My mastiff Mac had his surgery last Friday (seven days ago) and was fabulous the first three, hobbled around but he wasn't in pain and was sleeping through the night just fine. His appetite was great (although he's never been a picky eater) and he was going to the restroom fine. 3 days post amp he started being really restless at night and pacing back and forth. He acted like he wanted out to go potty but would go about 20 feet out and just laydown outside. I'd bring him back in and it would start again.

I thought maybe he was uncomfortable and upped his tramadol after okaying with the vet. That made everything much worse. He woke up screaming in the middle of the night, it sounded as though someone were cutting off his other leg. He woke up everyone across the house and he screamed for about 15 to 20 seconds before being soothed into relaxing. Then he would wag his tail and pant like nothing happened. He did this every 2 hours all night long. After some googling and a few calls to the vet the next day we decided to stop tramadol completely. He did much better last night and only woke up crying 3 times. These episodes were much shorter (about 5 to 8 seconds) and significantly less loud.

He went a few hours this morning with no pain meds, but he was acting uncomfortable so I called and got Gabapentin. I have heard it can take several hours to start working. It so far has seemed to knock him out after giving it to him 6 hours ago. I just gave him his second dose which he woke up to eat and then whimpered himself back to sleep. We were supposed to go for a potty break since he hasn't been out in around 8 to 10 hours, but he really doesn't seem up to it.

I am starting to think the crying was from the tramadol and from phantom pains. Has anyone else experienced this? How long until the gabapentin helped with phantom pains? I am doing a warm compress several times a day, he still has sutures in so massaging is a bit difficult. Any other ideas? I haven't slept more than 6 hours in the last 4 days and would appreciate anything that will keep him as pain free as possible.

Thank you all!