Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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I'm one week post-amp and I have an unusual bruise - at least I guess it's a bruise - in a band running along one side of my body. It starts sorta near my incision but not actually on it, and it stretches in contiguous blotches along my abdomen and belly and down the inside of my hind leg on the other side of where my catheter was. It's really dark purple or almost black against my normally light pink skin. But I'm not swollen along it, or at least not that my mom can tell.
I've fallen flat a couple of times but I don't know why a bruise from that would make this distinctive pattern on one side of my tummy.
My mom called after hours last night and from the info she got didn't think it was worth an emergency visit, especially since I seem pretty perky and am eating fine and seem pretty fine otherwise.
Has anybody else had something like this? What do you think it is? Should my mom be worried - or I guess I should say, should my mom take me to the emergency rooom today?
My dog has similar bruising going in all the same areas you are describing, even down his rear leg and where the catheter was. His bruising is red. It is much better now though. He has not had any falls, just a couple of stumbles so I think this bruising is normal surgery bruising. The surgeon warned me that there would be a lot of bruising even far from the incision site.
He was at the surgeon's yesterday getting his stitches out and the surgeon said he looked great and he was not concerened about the amount of bruising there. I would say that your mom should just keep an eye on it and if it is not getting any better or you start to feel bad then it might be time for a trip to the vet.
Thank you Leodoo! I'm glad to hear it's not something to worry about.
I just love this forum, you all are so helpful!
Sandy - Smokey went through the same thing! 2 weeks after his surgery I took him to my parent's vet (we were recovering with them). They were only happy with the top part of his incision... the lower part wasn't healing as well and there was some bruising. They put us back on cephaloxin (I never know if I have the spelling right but it's an antibiotic). A few days after, the bruising slowly started going away...
The surgeon's techs didn't feel confident as to why the bruising was occuring (which honestly, kind of bothered me). But when I spoke with our every day vet, she calmed our nerves. It was only normal for bruising to occur, given the nature of the surgery and where it was located. Smokey likes to take his time when finding that "right spot" and even though we tried to keep him from laying on that surgery side, he would always find a way to outsmart us and plop down on that side... because of the loose skin and the fact that major surgery occurred, our vet reassured us that bruising was normal. And I 100% trust her.
I hope that helps 🙂 Smokey's bruise was not on the actual incision, but it did surround it...
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