Stem Cell Treatments for Dogs

I wanted to start off by saying that I have absolutely no affiliation to the company mentioned below. I wrote this blog to give my opinion only and to elicit feedback and thoughts from everyone in hopes that we can all become more informed about health options for our dogs.

I was recently at the vet and found out that my female St. Bernard has arthritis. Of course I was very concerned. As the parent of my wonderful, loving dog I immediately began to pepper my doctor with questions of how best to deal with this issue with minimal medication. As a person who in generally does not like to medicate myself for injuries, I was hoping that another solution could be found for Saffie. As we discussed options she told of the stem cell treatment that is being offered by a company called Vet-Stem (http://www.vet-stem.com). The procedure seems to be straight forward. They take fat cell from the dogs; ship them overnight, Vet-Stem processes the cells and produces healthy stem cells that are sent back to the vet for injection. Of course I was very skeptical due in part to the lack of progress in human stem cell research. Now I have to admit that I have yet to do the procedure as my dog is responding well right now to medication and due to the fact that this procedure, I have been told, is expensive. But, my vet has done the procedure on 10 dogs at the time of this blog and all 10 have recovered from their arthritis. There is also talk that this may help hip dysplasia as well. One note, there are limited research numbers on the percentage of dogs that respond to the treatment versus those that don’t. Also, I could not find any side effect information on this procedure. Of course there are no guarantees that this will work, but at least there are options now to help our dogs live better lives.
If the medication treatment for Saffie does not work or seems to have a limiting effect, I will be doing the procedure on her.

I would suggest to those that are looking for an alternative to medication to check out this procedure and talk with your vet in order to make an informed decision.

If anyone has had the procedure done on their dog I would love that you share your thoughts. I want everyone who reads this blog to have real stories (good and bad), so they can arm themselves with as much information as possible.

Take care!
Jeff