What Is A Healing Crisis: First Time For Everything—Is That What This Was?

In theory, a healing crisis is a temporary worsening of the patient’s symptoms during stage(s) of treatment.

Is healing crisis really a thing? Is that was Jasmine experienced? Frankly, I don’t know but it surely looked like it and it was our working theory to explain what happened.

The fact is, that after the initial worsening of her symptoms, Jasmine bounced back feeling better than before.

What Is A Healing Crisis: First Time For Everything—Is That What This Was?

Jasmine’s story

I will not recount all the health challenges Jasmine overcame. The event relevant to this story was an acute front leg lameness. Because Jasmine didn’t tolerate NSAIDs, and we had a great experience with regenerative therapy, we decided to repeat stem cell treatment for her.

Everything went flawlessly and we were looking forward to Jasmine feeling great. We thought we knew what to expect but this time, everything was different.

Unexpected situation

The night after her treatment, though, Jasmine looked very rough. Her front left leg was very sore, and her rear left was right behind it. We figured that it might have been because she was off her pain meds for that day.

That didn’t, however, prepare us for the following morning, by which things went from bad to worse.

Jasmine can barely walk

The following morning, Jasmine even struggled up to go out to do her business. She was having extreme difficulty, and after she got halfway to the door, that was about all that she could do.

Jasmine's healing crisis?

Jasmine was still very sore on her left side, but now all four legs were not doing well!

Hubby carried her back on her bed.

Now what? This was not just worsening of her original lameness, this was something else altogether.

The moment Jasmine vet arrived at the hospital, he found me waiting on the phone.

We would have taken Jasmine to the hospital if it had to be, but were reluctant to volunteer to take her on a trip she was ill-equipped to handle. We figured we better discuss the situation with him to see what to make of it and what to do.

Figuring it out

First things first, he wanted to know whether there was any swelling, redness or heat at the incision sites.

This was very important, because, while unlikely, an infection could happen and that would be an emergency situation. If it was going to happen, it would indeed have gotten very bad very fast.

That’s why keeping everything completely sterile was so important in such a procedure. Hubby described how after they shaved the incision sites, they washed them off and then drenched them with alcohol. At one point the tech said she might have had put too much, but the vet replied that there is never too much alcohol.

Fortunately, we found none of the above signs. Also if there was an infection, Jasmine wouldn’t be putting any weight on the leg at all, which she was, to various degree, on all of them.

What is going on?

It was good to have this scary option off the table, but what is going on?

I described the progress of the events to Jasmine’s vet. It was comforting that he didn’t sound surprised or worried about Jasmine; he just sounded quite worried about me.

He explained that some of the pain might be a result of some of the manipulation of the limbs which was necessary to get the injections where they needed to go.

A healing crisis?

Then he explained, that what he believes is going on, is what is in holistic medicine referred to as a healing crisis.

I have read plenty about healing crises so I understood what he meant. Reading about it, and watching it—totally different things!

He used the term reluctantly, however, he felt it best described what we might be looking at.

Healing crises were described by the experts using platelet-rich plasma therapy, and our vet witnessed them himself when he used the therapy for their resident rescues. With the treatment, the body’s healing process is pushed into an overdrive, which then results in a variety of scary looking symptoms.

In the case of their resident rescues, the healing crises lasted about 36 hours with each of the patients.

After that, the benefits of the treatment should start showing. Our vet also said, that, while he has not seen that yet, the same thing could happen with the stem cell therapy, as these therapies have a lot in common.

Jasmine had stem cell therapy in the past and we did not see such onset of symptoms.

But this time we did four joints at once, and her vet said that the joints we treated are not the same as the joints we treated now.

He sounded very confident and reassuring.

Waiting for a turn for the better

So we’re really hoping that this is all we’re looking at. I have to admit that I’d be perfectly happy to pass on such excitement; but on the other hand, it might be a sign of some serious healing going on. So that would certainly be a good thing.

He also said, that if we wanted, we could get her some Coenzyme Q10 which might help with the process. So I ran out and got some.

The good thing was that she was interested in food and her eyes were bright and didn’t lose their fire.

Marginal improvement

By the end of the day, we’re seeing some marginal improvement.

Jasmine drank, ate enthusiastically, eliminated, and seemed to have rested comfortably in between. She now gets to where she needs to go without as much difficulty as in the morning, at least I don’t have to worry about her falling over anymore.

Jasmine hates cold compresses, but so it happened that a new cooling bed, we ordered for her, just arrived yesterday, so we set it up for her and she’s already using it.

All this is not what we were hoping to see going in, but we’re hoping that the final outcome will be what we wanted for her.

This is certainly something new. In the meantime, we have to take things one step at a time and be thankful for any sign of improvement.

Final outcome

Whether Jasmine did go through a healing crisis or something else, four days later, she made a huge turn for the better. She went to zero to sixty in four days—ready to rumble.

All is well what ends well. In spite of the roller coaster it has become this time, Jasmine’s stem cell treatment did what it was supposed to do—get her back on her feet, feeling good.

Further reading: From Zero To Sixty In Four Days: Stem Cells At Work

Related articles:
Jasmine’s Acute Lameness

Further reading:
How the Body Heals

Categories: Conditions

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Jana Rade

I am a graphic designer, dog health advocate, writer, and author. Jasmine, the Rottweiler of my life, was the largest female from her litter. We thought we were getting a healthy dog. Getting a puppy from a backyard breeder was our first mistake. Countless veterinary visits without a diagnosis or useful treatment later, I realized that I had to take Jasmine's health care in my own hands. I learned the hard way that merely seeing a vet is not always enough. There is more to finding a good vet than finding the closest clinic down the street. And, sadly, there is more to advocating for your dog's health than visiting a veterinarian. It should be enough, but it often is not. With Jasmine, it took five years to get a diagnosis. Unfortunately, other problems had snowballed for that in the meantime. Jasmine's health challenges became a crash course in understanding dog health issues and how to go about getting a proper diagnosis and treatment. I had to learn, and I had to learn fast. Helping others through my challenges and experience has become my mission and Jasmine's legacy. I now try to help people how to recognize and understand signs of illness in their dogs, how to work with their veterinarian, and when to seek a second opinion. My goal is to save others the steep curve of having to learn things the hard way as I did. That is the mission behind my blog and behind my writing. That is why I wrote Symptoms to Watch for in Your Dog, which has turned out being an award-winning guide to dog owners. What I'm trying to share encompasses 20 years of experience.

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