Supraspinatus, Biceps and Medial Shoulder injuries in Dogs

Athletic dogs will sometimes strain muscles in their shoulders and or muscles that attach from the shoulders to the elbows. This can cause a persistent lameness that may respond to anti-inflammatories for a time but often needs intervention to truly heal.

In humans this is often called a strain of the rotator cuff muscles.

• To evaluate the extent of injury, we need to do an ultrasound of these muscles.

• If we find low grade tearing, these are often healed over the course of 3-6 months with supplements, shockwave treatments and rehabilitation therapy to get the tissues to build new tissues with proper flexibility and strength.

Without the slow and particular process of rehab to do this, she is at high risk of reinjury and some dogs have permanent damage and shortening around the joints that can create arthritis down the road.

More info re: shoulder injury in dogs

https://www.akcchf.org/assets/files/canine-athlete/Biceps-injury.pdf

At the time of her ultrasound it we have the option to do her first shockwave treatment, we will plan that she may need two treatments a month apart to restore flexibility and comfort.

NOTE: this is the most important treatment we can perform to speed recovery time as improvement in flexibility advances us by weeks in rehab progression of exercise.

At that time, if we find that the biceps tendon is torn, we have the option of injecting the shoulder joint with PRP or Synamid and the option of adding subcutaneous stem cells to further improve quality of healing.

NOTE: this will not speed recovery time, but can improve long term outcome.

Prognosis and expectations:

I have had dogs with significant tears come back to sport, bigger tears will require a year of rebuilding to be stable and to prevent re-injury, much like a major league baseball player with a similar injury.

• To see an example of a dog with similar treatments but more advanced arthritis: see Apache on my website.