Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
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Hi, so my kitty Fiona recently got home form her surgry and overall she is doing great eating, grooming and going to the bathroom regularly but every once in a while her remaining back leg spasms up and she kinda flops around with a lot of hissing and growling
I cant find anything online about this and Im wondering if its just part of the healing process, and her leg getting used to carring the extra weight or if its something else i should be concerned about
Hi Frans and Fiona, welcome to the club nobody wants to join. Your future posts won't need approval so post away.
Just curious but what was the reason for Fiona's amputation and how old/young is she?
What you are describing tends to happen quite a bit with cats, and not even vets really know why. The good news is that it tends to resolve itself, usually with good pain control like Gabapentin, which is a nerve pain reducer.
We see this happen here quite often. Here is a blog post we wrote about cats walking backwards and giving pain signals like this:
How to Help Amputee Cats Walking Backwards
A few more questions that can help us help you better. When was her surgery? And what are the pain medications she came home with? Dosages and timing too.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Hi Jerry Fiona was bitten by a Dog on her back right limb, crushing the bones of her paw, tibia and fibia. After the injury she made it home but really huring the leg even more on her way (she had to jumb a 8ft wall to get back) The vet gave us 2 options multiple surguries to try and fix the damage with the possibly of more pain and complications or amputation and no pain. She had the surgury on the 9th of December and came home Friday the 10th. We where sent home with Meloxicam oral suspention for pain that we need to give her 1.5g every 24h and some genral antibiotics she, takes twice a day. Also Fiona is about 2 years old.
Hi Frans. I'm so sorry about Fiona's attack, that's awful. It's amazing how strong she is, to be able to come home and climb that fence says so much about her tenacity. That's a really good sign that she is going to be just fine when recovery is over.
So, her surgery is pretty recent. It does sound like she has some uncontrolled pain happening. Did she come home with any other medications besides the Meloxicam? Check her vet bill, maybe they sent her home after giving her an injectable painkiller? I'm really hoping they did, because if not, she really does need more pain control. Amputation is major surgery and modern pain control protocols call for more than one medication.
Now, I'm not a vet, so take that for what it's worth, but at a bare minimum she should have come home with two meds, an anti-inflammatory like Meloxicam AND a second one like Simbadol, which is a highly concentrated injectable version of buprenorphine, a good pain med for cats.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
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