Inca Has Cruciate Ligament Repair Op On Wednesday :-(

[Andrea s]

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Our lovely Inca ( nearly 5 year old female Lab ) became lame last Sunday, suspecting a cruciate injury we kept her quiet till the vets opened Monday morning.

Sedation to examine her led to a confirmed diagnosis of cruciate ligament rupture . She is due to have surgery on Wednesday, has anyone had any experience of this, i understand recovery can be hard on the dog due to the amount of forced rest, Inca is a little bundle of energy so crate confinement will be very hard on her,

 

[banana]

I have never heard about it but she is a gorgeous dog!

 

[Andrea s]

Awww thanks hun. she is adorable :flowers: our most unassuming dog, rescue too ! we've had her now for 3 years , she had a very sorry life before we took her in to foster her, she is such a poppit we couldnt let her go. Its such a shame this has happened to her, Cruciate ligaments hold the knee joint together , without them the femur rubs up and down on the tibia , footballers often do this and they are out of playing for a whole season .

 

[banana]

I hope the op goes okay xx

 

[eingana]

I know quite a few people whose dogs have had either a ligament repair or a joint repair for a subluxating patella, and yes, keeping them calm can be a real issue.

Sad as it is to say this, part of the issue is pain control. If you get the animal truly out of pain then they are very likely to be so full of beans that they want to be up and about well before they should be, so in a lot of ways you have to be careful to reduce their pain to manageable levels but to let them feel some of it so that they do still feel a bit of the pain and feel a bit down in the dumps. It's hard to see them in pain, but it's better that they do get the pain when they try to move and so do a little self-management on their movement rather than feeling great and doing themselves further injury by boinging way too early.

Unfortunately I did know a couple of dogs that didn't heal very well from the operation and never really recovered the mobility that they had before, but one of those was a Newfoundland who must have had some sort of condition that led to the injury because her other cruciate went only 3 months after the first, so she was left not able to bear her weight on either back leg and as a result ended up being put to sleep.

Inca is young enough to heal quickly and also from your photos looks like she's a bit of a skinny minny, which in this instance is a really good thing, because it reduces the stress on both her good leg bearing the weight whilst healing and on the injured leg once it's taking the strain again.

Can I suggest that you find some local services like a hydrotherapy pool that you can take Inca to whilst she's healing? Hydrotherapy is great for rehab for injured joints and also is surprisingly hard work which will, after the vet has cleared her for doing it, tire her out nicely for the couple of days a week she's doing it

 

[Andrea s]

Inca is a skinny minni lol, she only weighs 21 kilos and is quite short legged too for a lab, she was our first foster dog 3 years ago, i took her on for Many Tears Rescue in Wales due to her being returned after the original adopters could not get to the bottom of her tummy troubles, they ran up a huge vets bill and just coildnt cope, we took her due to the fact we feed BARF and i was convinced after chatting to the rescue that her trouble was diet ralated, 2 days after she arrived she pooped normally, the runs had gone and she looked happier, she was skin and bone and only weighed 17 kilos, turns out she had IBD ( irritable bowel disease ) she cannot deal with any carbs from a grain source so feeding BARF suits her, she gets the odd flare up of colitis but we treat it by adding Kaolin and probiotics to her food which settles her gut down again quite quickly.

I have a real issue with over weigh Labs, out of our 4 labs the heaviest is our boy at 2 years old he weighs 26 kilos and looks perfect, you can feel his ribs but not see them and he has a waist !! something im sure some Lab owners forget.

Inca is quite a stoic little lady and even if she is in pain im sure she will attempt to do something she shouldn't, ive spent the afternoon making her a sling which we can use to help support some of her body weight with, ive effectively turned her into a handbag lol,

We have an amazing chap who has a hydro place near us called woof and water he helped Daisy my other lab last year after she started having problems with her leg joints.

Thanks for the input .x

 

[Northolm]

Ive had 2 ACL reconstructions myself so I sympathise try and get her to a water treadmill so the exercise she does isn't load bearing but also builds the muscle around the joint. Good luck x

 

[banana]

Good luck for tomorrow xx

 

[Andrea s]

Thanks hun, will post her progress tomorrow eve.x

 

[Strix]

I was just thinking how houndish she looks for a lab, and then I read this bit

Inca is quite a stoic little lady and even if she is in pain im sure she will attempt to do something she shouldn't,

With Brude and his spinal injury when he was 3, we had to find lots of things to replace walks. The first thing was keeping his calorie intake down - VERY difficult with a beagle! But the more difficult problem was combatting the boredom and frustration of crate rest. Much of it we replaced with a house line, and we found a number of good dog pubs nearby, where he could socialise and meet other people (and drink beer ), and some good park benches near to the carpark with a good view and plenty of people passing by. The fresh air and interesting smells at least blew some cobwebs away for him

Plenty of things to chew helped too. If you don't already have a kong, now is the time to get one (or two). I fill Brude's with soaked kibble and stick it in the freezer. Maybe you could fill yours with a mixture of overboiled rice and whatever meat he usually gets and freeze that

 

[Markamys]

Hi good luck with her. We have a staff/whippet cross, who did both his cruciate ligaments at the same time bless him. It was touch and go whether they could operate. Luckily we had insurance and a brilliantly vet who repaired one leg at a time. He is fine now, obviously resting him was very hard but crucial. We gave him hydrotheraphy for about 3 months and the muscle wastage improved greatly and he regained some of his fitness. He will never be quite the same, but is still enjoying life chasing and playing with his racing whippet kennel mates.

 

[Andrea s]

I was just thinking how houndish she looks for a lab, and then I read this bit

Inca is quite a stoic little lady and even if she is in pain im sure she will attempt to do something she shouldn't,

With Brude and his spinal injury when he was 3, we had to find lots of things to replace walks. The first thing was keeping his calorie intake down - VERY difficult with a beagle! But the more difficult problem was combatting the boredom and frustration of crate rest. Much of it we replaced with a house line, and we found a number of good dog pubs nearby, where he could socialise and meet other people (and drink beer ), and some good park benches near to the carpark with a good view and plenty of people passing by. The fresh air and interesting smells at least blew some cobwebs away for him

Plenty of things to chew helped too. If you don't already have a kong, now is the time to get one (or two). I fill Brude's with soaked kibble and stick it in the freezer. Maybe you could fill yours with a mixture of overboiled rice and whatever meat he usually gets and freeze that

Inca is rescue and for all we know she may have a touch of hound in her, Ive always said she has a Beagle type look about her, she isnt much taller than a male Beagle.

Her op has gone well , vet said she had gone and done a right good job of messing it all up inside, she had ligaments blowing in the wind ( her terminology lol ) , were back on Friday to assess the wound and take it from there really.

She is currently of her head on Tramadol, im hoping it wears off a bit soon so i can get her to toilet. Fingers crossed for a smooth recovery . :thumbsup:

 

[banana]

Everything Crossed - brave girl xx

 

[Northolm]

Hope it goes well tomorrow! xx

 

[Strix]

How's Inca doing today?

How long is she expected to be on the tramadol for?

 

[Andrea s]

Inca is back at the vets tomorrow to have her dressing removed, if the wound looks ok then they will put a lighter one on at the moment the dressing she has is from her hip to her toes and is to immobilise her leg, she has been golden.

I had to sleep with her last night downstairs she was so out of it i was worried she would get herself in a tiz if she tried to move about, she didnt want to move anywhere yesterday evening i dont think she trusted herself to walk so i put old towels under her to catch her wee wee, at 4.10 am she decided she wanted to out to toilet so wrapped up in my dressing gown we tottered out for her to do a poo.

she was much brighter this morning , ate her breakfast had her pills wagged at the other 3 and has been a good girl today while i was at work, my other half works from home so she has been well looked after !!

Strix she will only need the tramadol until she can cope with the pain, she has to feel something or she may do too much so I'm guessing the vet will say to stop them as of Saturday, she will still be on anti inflamatories and anti biotics though. :thumbsup:

 

[banana]

Ahhh what a good girl!

Fingers crossed for today!

 

[Strix]

it sounds like she's doing well so far. I hope she has a speedy recovery

 

[Andrea s]

Inca's dressing came off today, wound looks clean and is about 6 inches long with 11 stitches. her hair cut is appalling lol, she goes back on Tuesday for another check up, she is to remain on all her meds till further notice, she is allowed 5 mins at a time to potter around then back in her crate. Still being a very good patient :*

 

[banana]

Great news!