Case Study - Twizzle
Twizzle is the most adorable little guy. At just 5kg he is full of personality. He is a Maltese crossed with a Bichon Frise and was rehomed by his lovely owner when he was around 2 years old after starting his life as a street dog! He is now 10 years old and his owner brought him to me to help him with some on and off lameness in his front left leg. She had also noticed that he was much less comfortable going up the stairs and was struggling with jumping on the sofa or getting on and off the bed. Along with his he had slowed down a lot and wasn’t able to go out very far on his walks. When he was lame (which wasn’t all the time), he was also showing other signs of pain such as crying and hiding away which was very distressing! Most recently before coming to me, he had started to lick his front left paw so much that he licked a sore so big it needed treatment.
Before my consultation and appointment, Twizzle had been a couple of times to the vet to investigate his lameness. He had been checked out for joint issues and though none were found, he was given treatment for joint pain which had helped a little. He was still having his episodes of pain though and needed something else to help, so his owner checked with his vet that McTimoney treatment would be safe and suitable and they agreed.
When I first met him, little Twizzle struggled when walking and wasn’t even able to trot due to restrictions in his body. This may have been one of the reasons he found going out for his walks so tiring. He always sat or lay down on his right side and was quite sore when I was having a feel over his lower back. The most significant thing I found though, was a whole lot of tension through his spinal muscles and fascia on his right hand side which turns out was all due to the scar tissue from a nasty incident he’d suffered just over 2 years before. Twizzle had a run in with a large dog that wasn’t very nice to him, and ended up with a large wound on his right chest that required multiple surgeries and lots of tissue to be removed before it was all healed over. This kind of thing can have lots of unseen effects on the body. Not only was the scar tissue and restricted fascia causing a lot of tension in his body, the accident itself was highly likely to have caused other muscle damage in his little body, and his body had to compensate for these injuries which can cause chronic patterns of pain and poor movement.
Whilst he may have also had an injury in his front leg specifically (he had fallen out of a car which may have been a trigger for this), he had a lot of restrictions throughout his spinal muscles, leading to misalignments (where his spine was not able to move fully through its normal range of motion) and muscle wastage in different areas of his body that he wasn’t using properly with all the other stuff he was having to compensate for.
A McTimoney treatment addresses this restriction in the spinal muscles and allows all of his vertebrae to sit comfortably again in their neutral position, and through their full range of motion. This re-balances the musculoskeletal system and a body in good balance can work much better at moving properly and healing anything it needs to! It can also help to ease pain that this restriction itself can be causing.
After three treatments, myofascial release where he had so much restriction, and some exercises by his owner to help re-build his muscles (as well as regular targeted stretches), Twizzle is a different dog! His owner reports that he has only had one incident of lameness and pain since his first treatment, and he recovered from it much more quickly than previously. He is moving much more fluidly, can once again trot and has his bounce back. He has even been away on a walking holiday and managed to walk for hours without getting tired out or suffering afterwards! It just goes to show that the body is incredible and when given a little support to be in great balance, it can work to heal old injuries and help dogs to feel so much better, have more energy and be in a lot less pain.
I love working with the lovely Twizzle. He is now on a maintenance schedule seeing me every 3 months to keep him tip top into his older years.
