As you have all gathered from past blogs, Ben is my border collie hiking buddy and also my hearing assist dog for my high frequency hearing loss!  He is an expert at detecting rattlesnakes on the trail.  I was all set for a great 4 day hiking adventure in the Sierra Nevada mountains when he got his first bladder stone urethra block.  That means he had bladder stones and several plugged up his urethra and he could not urinate.  He just lifted his leg and looked at me asking, “What is wrong Dad?”

After the first check with a specialist it was determined that he had a rather rare type of stone that was likely caused or made worse by bladder inflammation.  They unblocked him.  Within a week he blocked again and this time needed surgery in which we flushed out 50 stones!  Wow.  Very rare in such a young dog (5 years old).  Since we had to do a surgery, I took the opportunity to have fat collected to isolate his stem cells.  And because the surgeon said his bladder was inflamed and possibly infected, we gave him an IV dose of his own stem cells 2 days after the surgery.  As you all know, stem cells migrate to areas of inflammation and help “turn it off” and are also great at producing natural antibiotics.

It has been nearly a year now and Ben is back hiking (and lifting his leg on everything).  No signs of infection or stones.  Chronic inflammation of any kind is hard to control and causes fibrosis, or in this case, stones to possibly form.  I believe in the coming years we will begin using stem cells for many more types of inflammation like in the lungs, kidneys and even liver.  Two recently published studies show that stem cells can be given for dry eye in dogs and mouth inflammation (gingival stomatitis) in cats!

Check with your vet and find out what kinds of conditions might respond to stem cell therapy and keep your walking or hiking buddy in top shape for new adventures!