About a year ago my 10 year old dog began to limp on his back leg.  He couldn’t jump up on the couch and would yelp while even walking over a threshold. I took him to the mobile vet and they told me that he either had a bad disk or arthritis.  Since they didn’t have an x-ray machine they gave him anti-inflammatories for 7 days to see if it worked.  They also said he if began to limp again that I needed to take him in for x-rays.  When I gave him the anti-inflammatories he stopped limping and was fine.  However, once the pills were gone he began limping and yelping again. 

I really didn’t want him to continue on the pills as they cause their own side effects and other issues.  While speaking to a friend she suggested I give him flax seed oil.  She said her dad’s dog had a similar issue and the flax seed oil solved the problem.  I wasn’t sure if it would work but decided to give it a try.  Within 4 hours my dog was no longer limping and actually jumping around.

There has been once where I got lazy and stopped giving him the flax seed oil and he began limping on his front leg.  Again within 4 hours of giving him the flex seed oil he was back to normal.

My dog weighs about 12 lbs and I give him 1 tablespoon on his food daily.  I purchase mine from the local health food store but it can also be purchased at “The Vitamin Shoppe”. In searching the internet I could not find any major adverse side effects listed for flax seed oil.

Here is some infomation on flax seed oil from WebMD.