Poor Sid - Tripod With Corn. Updated

[silverfish]

Well, the good news is that my gorgeous tripod boy Sid is ten years old! He didn't have a bad day - lots of cuddles and time spent with him, and chicken livers & gravy in his kibble that night.

 

The bad news is that he has a corn on his single hind leg. Does anyone have any experience with tripods with corns?

He has got progressively worse, mobility-wise, over the last year, but in the last month he's really gone downhill to the point where he can no longer walk on tarmac or stone and sometimes finds it hard to get over thresholds. It has become dangerous to cross a road with him because he can suddenly fall on his backside and he doesn't get up quickly.

 

We've tried four different types of boot. He hates them all, and has a really bad day after he's worn one for a short while, which we put down to muscle cramps because of 'walking funny'. He has worn one in the past, but now he's afraid to walk in them.

 

My vets couldn't even see a corn and said it was likely to be muscular. They didn't think it was his back or his hip, and he's had that leg x-rayed. I could see something I thought was a corn, and so could the hydrotherapy guy (who is a greyhound trainer). So I asked for a referral and on Friday we took him down to Queen's Veterinary School Hospital at Cambridge where he was seen by a general medicine vet, an orthopaedic surgeon, and a neurologist. We also took along a video of him running along on grass and creasing up when he got to tarmac, almost falling on his backside after a few paces, only to recover again when he hit grass.

 

So yeah. It took three specialists to diagnose a corn, and he's having surgery on Tuesday. They'll keep him till he can walk - unless, of course, he gets depressed, but he seemed very happy to go off with them for tests. Wish us luck. I hate to send him in for it but it seems his best shot.

 

The video is huge (64MB) so unless I can upload it to YouTube I can't show you, but it's quite dramatic. The vet school wanted to keep a copy for teaching purposes!

Edited February 12, 2014 by silverfish

[GreyPoopon]

Poor Sid.

 

I hope the surgery takes care of his corn.

[Guest PiagetsMom]

Wishing Sid much luck with his surgery on Tuesday!

[JustSnoozing]

Wishing a successful outcome for Sid.

[rascalsmom]

Poor Sid. Corns are evil, evil, evil!! I hope his surgery works.

[Guest june]

If you haven't tried Therapaw, give it a try. Good luck with the surgery.

[Remolacha]

Poor Sid, corns are bad enough, but to have one on your only good back foot I hope the surgery fixes him up!

[tbhounds]

Have they considered a neuroectomy with the affected toe???

[schultzlc]

Poor Sid! I hope that his surgery is a success.

[Acadianarose]

Poor Sid! Sending good thoughts

[silverfish]

They haven't mentioned a neurectomy, Tracy. Maybe because he is a tripod? He's a little unsteady now, and I wouldn't want him to trip because he couldn't feel the ground under his foot so well. I'll ask them on Tuesday.

Remolacha, we haven't tried Therapaw. We have a Neopaws boot which looks almost identical and he loathes it. That's the one that he ended up hurting quite a lot from after his (very short) walk. The vet thinks it's just too heavy for him.

 

Thanks for all the good thoughts!

[Guest IrskasMom]

I have no Advice but my Heart is hurting for that Boy . Please, please give him some ever so gentle Hugs from me and maybe an extra Cookie :kiss2

[Guest DeniseL]

What kind of surgery are they doing? I subscribe to the theory that corns are pressure and gait related, so it is not surprising that your baby got one on that leg...

 

I ask about the surgery because I went thru it with my boy. It was a horrible experience with a very long and extremely painful recovery. The corn came back within a few months. I would never do it again, nor recommend it to anyone.

 

I don't know much about a neurectomy, except that it is done in extreme cases. I think your boy could be a candidate, considering he is a tripod and can put weight anywhere else. Poor baby. Corns are evil.

 

I found a regimen that worked for us and my boy is corn free today, but the frustrating part is that different treatments work with different hounds...

[Batmom]

What our vet did was first (and important, I think) hulled the corn -- this is a bloodless procedure -- and then lightly "kissed" the hulled surface (the cavity where the corn had been removed) with the surgical laser.

 

The dog was able to walk without a limp immediately upon waking from anaesthesia. I put a sock on the foot for a few days because it was tender on *prickly/uneven* surfaces like grass. There was no tenderness to speak of on carpet or non-gravelly concrete.

 

That particular corn never regrew. After 9 months, she did develop 2-3 smaller corns; we hulled those and they never came back in the couple years prior to her death.

[4My2Greys]

Judy, I don't even have to see the video to know exactly what your talking about when you mention his back end going down as soon as he hits the tarmac. I went through the same thing with Nadir several years ago.

 

What our vet did was first (and important, I think) hulled the corn -- this is a bloodless procedure -- and then lightly "kissed" the hulled surface (the cavity where the corn had been removed) with the surgical laser.

 

The dog was able to walk without a limp immediately upon waking from anaesthesia. I put a sock on the foot for a few days because it was tender on *prickly/uneven* surfaces like grass. There was no tenderness to speak of on carpet or non-gravelly concrete.

 

That particular corn never regrew. After 9 months, she did develop 2-3 smaller corns; we hulled those and they never came back in the couple years prior to her death.

It would definitely be worth mentioning, I wonder though if it would be able to even do thai considering they have a problem even seeing it on the surface.

Judy, whatever you decide to do I wish your boy speedy healing and pain-free walks again.

Edited February 10, 2014 by 4My2Greys

[Brandiandwe]

No advice, just a lot of love and good wishes for Sid.

[shawna]

Good luck for Sid. Now, I'm wondering if I can get the vet to turn on the laser when I take Tractor in for a corn hulling...thanks for the brain food!

[Batmom]

Shawna, since mine used the surgical laser (not cold laser), the dog had to be put under general anaesthesia. We did it when she was under for something else.

[silverfish]

Thank you, everyone.

Jey, I will certainly mention the surgical laser when we go on Tuesday. My one reservation with treating it this way is that, at the back of mind, I wonder if there's a foreign body in there. It could explain why it took so long for the corn to become visible. If there is, surface treatments won't help at all - they'd need to open it up to see what was going on and maybe find it. They're planning to do a very deep excision. Jon Hall, the vet who we talked with, went to a symposium recently where he heard from a 'corn expert' up in Manchester who has been using this method with great success. I'm willing to let him try, because Sid cannot go on for long like this.

 

Denise, it's what I am afraid of, that it will be horrendously painful for Sid. He'd be off his legs completely, poor guy. However, if he does have a FB it won't help at all to just hull it, or put creams on.

 

Judy, thank you for the understanding and sympathy. What did you do with Nadir? Did you go for the hulling or the excision?

[4My2Greys]

I tried the hulling first, which for him actually made matters worse. I ended up having it surgically removed and the surgeon that did it did a deep excision with wide margins. It took some time to heal, but it was so worth the good results we got. No corns have ever returned to that foot. He did have another corn come up on another foot several years later, which I also had surgically removed.

[silverfish]

Well, that's good to hear. I know he's in good hands at Cambridge, but I worry so much about how he will cope while he heals and if it will be successful - so thank you!

[4My2Greys]

While I am very happy with the way Nadir's corn removals turned out I would be remiss in not sharing with you that it was in the beginning very rough on him. I wish I could remember how long it was before he was able to put weight on that foot without his backend collapsing. Honestly with Sid being a tripod I wonder how he even could manage unless some kind of cart was made for him to use while the foot healed. I know hulling won't solve the problem if there is a foreign body and it may not even help if it is just a corn, but it is much less invasive and if it works there is no healing time to worry about. You really have nothing to lose by hulling first. If it doesn't help you can then go forward with surgical removal of the corn.

[silverfish]

Well, he's now at the hospital in Cambridge.

We talked through all our options and about him being a tripod and we're going to go with the surgery. We talked about dremelling, padded socks/bandages, salicylic acid type treatments, hulling, 'wait and see', how he was going to manage, etc. and the vets there are pretty sure that this is the best option for Sid. We don't have time to try much in the way of conservative treatments because he's already more or less not mobile on his bad days, and we can't lift him (he's 33kg/73lb). He won't let us use a sling, he won't wear a proper boot (only the Pawz or Woodrow Wear knitted type, and at the moment is wearing the knitted one inside the Pawz), and he's collapsing with pain - literally onto the ground, which he sometimes does in the middle of a road.

 

I should tell you that on two occasions after his swim, while the pad is soft, I've dug it out it myself, down to well below the level of the pad surface and it's made no difference. The toe is painful on pressure, both under the pad and at the sides, and I'm not at all convinced it's not a foreign body, which they probably wouldn't find just by hulling. They also think that if it's a corn, it's huge under the surface. So .. .all in all, though I do hear and understand what you're saying about the recovery, I think we might be out of other options.

 

What they're planning to do is have a good poke around once he's under, and decide then if it's a FB or a large corn. If it's a corn, they'll excise it. If it's something else, they'll deal with it. They mentioned toe amputation as a last resort, but I really don't know how he would cope with it. All I know is that he can't continue like this.

They'll also x-ray his hip while he's out, because that's something my vets haven't done for a number of years.

I am a nervous wreck. While I was there I was convinced we were doing the right thing (and so was DH), but now I have this fear that we'll lose him.

[Guest PiagetsMom]

Sending many good thoughts for your sweet boy, and to you

[Remolacha]