Lizhound1

Liz is on the mend... once we got in to see a local vet who has a lot of greyhound surgical experience! She did a fluid sample on the swelling to rule out large scale infection, gave me a bunch of home things to do for the sub-q emphysema like gentle massage and hot packing, and decided to take that conservative approach for a few days before cutting more drains for anything. Sure glad we did! Swelling and sub-q went down by about 90% over the weekend. Liz is now feeling so much better that the challenge is to keep her from zoomies! Thanks all for your encouragement

My 12 yo Liz got bit by a dog on the inside of her back leg on Monday. Took her to the vet, got cleaned and got some stitches and they put in a drain, got antibiotics — she was conked out and wobbly from the sedation but otherwise seemed good. Fast forward to this morning and she has swelling and crinkly sub-q emphysema from the top of her back leg all the way to her ankle. Her gait is very impacted, can’t seem to get comfy, and she’s clearly in pain. Vet changed the antibiotics, thinking this is more than just air introduced from the injury — infection producing gas bubbles. Got Liz on pain meds too. But the vet is also talking about cutting and manually trying to remove air/add other drains if Liz is still in a lot of discomfort tomorrow. Has anyone had vets do more invasive attempts to respond to sub-q emphysema? My understanding is usually you just wait for the air to absorb. But also, seems like most dogs aren’t in serious pain from it either. Anyone had a grey with bacterial induced sub-q?