Question: Luxating Patella
I am sending you email in a last ditch effort to determine what treatment might be successful for a llama with luxation of the patella.
I have a 10 year old male gelding with luxation of the right patella. The first time this happened was in September, 2003 and the vet was able to push the patella back in place. The llama was isolated for 2 weeks and appeared to have recovered. Two months later it happened again and again I was able to push the patella back in place. Since then it has happened 5 times and I have to assume that it will not heal without some kind of intervention.
While I do not expect you do magical diagnosis over email, I would very much appreciate knowing what options there are in general for this condition.
Thank you very much for any information you can provide to me.
Answer:
I have a fairly decent success rate doing femoropatellar ligament prosthesis (I use orthopedic screws and polyesther suture prosthesis). Rarely do they need trochleoplasty. Very rarely tibial crest transposition. I do not find counterirritant injections particularly useful.
David E Anderson,