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Supplements To Help With Osteosarcoma


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My GSD Laila was diagnosed with bone cancer last week. She has just turned 4 :(

I've had a bit of a look though the threads on DOL but I was hoping people with personal experience could advise me what supplements and diet changes they found helpful to their dogs? Has anyone used the 2 products from Robert McDowell recommended for bone cancer?

Just seems so surreal that nothing is going to fix her :cry: I bred her and sold her as an 8 week old puppy - her owner joined the defense force and she only came home to me in Dec last year

I was thinking worse case scenario that she had done her cruciate and was just floored to hear the news upon seeing the xray

aalailaIMG_8788_zpscd705fc3.jpg

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Oh Ish, I'm so sorry :(

We used Robert McDowell's supplements with Stewie, and found them very effective. He had 10 months of high quality life, with very little need for traditional pain killers. He was on the Bone Cancer mix and the Maritime Pine Bark Extract, from memory - plus a totally raw diet.

Let me see if I can drag up his thread from the depths and post a link to it.

Big cuddles to Laila! :hug:

Here is Stewie's thread: http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/30927-osteosarcoma-and-stewie/page__p__442193__fromsearch__1#entry442193

Edited by Allerzeit
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So very sorry to hear this. My boy was diagnosed with inoperable aggressive rectal Adenocarcinoma last November. Whilst its not the same cancer, I have found Dr Barbara Fugere from All Natural Vet Care (sydney) to be absolutely brilliant in assisting with his care. We are using a mix of conventional and Eastern therapies on him which is all done by phone consult and support from my vet locally.

Kobe's diagnosis was 3-4 months and we are now coming up to 5 months, with no apparent change in tumour size. I have also used Robert McDowell mixes for other dogs with great success and the staff there (Kate) are very helpful and knowledgable.

There is also a holistic vet (Anne Neville) in Melbourne which others have used with success. I took Kobe to Melbourne to see the specialist and Anne, but Kobe had great difficulty with the liquid Chinese herbs prescribed by Anne and after other referrals and have ended up working with Dr Fugere. Both Barbara and Anne use traditional Chinese medicine and will provide diet recommendations based in the nature of the cancer and the constitution of the animal.

They will all recommend a raw diet, some dogs will take to it like a duck to water....and others (like my Kobe) won't and its just a process of working through and doing what you can within the dogs limits. If you don't currently feed raw and intend on changing your girl over to it, I suggest you do it slowly over a period of a couple of weeks, to get her used to it.

No doubt you are ony just starting to get your head around it all. I wish you and Laila every success as you begin this very difficult journey.

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Ish, I am so so sorry to hear.

I lost my Emma just 2 weeks ago to osteosarcoma. She was diagnosed in July last year, and we went to 3 different vets who all gave her a prognosis of 2 - 3 months. We went to Anne Neville that shepherds mentioned above and went onto the herbs prescribed by Anne. She did a hair test which tells her which herbs would be helpful. I also rang up Robert Mcdowell and had a good long chat about his supplements, but although it sounded very promising I chose not to try it as some of the herbs would clash with what Anne had prescribed me. We also changed over to a raw diet with lots of root vegetables, liver and oats. Emma lived for another 8 months on Anne's treatment and mild painkillers, and I only had to up the dosage of painkillers towards the end. I'd say she had decent quality of like for those odd-defying 8 months, she loved her food and was able to go for slow walks and was still playful. We put her to sleep before her pain got too severe, so maybe she would have lasted even longer, but I just knew I had put her through too much, she was such a brave fighter and it was time for her to rest.

Best wishes and hugs to you, it is never easy going down the route of palliative care.

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Ish I am sorry.

I just went looking for Sophie's thread - it had so much information in it as cavNrott treated her with diet, supplements and chemo (from memory) but I can't find the thread. It was here in the palliative care section but all I could find was her rainbow bridge thread. Sophie had osteosarcoma in her jaw.

Maybe pm cNr to see if she still has some info as she did a wonderful job with palliative care for Sophie and she lived much longer than was expected.

We are in Canberra and used All Natural Vet Care in Sydney, who liaised with our vet and oncologist when Ollie had MCT.

We used a lot of supplements including but not limited to Anti-Ox, Lymphodran, Chinese Herbs, Five Mushroom Drops, Flax Oil, Loads of Vitamin C, Fish oil etc.

Everything we used is in Ollie's thread on Mast Cell Cancer - here in this forum but it is very different to osteosarcoma, so may not be of much help.

A good holistic vet will work with your vet and oncologist for the best outcome.

Wishing you all the best

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Thank you to those who have replied - I needed a couple of days to get my head around things and its been very handy to have some starting points for further information.

I have contacted Robert McDowell and hopefully they will let me know if Laila can have their recommended mixes for Osteosarcoma. I'm glad they helped your Stewie Allerzeit. I will start changing her over to raw immediately too

For anyone who stumbles across this thread in a search, the story CavNRott's Sophie is in the Unwell Rotties thread here http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/125668-unwell-rotties/ There is lots of helpful information provided in this thread - thank you Staffyluv for recommending it. From this thread I have the names of pain killers and other meds I will speak to my vet about getting for Laila

Laila seems to be ok - she slipped her lead when I took her outside this morning and set off at a 3 legged galloped down the paddocks with no hesitation! Thankfully she stopped to pee and I managed to get the lead back on her - she doesn't have a very good recall! Aside from that, she is happy to potter around but also rests lots. I guess her good back leg gets tired.

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One of the most amazing things that I discovered with Ollie dog (and Sophie) was that they don't seem to know or care that they are terminally ill..

As dogs, they live in the moment - so eventually I did learn to just love each day that he woke up and wanted to go for a walk or eat his breakfast.

Wishing you the best of luck with her ish,

send a PM to cNr as she was on the forum the other day - I am sure she would be happy to help.

Ollie's thread has loads of information in it as well - more towards MCT than osteosarcoma but still a lot of diet related stuff might be helpful.

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I hope the information about Sophie's treatment in the Unwell Rotties thread assists you. One thing I highly recommend is to consult with a caring oncologist.

It's been over 4 1/2 years now since I lost Sophie and I doubt I can remember a lot of the supplemtents I gave her. If you can wade through the thread I documented everything in there. If I can help in any way, I'm happy to do so.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Beautiful Laila was given her wings yesterday :rainbowbridge: I'm shocked at how quickly it all happened. She was still bright and interested, but her body was losing the battle. I spoke to the vet about stronger pain relief for her but then found another tumor on her spine, as well as skin lumps which seemed to be appearing daily. I took her to the vet to get those checked out but I knew in my heart she wasn't going to come home. My vet said he has never seen a tumor grow so quickly, that it was typical of 6 months growth in his experience, plus the worry of the other issues. With that in mind, there was no other option but to say goodbye :cry:

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