Foot Swollen After Toe Amputation

[inugrey]

Inu had surgery to remove one of his weight bearing toes on his back leg two weeks ago. All in all his recovery has been very smooth. But my vet and I are both a little concerned about the amount of swelling in the foot and for the length of time it has been this way. For those of you who have been through it does the whole foot and the remaining toes stay bloated looking for an extended period?

 

We are exploring putting a bag of frozen peas on it every night. He is not the kind of dog who is willing to have me massage the area while he is laying down. Though I could do it while he is standing up. But we are trying to limit the amount of time he is vertical so I would rather not do that. My vet is worried about circulation but things seem to look good color wise. He doesn't seem to be in any pain. We are seriously limiting his walks and he's none too happy when we turn around at the end of the block twice a day. He also doesn't ever sleep upside down so we don't get any help from gravity if it is a blood flow issue.

 

My vet is going to his sources as well but I wonder what your experiences and thoughts are with this.

 

I don't think you all want a picture because it's ugly. But if you think it's necessary I will get one tonight.

[Chicocat]

I've never seen any swelling following a toe amputation. The amputations I have seen were totally healed by the time the stitches came out in 10-14 days.

[Guest BlueCrab]

Colleen - sorry to hear about Inu's foot and the on-going swelling. No experience... no answers, just good wishes that it gets back to normal soon!

 

Can I ask what precipitated the amputation? We're having some foot problems with Trixie and I'm trying to stay abreast of what others are experiencing.

[Guest KennelMom]

Melody didn't have any swelling post-toe amp.

 

Here's a pic 48 hours after surgery when the initial bandage came off:

 

(what looks like a bit of swelling in the adjacent toe and at the top of the incision is built up scar tissue from the same injury that caused the one toe to be amputated. there's actually no swelling in the pic)

Edited September 10, 2010 by KennelMom

[inugrey]

Crap, so why is this happening? It's not hot to the touch and he's not sensitive when I touch it and does use the foot most of the time.

 

Carolyn, I responded to your Trixie thread his story is in there.

[Guest BlueCrab]

Thanks for the info. Oh, poor things - both of you! What a huge amount to have to go thru, and now this. I hope the surgery solved the problem, but more importantly I hope the swelling issue is just a blip and Inu's back to normal soon. Glad to hear there's no heat, as that would seem to be a better sign, but wish the swelling would resolve. I'll be thinking of you both.

[Guest MnMDogs]

Hey Colleen - I was wondering how he was doing. Mork didn't have any swelling at all - is Inu able to bear weight on that foot at all?

[krissn333]

The only thing I can think of is that he's got some fluid backed up down there. Do you still have the foot bandaged or is it open to the air?

 

If bandaged, can it be left open to the air? If it's open to the air, maybe it needs a pressure dressing put on it to move the fluid out.

 

We're kind of having a similar issue with Fritz - he scalped his front leg almost 2 weeks ago. If I bandage it, the lower part of his leg swells up, so I have to wrap his ENTIRE leg, from toes to elbow. If I leave it open to the air, the wound is irritated and swollen. Can't win either way it seems.

 

I'm assuming other than the swelling, everything else looks fine? It's pretty odd and tough to deal with...I would definitely do the frozen peas, as well as something warm (I use my rice-filled thing that I use for my shoulders) and alternate. Warmth increases the circulation.

[NeylasMom]

Colleen, sadly no experience here that I can offer. I wonder if the foot isn't still infected? Wasn't that the issue with the toe in the first place. I wonder if some bacteria got trapped in there. I know you said it's not warm, but his skin was really red on Sunday and we all know these weird dogs don't always have the typical signs. Other than that, I've got nothing.

 

Poor boy, I hope it resolves soon.

[inugrey]

It's been open without a wrap for a full week today. It is pretty red, dear god if we some how allowed the infection to spread by cutting him open I think I'll need to start breaking some objects so I don't explode. We did remove the toe due to a persistent staph infection. He doesn't use the foot all the time but he will use it.

[Guest KennelMom]

You might want to send Dr. Couto an email...he's seen lots and lots of various amputations in greyhounds.

[turbotaina]

Or Dr. Radcliffe. I'm sure he's done a million toe amps by now. Plus, you can always do a road trip.

[inugrey]

He's on vacation through the rest of September but he would have been perfect for a consult.

[Batmom]

Haven't had the experience with an amp but have had the experience with a leg injury. In your position, I'd want to make absolutely 110% certain that it wasn't an infection -- I'd probably want to draw off some fluid and take a look and run a culture. That said, it *could* be seroma (fluid fluff), and that can take a freaking long time to go away. If it were seroma, you'd want warm compresses and there'd be no reason to restrict activity.

 

Hugs and best luck!

[inugrey]

My mom thinking was fluid fluff (love that term) but I couldn't articulate what that was. I'm off to read about seromas. Will the switching peas and warm compress help or just warm compress?

[BootsyCollins]

what about a drain?

[Batmom]

I've always used just the warm compresses but YMMV. Sure not an expert here.

[Guest aeroangie]

I don't recall seeing swelling but our Grey's toes DID require a second operation. The first partial amputation didn't get all of the infection. Is he on antibiotics?

[krissn333]

I personally would do both cold and warm...cold for swelling/inflammation, warm to encourage circulation. Neither will hurt so as Jey said, YMMV

[turbotaina]

He's on vacation through the rest of September but he would have been perfect for a consult.

 

 

Dang him and his September vacations

[greysmom]

No swelling here post-amp. Dude's incision and foot were basically healed up after the bandage came off (we did have a skin infection, but that was entirely caused by the bandaging). Culture and blood work to see if he has a more resistant infection would be in order. He's on antibiotics now???

[Guest Smiley]

Poor Inu! After Smiley's toe amputation we didn't see any swelling at all. We had issues will popping stitches, but never swelling. I have no advice, but am sending good thoughts that Inu's swelling will go down and that he'll be back to long walks in no time!

[inugrey]

We took the toe off because the infection seemed to be focused in there. In the lab the infection was treatable with all varieties of ABs but it wasn't going down anymore so we ran out of options and cut it out. Bone was not infected just the fluid build up around.

 

We've been hitting it with clavamox and doxy cocktail lately. He's also been on cipro and of course cephalexin at some point too.

 

I'm going to cross my fingers that over the weekend adding the cold/warm compresses will help. He goes back in for a recheck on Tuesday but damn it I want this fixed like yesterday!

[joejoesmom]

You might want to send Dr. Couto an email...he's seen lots and lots of various amputations in greyhounds.

 

I will second this. Dr. Couto was in last week. I know he is speaking in Indianapolis over the weekend but assume he will be back at OSU next week.

 

It probably isn't the same thing but I thought I would mention Joe's experience after his leg amputation just in case it sounds familiar.

 

About 5 days after his amputation, Joe began swelling fairly severely throughout his remaining front leg and chest area. OSU did something called a colloidal osmotic (think this is what it was named) COP blood test. This is something that IDEXX can't do. I will try to explain what it showed but I don't have all the tecnical info. Apparently Joe's blood vessel walls were leaking fluid from the blood causing the swelling. They needed to give him some IV meds (I can look up the names if necessary) to prevent this from happening. This could have been life threatening. They didn't tell me the following, so I don't know how accurate it is -- I think they were having trouble keeping the blood thin enough so they were worried about clots. I believe they were also worried about the increased pressure caused by the fluids in the surrounding tissues would cause problems with the blood flow. At the same time, he was breaking down muscle tissue, causing a lot of myoglobin in the urine (peeing dark red). I don't know if these two problems were related though. It was necessary to increase the volume of urine to prevent damage to the kidneys. But putting him on extra IV fluids to increase the urine also increased the amount of fluids going out of the blood vessel walls and into surrounding tissue. So he had to go back into the ICU for another 3 days. He is perfectly fine now.

 

Jane