What is a fracture in dogs?
A fracture is a total or partial breakage of a bone. It can even happen that the same bone is broken in multiple places. This fracture may be due to various reasons, such as a shock, a poorly cushioned fall, fatigue fracture, osteoporosis, etc. The injury may be closed, or open (with tearing of the dog's skin), the bone may even have moved from its natural location, leaving fragments, or not. There is a type of fracture specific to puppies and young dogs: the greenstick fracture. In these young animals, the skeleton is not yet as strong as in an adult dog. It is therefore more flexible, and breaks as a branch of green wood could do. Thus, the bone of the puppy or young dog will not break, but it will bend more with multiple bone tears.
Diagnosis
If you think your dog has broken a bone, go to your veterinarian as soon as possible. He will ask you several important questions (circumstances, time of injury, location of pain, etc.), and perform a clinical examination of your dog. After this, an X-ray will confirm the diagnosis, see precisely where the bone injury is located, and will eventually allow for the collection of other important information (is the bone broken in several places, are other bones affected?).
Treatment
Once the nature of the injury is well established, the veterinarian will return the bone of the fractured dog to its normal anatomical position, manually or surgically. Then the injured part will be immobilized, so that the dog's bone can heal perfectly and regain its full strength. Analgesics may be offered to reduce pain. Once the bone has recovered, a period of rehabilitation (physiotherapy for dogs) will allow the dog to regain proper mobility.
CBD and bone healing
CBD (cannabidiol) is a substance belonging to the famous cannabinoids. It is obtained from industrial hemp (Cannabis Sativa). Contrary to its cousin, the recreational cannabis rich in THC (Cannabis Indica, illegal), Sativa Cannabis contains almost no THC, less than 0.3%, that's why CBD is not classified as a narcotic in France. Here are the results of research, carried out on rats, on the effects of CBD on fracture healing.
- Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported in a study published in 2015 that cannabidiol improved the biomechanical properties of fracture healing in rats.
- Another study also suggests that cannabidiol (CBD) could stimulate the enzymes responsible for the cross-linking of collagen, a protein that is very important in the construction of connective tissue.
These 2 studies, carried out on rodents, open a lead for research on the biomechanical properties of calluses in bone fractures; they do not show any effect in dogs. CBD is not a veterinary medicine: a fracture must be treated by your veterinarian, and no product should be given without his advice.
