Our 6 year old female domestic short hair cat Harley is currently experiencing what appears to be post surgery pain. Harley had a rear right leg amputation from a cancerous tumor and is flipping out (growing, howling, flipping, backing up, rolling over) with episodes of pain that appear out of nowhere for no reason, out of a dead sleep or not and while she’s on her medication (Gabepentin, Onsior & Buprenex). We recently took her off Buprenex. They are very intense, happen in series of three or more and we feel helpless. It’s been 7 days today and the episodes continue. She is doing great otherwise, walking, eating, drinking and using the litter box.
Is there anything you learned that would help us or do you think each situation is different? We don’t really have any good advice from our Vet who is a expert surgeon in this field. Medication and time is the only thing we know at the moment. It’s tough because she cannot be left alone in fear she will hurt herself, even though we have her in a large dog cage with plenty of room (wall padding and all). We let her out of her cage for a short period of time several times a day to stretch, eat, drink and use the litter but these episodes that are seizure-like continue. Will these episodes continue or go away? Is this common with this type of surgery for cats? How long will they continue? Is this nerve pain, muscle spasm, phantom leg pain or medication side affects? Should we not let her out of he cage during the day fearing she is over doing it?
Your responses are greatlyy appreciated.
Thank you . . . desperate Tripawd Mommy and Daddy.
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Thank you for the information. Newbie working my way through how things work!
I’m so glad you started a blog so that we can follow your journey better. Don’t forget to start a new topic in the Discussion Forums too OK? Did you happen to see the replies to your Forum Post?
Hello. My 12 yr old dachshund had right front leg amputation due to soft tissue sarcoma 4 days ago. I am a nervous wreck and could use some support please.
Cece will have her fentanyl patch removed tomorrow. I’m afraid the gabapentin and galliprant won’t be enough. She hurts when I try to lift her out of the playpen I’m keeping her in during the first days of recovery.
She can hop on 3 legs in the soft grass, but I won’t put her on our slippery floors just yet.
It is such an emotional adjustment for us both.
Marion,
We are only 11 days post surgery. Our Cat Harley came home with gabapentin (21 doses)for nerve pain, Buprenex for severe pain (6 doses) and onsior (4 doses) for pain and inflammation. There are different types of pain medications for dogs versus cats. You are correct that it is very stressful. Keep up with the pain meds as prescribed and call your vet immediately if you feel Cece is still experiencing pain. We ran out of pain meds and called the vet because our cat was still experiencing nerve pain. They did prescribe more so don’t be afraid to call and ask. Your dog should not be suffering during this time in the first couple weeks. Also watch out for fevers. Our cat did have a high fever but it ended up going away. You can feel the ears if they are hot to the touch it could mean fever. If it’s warm then that’s normal. we have a digital thermometer that we used but we understand rectal is most accurate but we were not comfortable doing that. Hopefully your dog is eating and drinking as normal and if not again call your vet. Our cat stopped drinking water so I added water to her wet food to prevent dehydration. Also it’s good to keep a journal logging in daily medications, potty visits, calls to the vet and behavior which has helped us tremendously. We’re so stressed out we tend to forget what’s happening daily. What was very helpful is any kind of strange behavior or any concerns we had the Internet searches we did helped us educate ourselves on what may be happening. We are not letting our cat overdo it. She is confined to a large dog cage that we made very comfy for her. We let her out several times a day for light exercise and take her cone off to give her some kind of normalcy. What’s difficult is making sure she doesn’t jump up on anything because her stitches have not been removed. We do have to follow her around. Cats are very sneaky and can jump in a second. I’ve come to the realization that this takes a lot of time and patience. Each day is getting better. i’ve learned that once the sutures are removed things should improve greatly. we shall see. Sutures come out this Wednesday!
Hope this gives you some comfort and help. Good luck!