Today has been a tough day for Nora. She has experienced brief neuropathic pain before, but only for very brief moments (3 seconds at most), and she snapped out of it immediately and went back to doing whatever she was doing before the pain struck. Today she have had several major incident of phantom limb 🙁
The first one happened on our morning walk. One second she is walking along, wagging her tail and sniffing trees – the next she is screaming/high pitch yelping and circling trying to lick her non existing leg. It lasted for over a minute!! The poor girl was so scared, and in pain. I sat down with her after, and gave her one of the pain relieving massages I found links to on this site. She loves those massages, and it calms her down as well. After about 10 minutes she tried to get up and walk again, twice, but each time she yelped and sat back down again. At that point I just wanted to get her home, so I picked her up and carried her for several blocks. She gave me many kisses while I was carrying her. After about one block of carrying her, some guy parked in an SUV rolled down his window and said mockingly to ‘put her back down and let her walk herself’….. I told him to mind his business and that the poor dog was in pain and unable to walk. At that time he saw she was an amputee, and apologized. She decided to walk the last block to our house, and to my great relief she seemed back to normal.
The second attack happened on our afternoon walk. Thankfully we were just down the block, and I carried her right back inside and put her in her bed. I called my vet, who is prescribing Gabapentin for her to use for the next month or so. In the meantime he said I could use the Tremadol I had left over from amputation and spay surgery recovery. We will also look into acupuncture, as we’ve read several articles about it being very helpful in treating neuropathic pain. Anything to avoid Nora having to experience this again….
Hi, we chatted the other night…so sorry to hear Nora is going through this! Another thing you might want to look into is chiropractic adjustments. Nitro has been getting them every 4 weeks since his surgery, and it has made a work of difference. He also had a lot of pain post surgery that at first we attributed to phantom limb pain; maybe it was, but he was also out of alignment big time. Good luck, and hang in there.
Paula and Nitro
Thanks, Paula. It was so nice chatting with you the other day 🙂 We have been reading up on chiropractic options as well, and it’s great to hear it worked for Nitro. We also looked into Osteopathy. Weirdly, Nora recovered surprisingly quick after her amputation. She only needed Tremadol for 3 days after surgery and showed no signs of pain or discomfort. We had to slow HER down to be safe in the weeks following her amputation. We figured after the horrific way she lost the first half of her leg and surviving with only primitive measures to help stop the bleeding, a proper surgery under anesthesia and with pain management follow up was like a walk in the park for her. She showed no signs of phantom limb until a week ago (1 month after her surgery), and no severe episodes until yesterday. It makes sense her body must be totally out of alignment after what she went through, so it might be wise to follow up on several fronts when it comes to treatment.
Paula, how do I find your blog? I’m having a hard time figuring out how to find things on this site
NORA!! Only on pain meds for three days??? OMD!!! That is craaaazy girl! You are a little spitfire, that’s for sure!
Like Paula, I’m actually wondering if this is something other than phantom limb pain. The fact that it’s over a moe after her amp. and the fact that the episode lasted for ten minutes. Ow!!
As quickly as Nora recovered from surgery andnyou had to “hold her back”, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she hasn’t pulled or sprained something. Try and get her to rest up for several days and see if that helps too.
Keep us m ppsted when you can.
Sending lots of healing energy y o ur way…and hugs too!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle too!
Thanks for the well wishes 🙂
We’re quite confident this is phantom limb. The most severe one lasted more than ONE minute (not 10), but even that is abnormally long since her previous incidents have only lasted a matter of seconds. The vet who did the amputation also thinks this is phantom limb, as any sprain or injury to other legs or body parts have been ruled out. A new x-ray was also taken of her remaining front leg, that showed severe inflammation from overuse when she arrived in the US – and that leg is now back to normal with no signs of inflammation. In spite of WANTING to run and play after both amputation and spay, we were successful in making her rest in stead and we are still making sure she’s not overdoing it with exercise. Thank you so much for your advice, hugs and healing energy. We appreciate it so much! Benny (Sally, Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle too), how do we find your blog on tripawds??