My dog, Darwin, was given a full check-up and blood work. All his tests results told us he was healthy enough to undergo the surgery to collect his stem cells. The night before surgery I fed him his dinner and then had to pick up the food and water dishes to fast him before surgery. The morning of surgery his belly was shaved and he was placed under general anesthesia.
I made a incision into his abdomen just behind his ribs. There is a nice fat pad here called the falciform ligament which I harvested. The whole surgery took 21 minutes. At Acres Animal Hospital, pain control is a priority for all our patients and so I gave my dog an injection of pain medications so that when he woke up from the surgery he would be as comfortable as possible.
We sent the fat I had collected to the Avivagen Laboratory in Prince Edward Island via rush courier. Darwin recovered well from his surgery and I spoiled him for the next day or two with as much cuddle time as he could handle. He was a little sore going up and down the stairs, but his surgery site was looking really good. I was giving him regular doses of pain control medications as well as all of his joint supplements.
Avivagen received his sample the next morning, and they spent the day isolating all the regenerative (healing) cells including stem cells from the fat sample. We were lucky and they were able to get 36,718,000 cells. Since we give 3,000,000 per site of arthritis, we had enough stem cells for 8 doses!!! I asked them to prepare 3 syringes, on for each ankle and one to give intravenously. The laboratory then cryogenically froze the remaining samples so that I can use them at a later date. The lab got the cells ready to be couriered back to me, and I got Darwin ready to be sedated for the next step in the treatment where we inject the cells into the areas that need them.
The treatments was well underway, and Darwin was handling things like a champion. I couldn't wait to see if the treatment would help him!
Acres Vet
