The practice is in Greendale, a part of Western Sydney I had never heard of till now... it's near Wallacia. It took us 1hour and 15 mins to get there, so a bit closer to us than the physio in Homebush.
It's in a low key house, with a concrete parking area. As you get out of the car, you are in a completely rural setting. Cows in the paddock across the road. You can tell it is an unusual place because of the horse hitches off to one side.
We wait a bit while Dr. Neil finishes treatment on a greyhound and we go in with Penny. Dr. Neil is a young, tall dark haired gentleman with a soft spoken manner. He gives Penny a once over, feeling her spine, neck and legs, and testing her for a Deep Pain Response with a tiny needle between her toe pads (we were gratified to see a jerk! ) and asks us lots of questions about the surgery, and says he will give Dr. David Lidbetter a call (turns out, they know each other).
We have a chat about the injury, how it happened, when we noticed her going down, the timeline etc. Dr. Neil said that he prefers to have paralysed dogs who have NOT had surgery, he said he feels he can get them back on their feet quicker and better than ones who have had surgery. Not 100% sure why, but I think it has something to do with scar tissue and keeping the discs intact. He goes onto say that Pennys results will be individual, there is no predicting an out come as to whether or not she will walk again or regain continence. The good thing is that she is only just 6 weeks post op, that we did not wait to bring her in, we have started early.
So we begin treatment. He starts by giving her acupuncture- tiny needles on both sides of her spine from her hips up to her shoulders... maybe 8 in all... Penny was so calm and still. After the needles were in, he used a directed infra red laser light gun to target the inflammation, and stimulate nerves around the scar tissue. He goes slowly up and down the spine. Penny is now nearly asleep, if she was a cat she would be purring.... so relaxed, her eyes closing over and her head leaning on my hand... it was weird! Then he takes out the needles and uses a chiropractic activator down the bony protrusions of her spine- this to increase blood flow to the area (I think). All done.
I ask him about supplements, and tell him Penny is on 1000mg of Ester-C per day, and did he recommend anything else for her? He gave us a bottle of something called Hernidisc which is formulated for humans post ruptured disc surgery and he tells us to give Penny 1/2 a table per day with food, he said it has worked well in animals and to try it.
The cost for all this? $75, including the supplements! So very affordable, we couldn't believe our luck!
We kept Penny calm that night and the next day just did her light physio exercises as usual, but the day after that, we saw some remarkable improvements in her. She was able to stand on her back legs for longer, from about 10 seconds to nearly 30 seconds before she goes off balance, she pulls herself up onto her back legs and trys to WALK... we can see her hips actually making front/back motions, and although most of her weight is on her front paws (hand-standing) she is actually taking about 1 step in 3 or 4. She drags her back legs, but she is up on her knees, then gets her legs under her, and takes a step or two, wobbles and falls over and tries again. She is still knucking her toes under, but her toes will be the last things to come back.
She has also started to squat when I am expressing her bladder now, which can only be a good sign!
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