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Oct 30 2007

Phantom Limb Pain in Tripawd Dogs

Posted by jerry in Recovery, Tripawd Pals

Calpurnia Working Sled Dog with Harness After Leg AmputationA 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

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Recovery, Tripawd Pals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

14 Responses to “Phantom Limb Pain in Tripawd Dogs”
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  1. anna says:
    March 16, 2010 at 4:01 pm

    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…

    Reply
    • jerry says:
      March 16, 2010 at 4:19 pm

      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.

      Reply
  2. Susan McMonagle says:
    February 19, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    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.

    Reply
  3. jerry says:
    November 4, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    Calpurnia has celebrated her two year ampuversary! Check out her latest guest blog post from 11/04/09, “Three Paws, Two Years, No Problem!”

    Reply
  4. jerry says:
    January 5, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    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!

    Reply
  5. Vanessa says:
    January 5, 2009 at 6:52 am

    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.

    Reply
  6. jerry says:
    November 22, 2007 at 5:26 pm

    Julie, have you talked to the vet about it?

    Reply
  7. julie says:
    November 21, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    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

    Reply
  8. jerry says:
    November 1, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    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.

    Reply
  9. Cali says:
    November 1, 2007 at 1:01 pm

    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!!

    Reply
  10. Lalla says:
    October 31, 2007 at 7:12 am

    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…

    Reply
  11. Eisen says:
    October 30, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    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

    Reply
  12. jerry says:
    October 30, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    Our friend Tacoma’s Dad, Glenn, recently mentioned this about post-op wound management:

    ———————
    “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.”

    Reply
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