Bugsy started to have a front end limp in August 2012 (actually it first appeared in June 2011 but went away).
We had an accurate diagnosis of biceps tenosynovitis (a tendonitis/bursitis at the point of insertion of the biceps tendon) in September and were told then that there are limited options for treatment and that in all likelihood it would be something that he dealt with on and off for the rest of his life. As you can imagine I found that difficult to accept because it severely limits his activity and he remains an active dog despite being 'old' for his size dog.
But we did as asked and removed any formal walks and only swam for exercise. He was doing well through October swimming several times a week and building up to some long distance swimming. However, he still couldn't walk without a limp.
Then due to a variety of reasons we couldn't swim and the limp came back furiously. This was November.
More complete rest but no real improvement. Some days not too bad so we did some exercise other days it was horrific.
I tried and tried to convince the vets that if he was limping that badly it was REALLY bad and kept asking about whether it was a torn tendon at this point. But they just kept saying that this tendonitis/bursitis is very painful and that if it was torn he couldn't use it. I really did my best to get them to believe that he would always try to use it to no avail.
We've been to the ortho vet 3x and the regular vet 3x. The last visit to the ortho vet I was told to try massage and acupuncture.
We tried massage and that was an epic fail due to Bugsy's nature
We set up an acupuncture appointment for Thursday 2/14/13 and we added some things to his diet from Chinese medicine
On Saturday he decided to run zoomies in the yard. He just has to run like that daily, always has and it is a wonderful expression of who he is.
Unfortunately he tried one figure eight too many and became 3 legged. He just stood there on three legs with a happy look on his face and his tail wagging. When he walked 3 legged I knew in my heart that he'd blown it out completely.
We've been doing tramadol and rimadyl 24/7 and he is still basically 3 legged. He toe touches and uses it to go down stairs but that is about it.
I had read way back in September that there is a surgery in which they cut the tendon and the dog heals. I was told it was drastic blah blah blah. Well now that I've wasted 6 months of Bugsy's life doing basically nothing and not having any improvement followed by this event I am going to find someone to do the surgery. The surgery is arthroscopic which isn't all too common yet in veterinary care but I have located several places all within a 6 hr drive of us.
Here are some links to the surgery, should you want to know more:
http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/vetmed/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=768613&sk=&date=&pageID=2
http://www.livs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207:surgical-management-of-bicipital-tenosynovitis-via-arthroscopy&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=131
http://www.vetsurgerycentral.com/ortho_tendon_biceps_tenosynovitis.htm