I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Said Dr. Tim Crowe, Veterinarian at River Vet (Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergencies and Referrals).  He was speaking about the immediate improvement he saw in a 15-month-old Great Dane with a neurological condition typically referred to as “Wobblers.”

 

Wobblers is a disease of the neck vertebrae affecting the spinal cord.  It’s also referred to as cervical spondylomyelopathy, cervical vertebral instability, cervical vertebral malformation, CVMM, and cervical spondylopathy.

 

If you have a minute, watch this video– in it, you’ll see a Great Dane called Ranie. She’s 15 months old, female, spayed, and she has cervical malformation and myelopathy. She was literally staggering around, able to walk but only with extreme difficulty. “We put the Assisi loop on her neck and after just 10 minutes I began to see a difference.  After 20 minutes of application, I noticed definite improved coordination. She was able to rise on her own and her gait improved.  Right there, within 10-20 minutes, you see her gait change. Her pain scale was thought to be about a two prior to the use of the loop, and ten minutes afterwards it was zero.”

 

I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’ve never seen a patient with cervical malformation improve so remarkably like that. And there was no surgery involved. In fact, this was why I was seeing her. She may have had a compression lesion on her spinal cord caused by this malformed vertebral segment in her neck and we were considering surgery.”

 

“Now with the Assisi Loop, we weren’t sure if she needed it. We sent the Assisi loop home with her owner and instructed her to use it as much as possible – just slip it around the dog’s neck whenever she could for up to 15 minutes at a time. After two weeks we were noticing a significant difference in her gait. She was running around with the other dog and four months after the initial application you can’t tell her from her other playmate Great Dane.”

 

We’re so happy the Loop can help- up to 5% of Dobermans and Great Danes are affected by this condition.  Rottweilers, Mastiffs, Weimaraners, German Shepherds, Bernese Mountain dogs, Swiss Mountain dogs, and other large breeds can all be affected.

 

Treatment options other than PEMF therapy with the Loop typically consist of surgery and long-term use of anti-inflammatory drugs, and restricted mobility for the dog.  About 50% of those who get medically treated with surgery or pain medication will improve somewhat or a lot, 30% will remain stable, and 20% will worsen, according to the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine.  They also say 80% of surgeries are successful, and 20% remain stable or worsen.

 

The loop so far is showing excellent results, and in dogs that have not progressed to the worst stages of wobblers, a full recovery has been seen.  The advantage of PEMF therapy is staving off the use of pain medications, which are difficult for dogs to tolerate (see the use of aspirin in dogs).  If you haven’t watched the youtube video we mentioned earlier, we suggest you do now, so you can see the effects the loop has on wobblers within minutes- as well as over the course of months.

 

For more information on the mechanisms of action of tPEMF devices, see the research on the Assisi site- and if you have a dog with wobblers, please get in touch to see about getting a loop through your Veterinarian.