Help

Re: Help

Alison Clare Hickman — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:52:19 GMT

Re: Help

Gillian Mostyn — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:14:43 GMT

Rebecca - you're replying to a thread which is 3 years old!

Re: Help

Becci Faulkner — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:34:19 GMT

have you tried antilick strips? theyr only pepper on a sticky strip & makes you sneeze like hell but most animals it works. if its just become habit that may help break it

Re: Help

Becci Faulkner — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:34:19 GMT

have you tried antilick strips? theyr only pepper on a sticky strip & makes you sneeze like hell but most animals it works. if its just become habit that may help break it

Re: Help

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:54:22 GMT

photo update.To view the photos in full right click and select view image.

Jan 6th 2009

Jan 17th 2009

Re: Help

Sal the 1st — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 08:50:52 GMT

like Carolyn says 3 leggers get on really well. I have had 2 cats with 3 legs Baldrick is still around living with a friend and has had a leg missing for the last 9 years at least. A pile of paving slabs dropped on him when he was sleeping under them (ok so he isnt that bright! and hind leg was #in 5 or 6 places) Came in via the local dog warden as he was found in his garden. Nobody claimed him - so...

Norman badcat was another hindlimb amputee - another stray, horrendous degloving injury extending above the hock. tried flamazine -thats how I know about it, tried biosist twice but never really worked, tried honey got a good result and then he re traumatised. After 7 weeks we took the leg off. He did really well for ages - he could still jump up on to the fence and balance on the top or onto the stair rail, never left the garden and we thought he was safe and then decided to play chicken with a lorry. But he had a very happy life minus a leg

Re: Help

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:38:17 GMT

[quote user="Emma Simpson-Boyce"]

Have you tried using a sock instead of a bandage? I use a cotton childs sock on one of my dogs and this stops her licking while letting it breath a bit. It won't work on all animals, but my dog usually pulls off bandages but will tolerate a sock.

Hang in there! Its always hard having to cope with all this at once!

[/quote]

Yes! i got some little baby dog socks in the US when i went home for christmas. they work for a very short period but then the excudate sticks to the sock and un does the lovely scab that formed!! so i'm going to start using them again when the excudate has reduced a bit more. she also flicks it off and i don't want to tape it on but i might try a light vet wrap at the top to see if that keeps it on a little. it only comes half way up the foot and at the moment i can't ancor any bandage on the hock because she has a friction burn there from the poor bandaging over the holiday with my friend.

Re: Help

Emma Simpson-Boyce — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:33:44 GMT

Hang in there! Its always hard having to cope with all this at once!

Re: Help

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:23:23 GMT

Yeah I can see where you're coming from, but the thing is when it's not infected or it's pretty much healed over she doesn't fuss over the foot in the bandage. it's only when it's sore or still healing over. towards the end of the healing of the top of the foot she was wondering round fine with the bandage up to the hock, not including. with no issues. it wasn't until she got the bandage wrapped round something and pulled it taught and gave her self burns and tension wounds that she began being uncomfortable with the bandage rubbing anywhere! i donno, maybe i'm making excuses for her. but i just don't feel it's time to give up and amputate yet. I've told myself I will let this heal and get some healthy skin over it with some signs of hair growth and then i will bathe her all over and let her clean herself and see if she only focuses on the foot. i'm hoping the bath will distract her from focusing only on the foot and she will clean her whole self. she likes a nice soak believe it or not. sits in the bath with me all the time lol strange cat...

Thank you so much for your input Carolyn, you have no idea how much i appreciate it. it's nice to have a little support right now with it all.

Re: Help

Caro Laithwaite VN — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:03:43 GMT

Sometimes we see things the wrong way round. You sort of see it from her point but then the human angle pops in and holds things back. There is when do we decide we have done so much maybe we just need to say stop. Vets can be buggars for bad advice to as basically they want to try/play/experiment more.
Animals think like animals and she is not looking to however long it will take but the now. After all her future has not arrived yet but this moment has.

There is the other problem to consider. She may not stop licking and bothering often it becomes an inbuilt behavioural problem and continues through life, possibly due to damaged nerves causing tingling to the leg at a low grade so it may look healed but under is still a problem, and keep breaking down. As you say she is already going all when she can get to it and would be happy to chew her leg off. So she has a big possible problem there.

Guy we knew owned peterborough parachute center. His dog went ,missing and came bag severly damaged hind leg, they think snare. Tried loads but it kept having breakdowns etc so vet said chop it off. The dog came round and never looked back ... except to see if he could be caught by whoever was screaming abuse as he pissed on their kit or something Dog was renamed Friday as he was refound on a friday.
They also had a 3 legged stray cat move in there as well seemed to know 3 leggers were welcome very weird that had lost a front leg was more difficult to get about but he did

Re: Help

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:51:52 GMT

[quote user="Caro Laithwaite"]

Well l realise it may seem extreme but l would just take the leg off. An animal reacts very well to amputation unlike humans. Within a short time they are back to normal (pretty much hours post recovery) Was l in the same situation l would do that. There is only so much you can fairly put them through. She is on drugs for stress and drugs for pain ok she may need metacam after as l do not know if it is for past injury or present but l have an idea present. Then you try x then y then do z then more drugs on and on.

Let alone yourself. So yes you can keep going, and going ad infinitum but there comes a point where you need to decide where do you say stop.

[/quote]

Exactly Caroline. This is my conclusion as well if once this heals and she still licks it raw. It does sound extreme to some but I completely agree she would be better off. I just hate the thought of it you know? as there's nothing wrong with the leg other than the weak skin and lack of fur. If I can get the skin back to normal and get the fur growing back she will leave it i'm sure. but imagine how you would feel if your foot or arm was wrapped up and damp and itchy and healing and bare. god it would make you want to clean it and scratch it too!! i completely see where she's coming from. but cats have no threshold of mutilation of themselves. they just lick and lick all the way to the bone!!! it makes me feel ill just thinking about it. :(

Re: Help

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:47:15 GMT

[quote user="Paula Quinn"]

apologies if I am just being stupid! but what is isopropanol?

[/quote]

undiluted surgical spirit basically. 'rubbing alcohol'

Re: Help

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:46:28 GMT

[quote user="sal the 1st"]

watch out with the flamazine - is ok for a while but silver not good for cats long term

[/quote]

only used it two days and it was out of licking reach! good to know though! thanks!

Re: Help

Caro Laithwaite VN — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:38:08 GMT

Let alone yourself. So yes you can keep going, and going ad infinitum but there comes a point where you need to decide where do you say stop.

Re: Help

Saskia Quinn — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:35:41 GMT

apologies if I am just being stupid! but what is isopropanol?

Re: Help

Sal the 1st — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:33:13 GMT

watch out with the flamazine - is ok for a while but silver not good for cats long term

Re: Help

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:26:01 GMT

i've used the normal germoline on her previously but sparingly as it does have a very small amount of phenol in it. whichdoes help keep it clean. i've managed to sort the friction burns with Flamazine(sp?) they look heaps better now. she managed to lick above the bandage raw when i didn't have her head collar on one night and i've been putting Germoline on that. I've tried to keep things off the wound and just been cleaning it with warm water or giving it a splash of isopropanol if she's had a lick at it when I wasn't looking or if it's been wrapped up for a couple of days. it's healing lovely. just slow and it's those seconds that she has a chance to get to it that just destroy everything i've done for the past few days. it's killing my esteem. :( i'll take the camera to work tomorrow when she goes for her check up and update you with a photo of the granulation!

Re: Help

nicky shoult — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:32:47 GMT

Might be worth trying germoline new skin (in a pink box i think)- should be able to buy from most chemists. I used to work with a old vet who used to swear by it!

Or could you do a skin graft or use biosist??

Re: Help

dinkyd — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:28:56 GMT

Poor you Steph - not having any luck at all!Only help i can give is we have used manuka honey on some nasty wounds (one was a rottweiler that had basically lost a load of skin around the carpus and the was nothing to stitch at all so had to heal by granulation- was bit of a strange case!)The honey worked fantastically - very messy ,but this was a big dog and a big wound - we def thought it healed quicker with the help of the honey.Good luck and hope your girl behaves!

Re: Help

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:42:10 GMT

it's a possiblitity for once it heals at the moment it's an open sore and she just wants to clean it. This was the wound when i got back from the states.

it's now granulated over the exposed tendon and bone and has a small stitch at the side. it's healing but slowly of course as it's under a bandage i've got an allevyn wound pad cut to size over the wound. I would love to try one of the honey wound covers, but i don't have the help at work to do a case study in return for the materials. my boss isn't really into that sort of thing and would find it time consuming. i'm not really sure which one i would select either. :(

Re: Help

Fiona Leathers — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:25:16 GMT

Have you thought about using something like amitriptyline? we had a cat which continually over-groomed until he was sore and raw and we used this & it stopped. Can't remember why but its something about small doses of anti-depressants can help cats with pain. I'm sure I've got notes from Daniella Gunn-Moore on the subject - I'll look it up and get back to you.