recovery without surgery) entered its seventh week. (See the beginnings: How we tried to heal our 11 year old German Shepherd Dog's torn ACL / CCL without surgery part 1: Week's 1-4.)

Day 44 - can tell by the second 13 minutes into a S&P walk. First walk of the day 13 minutes in is the perfect ending point as she slows at minute 14. Another bright spot today - doing her passive ROM and we note ... no more click in the knee. (Friday November 16th when we went to the vet there was an audible pop upon manipulation but we didn't know if that was a secondary issue. We'd heard a click in there during ROMs ever since the day we began doing them roughly week 5.)

An interesting twist today. Doing further research into supplements and we started seeing pieces on manganese. Specifically 'Manganese deficiency and CCL disease' by Karen Shaw Becker, DVM. The doctor says that she started investigating causes of tears because she was seeing young, active, not fat dogs ripping ligaments in the knee sans trauma. She wrote, "I continued my research and came up with one recurring factor related to connective tissue resiliency: the dietary intake of manganese (Mn). Manganese is required for healthy, strong ligament development and maintenance. A dog’s manganese requirements are high, and food sources vary as to the amount of manganese they contain." She added, "If your dog is eating a ligament-supportive diet, he shouldn’t develop degenerative cruciate damage unless he gets into a serious accident. If your dog has sustained a CCL injury, partner with a high quality canine rehabilitation facility as well as a proactive veterinarian who can offer him the best chance of recovery."

So we went looking for a supplement for dogs that contained roughly 3mg of manganese. And we couldn't find any. We found several multivitamins for canines with less than 1mg. We even found one joint supplement with what would be 30mg for a 60 pound dog. We contacted the company about the high level they use (as no one else included anything even near that level) and they told us to 'not believe everything you read on the internet.' They pointed us to the article 'Manganese Requirements in Dogs' because the last line on the page is 'Manganese toxicity is basically unknown in dogs and cats.' Funny, they didn't note that a few paragraphs up is the line, 'Dogs should receive 2.3 mg of manganese daily for every pound of dog food they eat (on a dry matter basis).'

Yeah, we're going to move on from them.

And then we stumbled upon something called EHP Products' Myristin canine hip and joint formula because it has 10mg of Manganese Citrate (elemental manganese 2.9mg). OK, great. Here was the 3mg or so we were looking for. And then we spent the next several hours researching Myristin, aka cetyl myristoleate, aka Cetyl M, aka CMO or CM -- discovered by Harry W. Diehl. Diehl took a fatty acid, myristoleic acid, and combined it with a fatty alcohol molecule, cetyl alcohol, creating an ester of that fatty acid called cetyl myristoleate. A common set of bullet points one might find on a site selling it included:

Myristin works to:

Promote recovery from joint injury (joint repair)
Creates synovial fluid that lubricates the joints
Reduces joint pain and inflammation
Regulates immune response for optimum joint recovery


We had heard that cetylated fatty acids improve knee function in patients and that CFA provides an improvement in knee range of motion and overall function in patients with OA of the knee so CFA could be an alternative to the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of OA. And then we looked further into its ingredients:

Cetyl Myristoleate Complex - 500mg (providing 100 mg of molecular cetyl myristoleate), Glucosamine Sulfate - 250mg, MSM - 250 mg, Curcumin - 6 mg, Bromelain - 18 mg, Vitamin C - 150 mg, Manganese Citrate - 10 mg (providing 2.9 mg elemental manganese, Lecithin - 100 mg, Lipase - 33 mg.

A couple of notes. So we add the Myristin (same day delivery on a Sunday is just incredible). Plus we'll be getting 250 mg of the correct version of Glucosamine (the Sulfate). We'll continue to give the powdered GS in the A.M. (750 mg) for a total of 1000 mg. We'll continue to give the chondroitin sulfate in the morning until it runs out. We've put the quercetin away for the time being. She didn't like it and now we're getting curcumin and bromelain here anyway. Thrilled to get the vitamin C here as well. So we'll put the Vet’s Best Seasonal Allergy Relief supplement to rest for the time being. And we have the 2.9 mg of manganese we were seeking. Thrilled to find this.

Now 46 days into this long journey, tired but really hopeful, we come across another good read. Questioning Canine Cruciate Ligament Surgery See why these 8 claims that surgery is the best option for your canine patients are false. By Narda Robinson, DO, DVM (She holds a Bachelor of Arts (AB) degree from Harvard/Radcliffe, a doctorate in osteopathic medicine (DO) from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, and a doctorate in veterinary medicine (DVM) as well as a master’s degree in biomedical sciences (MS) from the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences!) Go ahead - it's a great read.

Day 47 video - New Year's Eve. Wow. Forty seven days...



Weeks 8+ of our dog's ACL non surgical treatment is up now.

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