A few of my tripawd friends’ parents have written to me, asking me if I’ve ever acted like my missing leg was still there. They call this “Phantom Limb Pain” in humans. For dogs, this means that a dog may start licking their missing leg area like crazy, or maybe have lots of muscle twitching.
Calpurnia, my new tripod friend, has a great human named TC, who has written a wonderful paper about Phantom Limb Pain. TC writes about the way she has treated Calpurnia’s pain, and also sent in news about a new harness that was made just for this beautiful snow bunny (uh, I mean dog).
Dowload PDF: Phantom Limb Pain in Dogs Post Amputation
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I’m so glad I found this site! I recently adopted a tripawd Chihuahua named Lt. Dan from my vet. He was brought in as a stray with an untreated broken leg and the doctors were unable to save it. Poor little guy is only 8-10 months old. He’s had several “screaming” episodes, usually when he gets up and the worst one was yesterday. Fortunately, my vet has prescribed gabapentin for him so hopefully he won’t have any more pain.
Hi everyone,
I’m posting here because I’m extremely frustrated right now. For the past 24 hours-ish, Lucky’s been having the same “screaming” episodes that people are describing on tripawds forums. I’ve been trying to get his doctors to prescribe him gabapentin, but none of the specialists are in on weekends and the ER docs who are at the hospitals refuse to prescribe it for him because they don’t know about phantom limb pain in dogs. As you all know, watching Lucky have these episodes is excruciating, and I am really hoping to be able to find someone to prescribe him gabapentin today. We are in San Diego. Does anybody have any recommendations for good places in San Diego that have experience with this and will prescribe gabapentin?
Thank you so much!
Sorry to hear about the issues you’re having getting a prescription for Lucky.
Get in touch with the wonderful folks at Veterinary Cancer Group. They have a facility in San Diego, and you can watch the video interviews from our tour of VCG in Orange County in the Tripawds News Blog. Thanks for asking and good luck! Please post in the forums for more advice or suggestions from others.
My 10 year old greyhound/lurcher had his front leg amputated 4 weeks ago for osteosarcoma and had his first dose of chemotherapy (carboplatin) 2 weeks ago and things were going well (although his appetite has decreased, he is now excercising well ) but about 4 days ago he yellped loudly as if in pain and shot out of the room, this has happened regularly since ( about between 2-4 times a day and for no apparent reason) we took him to a vet who checked him out and could find no obvious cause – we are now wondering wether this could be phantom pain even thogh it has started nearly 4 weeks post surgery and would love some advise eg gabapentin ? etc etc
thank you
Exactly how much exercise is he getting? Four weeks is still very early for him to be doing too much. It does sound like it could be phantom pain which can present itself for up to a couple months, it’s rare but we’ve heard of it happening. Gabapentin has proven to be very effective, as are the other tips in the download available in this post.
Thanks for asking and est wishes. You’ll get much more advice from many others in the discussion forums!
my dog had amputation of front limb just last wenesday,and after the doctor took off her bandage yesterday she’s been crying when her muscle on amputated limb is twitching,very often(every 15 min) pleace tell me what i can do for her…
Anna, we’re so sorry. I know that it’s hard to cope with, but things will get better. There are lots of great suggestions for helping dogs to feel better when they’re experiencing phantom leg pain after amputation. Come over to the Discussion Forums and search for “phantom pain,” you will find tons of suggestions there (asking your doc to prescribe Gabapentin is a good start). Good luck, hope to see you there.
Dozer had phantom limb pain to the extent that he had to take tramadol for a time. It was then replaced by Proxicam, an analgesic which has anti-cancer properties. He’s to stay on the Proxicam (for bone cancer) so we may not know when the phantom limb pain subsides. Bone cancer dog owners may want to ask their vets about Proxicam.
Calpurnia has celebrated her two year ampuversary! Check out her latest guest blog post from 11/04/09, “Three Paws, Two Years, No Problem!”
Vanessa, you are a saint for saving that puppy. Thank you so much for being such a great human. We’d love to hear more about him; drop us a line in the forums and share his story when you can. Tripawds rule!
I rescued a puppy that was only a couple of weeks old off the side of the road.
his back leg was so badly broken and infected that we had to amputate it.
I am proud to report that he is doing fabulous months later.
Julie, have you talked to the vet about it?
I nursed a little dog that had just had her right leg amputated.The first week was pretty bad but she has healed so well. It has been 1 month and she often will cry out in pain. I find that if I hold her chest wall when she cries it seems to help her. i will often try to take her mind off of it by talking her through it. I hope this pain will subside for her as it is so difficult to listen to her yelping in pain
Julie,
Our dog had his right front leg amputated on Monday, June 21 2010 and is having phantom pain. It is the hardest thing to watch and hear. I will try your suggestions. Please share more. We both need lots of support.
Thanks, Kim
After reading more about Phantom pain, I learned that distraction, pressure, and heat can be very helpful. How long on average can this last after the surgery?
Kim, it really depends on the dog, but most aren’t affected by it after a few weeks. It hasn’t been very long for your pup (although I know it seems like a million years). Hang in there, it’ll pass. Good luck.
Jerry,
Thank you for your quick reply. My vet forwarded your web page to me. I appreciate all the information. I will work on updating my blog after I figure out how to. Plus I would like to help donate so when things calm down you can count on a donation from me. Thank you for your hard work and amazing information.
Kim
Every dog is different, some never experience phantom pain at all. Others, off and on, but we’ve never heard of it lasting more than a few weeks. Ask in the forums for much more feedback from others and be sure to check out Jerry’s review for Bella’s hot/cold pain pack for dogs.
PS: If you need help getting started with your blog, review the tutorial videos on the help page, or search/ask in the Tech Support forum.
That’s great TC. If you can make a movie of Cali in action, post it to the Tripawds YouTube Group! Or send it to us and we will.
The new harness is working great and Cali is getting the hang of things to the point where we (TC and Cali) are going to enter a Canicross race next weekend. Canicross is human running, canine pulling in harness. Definately the weak link is the human in this case. But we are excited to show off what a tripod can do to all the folks who will be at the race – running and spectating!!
I have phantom sensation quite alot, and sometimes pain too. When I get the “bug” as Sasha calls it, she distracts me by running ahead of me, and then I forget it. When I do get cramps, we use a puppy heat pad, but please don’t tell anyone I use puppy accessories. Massage helps alot too. Dreaming about Jerry helps too…
Please keep us posted on how Calpurnia is doing with eliminating the phantom pain. Very interesting article….. if I go through this after my surgery, my mom shouldn’t freak out. (She loves me soooo much that sometimes I worry about how much she can worry!) From one dog to another ….your mom rocks with the help she’s given my mom and for writing this article!! Keep it Cool, Cali girl!! ~ Eisen
Our friend Tacoma’s Dad, Glenn, recently mentioned this about post-op wound management:
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“No one wrote any books for providing care for our 3 legged friends during their recovery from surgery. If anyone has experience, this is the place to post them.
Here’s a hint for post op management:
Take a old Baseball 3/4 length sleeve shirt and cut off one sleeve. then cut it up the side, all the way to the neck.
Take your tripawd’s remaining leg and put it thru the remaining sleeve, then wrap the rest of the shirt around your buddy’s body. Secure with baby diaper safety pins.
This keeps your friend from messing with his/her stitches or wound.
Tacoma had some pretty bad bedsores and the sleeve kept him from developing a major hotspot on his other front leg.
This worked great on a front leg amputation, don’t know how it would work on a back leg.”