disc injury in 11 year old lab

Question
Our 11 year old male lab Cooper has been diagnosed with a disc injury or tumor on the spine. Xrays were taken but nothing conclusive was shown.  He lost use of his right rear leg as well.  The Vet prescribed prednisone for 30 days and a pain med. Cooper is 20 days into the meds and has some function of this right leg, but is still knuckling and losing muscle mass.  We have started taking him on short walks after being crate confined for about a week.  He also has some bladder control issues  occasionally when walking.  
Is the med causing the bladder issue? Should he be walking?
Is it possible for improvement in the use of the leg?  
Thank you

Answer
Sean,
this is a difficult situation. Your vet is using the time honored method of using steroids to bring down the swelling and inflammation in the disc or the spine. If this is a tumor, as you can imagine, the outlook doesn't bode well. If it is a disc issue, he might have some improvement but he might never regain complete use of his leg.

The nerve damage is most likely what is causing the bladder problem, however, being on Prednisone makes the dog need to urinate more, which is hard on a nerve-compromised bladder. Walking isn't going to make this any worse. If nothing else, it might help.

I am uncertain why the xray was inconclusive. He should have seen something in there one way or another. If you can afford it, you might want to have a CT scan run. Many larger hospitals have them and in some towns the hospital will let a vet use theirs.

You would certainly know for sure with a CT scan. But if not, then all you can do is wait and see what happens. I, for one, wouldn't jump into a surgery at his age. They are rarely useful and without knowing the cause of this, there is no point in cutting on him.

At his age it is impossible to say whether or not he will recover completely from this. If he continues to knuckle over the problem with that is that they wear a hole into their foot- not a pretty sight.

So you might have some tough decisions ahead of you- but for now hang in there and see how it goes.

Please let me know how he does.