Yet Another Corn Thread

[DaisyDoodle]

Daisy has limped for the last couple of years from time to time due to a compressed disk in her neck--due to her running into the slider. So, it never occurred to me that she might have a corn. [Over the last couple of years we've x-rayed her from her right front paw to her left, thinking the original problem was her foot, when it was her neck (which took at least a year to figure out)].

 

In the last month or so, our dogsitters realized that Daisy had what seemed to be a corn (and they have experience w GH corns).

 

I soaked her foot in Epsom salts, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

 

Vet #1 (in northern New England) said it wasn't a corn and was probably a foreign body. (This is also the vet that thought the GSOD he elicited when touching her L rear paw was a GH being a drama queen, when it was, in fact, an infected wound.)

 

New vet in PA, who is quite young, pointed out that the toe was swollen. After about a week, she's like 'it's a corn and it's not going away, we need to hull it.' This was after I told her that I felt what seemed to be a bone spur, and that the pad and toe were swollen.

 

My question, when a GH has a corn, does the pad and/or toe get swollen? Is there any bone or other structures involved besides the pad?

 

We're having x-rays tomorrow (because they were about an hour behind tonight--but that is another rant). I will order Therapaws and the corn ointment from the Pittsburgh compounding pharmacy that 6greyhounds has recommended. We will NOT be hulling the corn or doing surgery this week.

 

What do you all think? Is this a corn or something else? I can see a spot on her pad, but I also see the pad and toe are swollen and hurt when they are touched.

 

Pittsburgh folks--can you recommend a good vet that could work with this problem? We are in Uniontown and I'm trying to work locally, but I want to have a plan if we can't solve it here.

 

Thanks all,

 

DD

[Batmom]

We haven't had swelling, exactly, with corns. When the corn was larger, the pad did build up some callus around the corn, tho. If there's distinct swelling and pain when the pad is touched or pressed just very gently, I would be concerned about a foreign body or pocket of infection.

 

Can you take a picture?

[Finnsliz]

Finn had many many corns. There was never any swelling involved with any of them. I don't have my glasses on and didn't read your entire post, but has she had xrays on that toe?

[rascalsmom]

A FABULOUS vet in the Pittsburgh area is Carol Butler, at Tender Touch Veterinary Hospital in Wexford. It's a haul for you, but she's great, and I was told she studied with Dr. Couto at OSU. They do ALL the vetting for our adoption group, so they really know greyhounds.

[DaisyDoodle]

Here are some pics of Daisy's feet.

 

This first one shows the spot (corn?) on her toe. It's the top in this picture, and it's the inside toe on the right foot if she was upright.

 

Here's the normal left foot for comparison.

 

Here's the top of both feet. You can see here that the toe with the corn is also in a weird position. It seems like it got jammed somehow and stayed that way.

 

This is a comparison of the bottom of both feet. I think the affected toe (inside toe of top foot) looks bigger than the same toe on the opposite foot. You can also see the hyperkeritosis of the big pad in back as well.

 

 

Could the pad be bigger because the toe is jammed/wonky? Here's an x-ray of her foot from June, 2008, a couple of months after she first started limping. What causes toes to look like this? Were the toes dislocated, broken, ??

 

 

 

It seems to me that there is a corn, but that there is something else going on as well--maybe a foreign body, or maybe the chronic wonky issue may be the root cause of all of her problem.

 

Since Daisy has a neck problem (compressed disks from running into the glass slider a couple of time--at least that's how I think it happened), how much of a problem would it be if we had to remove this toe?

 

Thanks all. We're off to the vet right now. We get to meet the owner of the practice today, we've seen a younger, female vet up til now. (She's a new GH owner as well and I'm trying to get her to come here.)

[Batmom]

Well, that surely does look like a corn. Also looks like the toe was dislocated. If it's stable in its current position, I would probably try hulling the corn and trimming that toenail waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, and see if that helps her.

[Guest Ola]

That definitely looks like a corn to me. I'm not sure if it can be hulled at this point, but I would do twice daily soaks in epsom salts to try and get it to loosen up some and then have the vet hull it.

 

I wouldn't be thinking of amputating her toe just yet. Just get that corn taken care of and see how things go from there.

[rascalsmom]

Looks just like Jack's corns did. Definitely a corn!

[inugrey]

I think I missed that you moved, congrats!

 

I have a few thoughts to add to your probably already confused state. First, you are not far from Dr. Radcliffe and Town and Country hospital in Wheeling, WVA. He does a ton of work with greyhounds and can look at x-rays and see bone spurs and arthritis that many standard practice vets just don't see. It may be worth a trip to see him. I see Daisy is nearing 10 so she may have arthritis starting and the bone spurs are possible too I think.

 

That toe is non weight baring so she probably won't miss it. However, if she has other things going on in that leg/toes it may cause problems in the long run when she is down a toe.

 

My corn dog has a hollow toe nail on the same toe as the corn but his pad is the normal size. That said he does have swollen toes due to infection and probably bone spurs. Anyway, I honestly think you are dealing with more than just a corn and only a vet can tell you what exactly. I highly recommend a quick visit to Dr. Radcliffe because he will be a straight shooter and really understands greyhound bones.

 

good luck

[DaisyDoodle]

Got back from the vet a little while ago. Sorry for the delay in posting--had lunch and tried to get a little housework done. I really liked the new vet.

 

Before even taking the film, the vet agreed with me that there was probably something going on beside the corn, and there was. Once he saw the film, he said it's about the worst (or, at least, most obvious) case of arthritis he's seen in an x-ray. (There is a corn also.) He offered to send them to a radiologist for a second opinion, but I told him I'd send them to Dr. Couto's group, and he was good with that.

 

Here's today's film. Note the white ring on the affected toe, and the smaller bright white bits on a couple of the other toes on that foot. Those white areas, along with the bulbous shaded area around the white ring, are the arthritis. I asked him how he distinguishes arthritis from a tumor and he said there would be some "aqueous" some-thing-or-another that would run up the sides of the bone from the affected area if it was a tumor. Notice how the white area bumps out to the right. That is apparently the thing I felt that seemed like a bone spur.

 

 

He said we should treat it with meds and soaks for now, but that it's probably really uncomfortable, and that we might consider removing the toe down the road if we can't give her relief. I'm going to give her Tramadol, soak her foot, get some Therapaws and corn cream and see how things go.

 

Can the corn veterans point me to the best threads or links for 'how to' on hulling or removing at home (if that's advisable)?

 

Thanks for all the help,

 

DD

 

PS Yes, I've moved, sort of. DH has been transferred by his company so we got the house in PA last August. He's been here working, but I've been up North getting our house cleaned up, and then dealing with my family home which flooded in February. I've been in PA for a couple of weeks, but I'm actually headed back up North next week.

 

I looked at Wheeling on Bing Maps, and it looks like it's about 1.5 hours from me, but I'll keep Dr. Radcliffe in mind. He's certainly closer that Ohio State.

[inugrey]

I have to admit I'm not on the popular GT opinion for treatment creams. I use bee propolis 65% tincture which is available at vitamin shops and Wegmans, shoot it's even on Amazon but more expensive there. Our group's preferred vet recommends this as do a few of my friends with corn dogs.

 

Every evening after our final walk I use kerasal (available at CVS) and a friend uses some sort of oil (hopefully she'll see this and add her opinion) and apply it to the offending toe and soak it with a wrap of the oil and I use a baggie and an indoor therapaw to keep it on for 20 minutes at least. After that I clean off the toe and apply a drop of the bee propolis directly on the corn spot and do the same wrap deal as before for another 20 minutes or so. The stuff is sticky (bees ) and has a strong smell. Then use a washcloth and clean off the bee propolis and you are good to go. It's a long evening of work but thankfully these dogs are low key enough it doesn't seem to interfere with the whole sleeping and laying down thing.

 

I also taught him to use therapaws on walks so we never go outside without them on his bad foot. The other thing I do if the corn is growing big I will use the dremmel to flatten it. Daisy's corn doesn't look that bad yet but if it ever actually grows to being not flat with the surface of the toe it's an option.

 

By the way my latest treatment for corns is not what I was touting last year I've been experimenting for five years now and it changes about once a year what I do for his corn. I was almost going to remove his toe when after much thought we decided his other problems (arthritis and bone spurs) would be affected when that toe is gone.

 

Corns totally suck but they are manageable.

 

ETA: I drove five hours one way to see Dr. Radcliffe so my drive time opinion might be skewed.

Edited July 1, 2010 by inugrey

[DaisyDoodle]

I have to admit I'm not on the popular GT opinion for treatment creams. I use bee propolis 65% tincture which is available at vitamin shops and Wegmans, shoot it's even on Amazon but more expensive there. Our group's preferred vet recommends this as do a few of my friends with corn dogs.

 

Every evening after our final walk I use kerasal (available at CVS) and a friend uses some sort of oil (hopefully she'll see this and add her opinion) and apply it to the offending toe and soak it with a wrap of the oil and I use a baggie and an indoor therapaw to keep it on for 20 minutes at least. After that I clean off the toe and apply a drop of the bee propolis directly on the corn spot and do the same wrap deal as before for another 20 minutes or so. The stuff is sticky (bees ) and has a strong smell. Then use a washcloth and clean off the bee propolis and you are good to go. It's a long evening of work but thankfully these dogs are low key enough it doesn't seem to interfere with the whole sleeping and laying down thing.

 

I also taught him to use therapaws on walks so we never go outside without them on his bad foot. The other thing I do if the corn is growing big I will use the dremmel to flatten it. Daisy's corn doesn't look that bad yet but if it ever actually grows to being not flat with the surface of the toe it's an option.

 

By the way my latest treatment for corns is not what I was touting last year I've been experimenting for five years now and it changes about once a year what I do for his corn. I was almost going to remove his toe when after much thought we decided his other problems (arthritis and bone spurs) would be affected when that toe is gone.

 

Corns totally suck but they are manageable.

 

ETA: I drove five hours one way to see Dr. Radcliffe so my drive time opinion might be skewed.

Thanks for all of the info. I've got to see if I can find some of this stuff. What is Kerasal? We've been soaking her foot in epsom salts, but that's about it right now.

 

If I can get the corn soft enough, is there a way to pick it off a bit?

 

I hope I'll be able to sort out the corn problem from the arthritis problem. Daisy reacts much more when pressure is applied to the sides of her toe above the pad than when I touch the corn and pad. I'm giving her Tramadol right now. The thought crossed my mind to put her back on an NSAID, but then I remember the episode we had this past Spring where she turned yellow like a raw chicken (thank doG she's white or we wouldn't have caught it in time) and she spent three days as an inpatient at the e-vets with liver values off the charts. They said it wasn't from the Metacam, but I'm very skittish now to give her an NSAID. (Worst part is, the regular vet, the e-vet, and OSU couldn't tell me what she had. OSU said we needed to have done a liver biopsy while she was symptomatic--which wasn't done--so they narrowed it down to blood clot, toxin or infection, not a TBD, but we don't know what it was.)

 

Ok, so Dr. Radcliffe IS worth the drive? Someone, I think RhodyGreys (Or was it you?), mentioned him to me also when I first mentioned I was moving but the thread has already been culled. Maybe we'll set up a nearly-well doggie visit, so we'll be on record as being a patient of his, so we can go there if needed, and have him take a look at the toe while we're at it.

 

Thanks for the advice. I still need to send x-rays to OSU to see what they say about.

 

DD