Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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My Hobo had his right front leg amputated on Monday he has been home for 3nights and each night wakes up crying/ almost screaming, tries to get up and has a hard time, I rub his back and tell him it's okay and he falls right back a sleep. He did it three times the first night and only once the last two. I tried waiting to give him his last dose of pain meds to see if that helps him but it still happens and we notice its around 4-5 am every time. I think they are phantom pains? He doesn't really seem in pain after ( he falls right back asleep) and is fine when it's time to get up. Has anyone else had this experience? Any ideas on what I can do to help him?
Hi Hobbo and family!
Yes, my Happy Hannah had a lot of pain the first several days AND nights. Phantom or not, I don't know, I just kow it was real to her. She's a little over two weeks out of surgery and is just now feeling good on a fairly consistent basis. Definitely keep Hobbo on a steady dose of pain meds for awhile. "They" say it's harder to treat the pain after it starts and you always want to stay ahead of it. It's very hard and very scarey to see them in such pain but it will get better. This is major surgery and a msjor adjustment. Three days out of surgery is when all the hospital drugs are pretty much out of Hobo's system so he's rocking and reeling from that too! You are doing a really good job just being there by Hobo's side and surrounding him with love. Glad Hobo is walking well. Please seaech this site for more info, onphantom pain and solutiins as well as expected challenges first couple of weeks after surgery. Every recovery is different and on an individual time frame and some are rougher --some smoother.. My Hannah is 123 lbs. 8 1/2 yrs and her first week plus was rough and I slept with her on floor as nights did seem worse. Computer getting ready to crash again-----you are doing great and it will get better.......Sending you and Hobo lots of healing love Sally and Happy Hannah
1/
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Welcome, and thanks for joining. Sudden outbursts are indeed a symptom of phantom limb pain. What pain medication is Hobo currently taking?
Search the forums and the blogs for more information and don't miss these posts...
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
What kind pain med is he on? Whining & crying is a common side effect of certain opioid drugs and not necessarily a sign of pain. When it happens they can usually be comforted by petting or cuddling.
Both of my dogs do this with opiods, as do my cousin's Dobes.
I don't have experience with phantom pain but the drug reaction is just something to keep in mind.
That said, if he's "screaming" certainly sounds like a pain reaction.
Hi,
You can research Farabloc for phantom pain . It is a Canadian Medical approved material that is used in prosthetic devices for phantom pain in Humans. The company is doing some exploration for phantom pain syndrome in canine amputations. Some people have had significant success with this product, but you should research it for yourself to see if it might be of help for your dog. It is basically an electronic shielding material that blocks nerve signals at the amputation sight.
Abbydog
abbydog said
You can research Farabloc for phantom pain . It is a Canadian Medical approved material that is used in prosthetic devices for phantom pain in Humans. The company is doing some exploration for phantom pain syndrome in canine amputations.
Abby this is interesting, thanks for bringing it to our attention, we've never heard of it. The Farabloc website appears to offer a legitimate product that puts our natural skepticism to rest. Have you tried it before? And do you know of anyone at the company directly that we can contact? If you have any connections there we would love to talk to them about their research on animal amputees. So far the product doesn't look like it would physically stay on a dog or cat but I would love to see if they're coming up with something that will. Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Hi Jerry,
I first discovered Farabloc as a baseball coach. Our pitchers often suffered from sore elbows and shoulders. Use of Farabloc after pitching a game significantly reduced injuries and recovery time. When our dog, Abby, was scheduled for amputation I contacted them to see if they could do something for her post amputation recovery. They were very helpful and interested developing something for dogs. I think they have done some work with race horses. They provided us with a farabloc wrap for Abby to wear over her tumor area on her front leg. It is a simple cloth wrapping strap that stays in place with a velcro tab.
Farabloc was initially developed and used with success for human amputations. They have also explored other uses for the product related to repetitive use and sports injuries, but I think the only formal Government Medical Services approval for medical use is for phantom pain . They are not a "scam" company, but they are involved with experimental research work with their product that may or may not prove to be useful for our canine friends.
Abby's fibrosarcoma tumor was initially treated with surgery that could not remove all of the tumor as it was involved with ligaments and other structures in the leg. The Vet Surgeon at our Animal Specialty hospital and the Oncologist said that she had an aggressive tumor that came up quickly and was rapidly growing. They estimated that it would be only a matter of a few months before the tumor returned to the size that it would require amputation due to pain and/or necrosis. At this time Abby started wearing her farabloc wrap which was custom made and fitted to her leg and supplied free of charge by Farabloc .
It is now almost 3 years later. The tumor has grown back very slowly, but it is still small and she is running and playing on the leg with no apparent pain or discomfort. I have no idea if Farabloc has contributed to the slow return of her tumor. We are also using metronomic therapy which was started about 18 months ago. It may be that Abby's tumor would have progressed slowly in any case. Her oncologist is very surprised at how well she has done and said Abby's slow progress is unusual. But she just attributes Abby's good progress to Abby being a lucky dog and Cancer is never 100% predictable.
Rather than hijack this thread, if I knew how to get in touch with you via email directly I can put you in touch with the Farabloc representative who has worked with our dog Abby in custom making a wrap for her. I am sure he can provide you with better information that I can. I know that they were interested in customizing their product for animal use.
Do you have my email on my membership profile?
Abbydog (Gary)
Hey Gary, this is GREAT info, thanks. I'll contact you but FYI if you look at the buttons just above and to the right of any members post, you'll see a "PM" button. That means "Private Message" and you can contact them via our PM system. I'll contact you that way, stay tuned.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Thank you everyone!! Hobo is on rimadyl, gabapentin and tramodol. He is doing great! We are now 10 days post surgery and just meet with the internist to talk about chemo treatments. He wants to run around and play so bad already it's been hard to keep him quite. I have never heard of Farabloc ! I am excited to learn about it, I actually have a cousin who lost foot in a motorcycle accident about 7 years ago who was just telling him he still deals with these pains. I will let him know about it too! thanks!
Hello, I hopped over to this forum because I am observing my sweet Zoy to have almost the exact same issues as Hobo did. So amazing to hear someone else put what I've been seeing early in the morning and the middle of the night into words.
We are 12 days post op and to start she was doing a lot of whining and crying, but with help from people here I quickly attributed that to the opiate nature of the pain meds. Well two days after her Fentanyl patch was taken off we had to really work to balance her Tramodol so she wasn't having obvious signs of discomfort, panting and short quick breathing........NOW about 2 days after mangaing that is when I've really noticed these big crys and yelps of pain. They are definietly most predominant in the early morning when she appears to just be waking and is starting to get up. She just yelps so loud and crys out. As I soothe her she usually goes back to sleep for a bit longer then it is back when she wakes again.
Also I have to report I have seen little yelps here and there too when awake mostly when her harness rubs the wrong way, or when she sits down on her incsion. I took this as normal as I would suspect it to be tender, but occassionally she will do it too just if spooked by a loud noise or just when sitting around enjoying a frozen pumpkin/yogurt treat.
My guts tells me this has to be phatom pain!!! I'm an occupaitonal therapist and was so concerned about this right before the surguery I asked about it a lot but both the surgeon and the oncologist told me that they see it here and there but not a lot. I wanted Zoy to go on gabpentin (sp?) before surgery just to combat it, but was told they prescribe it after and only if the dog is showing signs. I think the time is now to ask for it!!! The tramodal helps but I really am wanting to ask your opinion on the use of gabapentin and whether or not you saw a difference in helping the yelping out and crying out?
I am very interested in the Farabloc suggestion and will research that but seeing as how it is proving tough to get just the gabapentin I am worried about access to that modality. I'm going over now to watch the videos Jerry suggested, one I'm pretty sure I've already seen, and was the whole reason I even asked about gabapentin in the first place.
Does anyone else have any comments about when they started to see this behavior disappear, I know in humans it sometimes subsides as the nerves heal and sometimes gets worse with time. Any thoughts or updates about how your beloved did progress would be much appreciated.
Juliana and Zoy
We haven't had any problems with phantom pain - Kermit has been on gabapentin since 3 weeks BEFORE his amp (for what we thought was an unrelated issue) and we're now almost 5 weeks past his surgery. We're down to one 100mg pill 3x a day but it's incomprehensible to me why vets wouldn't just prescribe it from the start. Pain is a LOT easier to control if you catch it before it gets bad. Ask for the gaba.
We had gabapentin for Zeus after his surgery and never had any problems with yelping and/or phantom pain . Maybe we were just lucky, but I tend to think it was probably the gabapentin doing its job. Good luck with the rest of recovery!
Lisa
Zeus was a Husky mix diagnosed with Osteosarcoma at age 11. A visible lung met and suspicious spot on his liver meant a poor prognosis-six weeks was our vet's best guess. We decided to fight for our boy and his right front leg was amputated on 12/1/11. We did six rounds of chemo, changed his diet and spoiled him completely rotten. We were blessed with 10 great months after diagnosis. Against the odds, the lung met remained a single met and grew very little over those months. A wonderful furbaby with the most gentle spirit, he fought with a strength that we never imagined he possessed. We have no regrets...
http://zeuspod......pawds.com/
zoyjewel said
Hello, I hopped over to this forum because I am observing my sweet Zoy to have almost the exact same issues as Hobo did. So amazing to hear someone else put what I've been seeing early in the morning and the middle of the night into words.We are 12 days post op and to start she was doing a lot of whining and crying, but with help from people here I quickly attributed that to the opiate nature of the pain meds. Well two days after her Fentanyl patch was taken off we had to really work to balance her Tramodol so she wasn't having obvious signs of discomfort, panting and short quick breathing........NOW about 2 days after mangaing that is when I've really noticed these big crys and yelps of pain. They are definietly most predominant in the early morning when she appears to just be waking and is starting to get up. She just yelps so loud and crys out. As I soothe her she usually goes back to sleep for a bit longer then it is back when she wakes again.
Also I have to report I have seen little yelps here and there too when awake mostly when her harness rubs the wrong way, or when she sits down on her incsion. I took this as normal as I would suspect it to be tender, but occassionally she will do it too just if spooked by a loud noise or just when sitting around enjoying a frozen pumpkin/yogurt treat.
My guts tells me this has to be phatom pain!!! I'm an occupaitonal therapist and was so concerned about this right before the surguery I asked about it a lot but both the surgeon and the oncologist told me that they see it here and there but not a lot. I wanted Zoy to go on gabpentin (sp?) before surgery just to combat it, but was told they prescribe it after and only if the dog is showing signs. I think the time is now to ask for it!!! The tramodal helps but I really am wanting to ask your opinion on the use of gabapentin and whether or not you saw a difference in helping the yelping out and crying out?
I am very interested in the Farabloc suggestion and will research that but seeing as how it is proving tough to get just the gabapentin I am worried about access to that modality. I'm going over now to watch the videos Jerry suggested, one I'm pretty sure I've already seen, and was the whole reason I even asked about gabapentin in the first place.
Does anyone else have any comments about when they started to see this behavior disappear, I know in humans it sometimes subsides as the nerves heal and sometimes gets worse with time. Any thoughts or updates about how your beloved did progress would be much appreciated.
Juliana and Zoy
Hello!
I am happy to share how our road has been so far! Hobo was sent home with rimadyl and tramadol and they seemed to be okay for the first few days and then the night time out burst started. The vet that did he's surgery is actually a 2 hour drive from my house. So after I expressed my concern it was phantom pain he scripted out the gabapentin to be given 2 tablets, 3 times a day to try since it is a relatively safe drug. On this med he woke up only one time the first night and we have not had another issue. He finished the rimadyl first and then two days later the tramadol, I gave him his last dose of gabapentin two days after that just to see how he would do and he his fine this was around day 14 I believe.
I also noticed small cries when our other dog would bump into his incision or he would bump into something even on pain meds, he never cried or winced when I touched it though. I got my answer to this yesterday morning when he had a very small pocket of fluid pop open at the very bottom end of his incision I had noticed it was a little thicker there but thought it was mostly skin. Since this has happened the last two days he seems to be doing better! laying on that side and everything. On monday we will be at our one month mark and have completed our first round of chemo ( which had a whole new set of fun things that don't "normally" happen).
He does seem to adjust more at night still than before but he doesn't seem in pain at all, hopefully your kiddo will be here very soon too!
Good Luck to you guys!
Tiffany
Great news! Today is 1 month! Hoppy 1 month! YEY!
Fortunately, Jackson didn't have phantom limb issues, so we never used gaba. We were told, though, that if he did develop that condition, that's the med used. It seems to have helped many other pups out there. Best of luck to Zoy! Perhaps consider starting your own post so we can follow just Zoy?
~ Katy
ACL tear in right hind leg 12/5/12 and scheduled ACL repair surgery 12/21/12. Pre-op xrays revealed osteosarcoma. Amputation 12/28/12. Chemo (carboplatin) started Jan 10, 2013 and ended on April 5, for a total of 5 doses. He handled carbo like a champ! No side effects. We started metronomic therapy at his third chemo and have been also doing some holistic treatments. He's a lively, playful 10 year old huskie-boarder collie and a very proud member of the Winter Warriors! Our love. Our funny little guy!
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