Has anyone used Legend in a dog? Curious about the potential.
Legend is an IV drug so no, I haven’t tried it. I did use Adequan on my lab wth some success. If I had an arthritic dog now I would absolutely try Pentosan.
Yes I used it on my Rottie who had hip and elbow dysplasia and who could not tolerate oral meds. I also did adequan on her.
She was kind of a mess with arthritis, and I did Legend IV once a week on her. Yes it helped, but it was not a miracle. She was a 120 lb dog, I think I gave her 1.5 cc. I did it with a tourniquet. She was a good dog.
ETA: I think Legend’s impact would be greater on a dog that was not so far down the road with arthritis.
Backstory:
I have a not quite 10 year old Ridgeback (70 ish lbs) who was found to have some pretty significant arthritis in her lumbar spine. We have no symptoms, really, except she doesn’t wag. She is a stoic, reserved dog so not wagging wasn’t ever really a red flag.
I am waiting for my regular vet to review the rads and advise (the arthritis was an incidental finding to this whole mess) but given the super, super stoic nature of this particular dog, I’d like to hit her hard with potential options with the assumption that she’s pretty ouchy. I have a very good friend who’s been a vet tech for nearly 15 years now who would be available for IV injections.
As a horse person, my first thought is Adequan and Legend. Pentosan is an interesting option.
Judysmom, on a scale of 1 - 10, where would you rate Legend on helpfulness? If you had another arthritic dog, would you do it again?
Not Legend, but Adequan has done WONDERS for my senior dog. She had been limping for a good two years (was on rimadyl and oral glucosamine, but those didn’t make a difference). After the loading dose of Adequan, her limp completely disappeared, she acts years younger, has lost weight due to increased exercise, and others who know her have been asking “What’s different? Your dog looks great!” So I would definitely give that a try. The IM injections are easy, but I do think they sting a bit (dog flinches when I start to depress syringe).
Simkie, I used Legend primarily because I didn’t have a lot of options with that dog. This was before I started going to the pain management specialist. My Rottie would get pooping in the house diarrhea from oral glucosamine, and would barf blood from NSAIDs. That’s why I used Legend.
I would likely not use Legend on a dog who could tolerate oral meds. Dogs do better with glucosamine/chondroitin than horses do. There are also many very good NSAIDs available now. Heck, I feed Previcox to my horse 
And, Adequan seems to work better on dogs than it does horses.
Legend was fairly expensive, I had to twist my small animal vet’s arm to prescribe it and come up with a dose, and I think other stuff works better. But, I would use it again on a dog that couldn’t do oral meds.
When I took her to the pain management specialist, the Dr put her on a GI protectant that worked, so I could give her oral NSAIDs (and tramadol), and I stopped the Legend.
Sorry, more thoughts!
I had a dog that had some spine stuff going on, and I took her to neurologist. The neurologist put her on some special drug that helped little fat dog a lot. Wish I remembered what it was, but it wasn’t any of the common drugs.
Simkie- what about shockwave?
ETA: the drug that helped little fat dog with her back was Piroxicam.
