Corns?

[Guest karilynn]

Bullet, my sweet little 4 year old houndie, is limping - his back right leg. This started last night. I thought maybe he pulled something or hurt his leg when he was off-leash running yesterday morning (don't worry, he was in a fenced in area!) but I took a look at his hip, leg, and foot and felt around, trying to pinpoint what was causing the discomfort. Whenever I touched his foot, he jerked it away, so I took a closer look at on his paw pad, he has 2 small whitish/yellow circles. I did some research and came across corns - appears they are rather common in greyhounds.

 

I am going to make a vet appointment tomorrow morning when they open, but I don't know a whole lot about corns. I read that they can be hulled out and that this relieves the pain immediately, but that they can continue to come back. Is there any way to prevent them? He's never had this issue before. We just cleared up a staph infection, finally, and now we are on to this... it never ends, I'll tell ya. Thankfully he is super cute and the apple of my eye.

 

Anybody have experience with corns? Corn success stories? Tips? Advice?

 

Thanks!

[Feisty49]

If you do a search (top right of page in the search box and search Forums) for corns, you'll get a lot of hits. People will respond here, but it's always good to read from as many sources as possible. Good luck!

Edited October 20, 2014 by Feisty49

[XTRAWLD]

Corns are a menace. Lots of good info on here though. Young at 4 to get them though!

[turbotaina]

Grassmere has good info on corns: http://www.grassmere-animal-hospital.com/corn_hulling.htm

 

There's no cure for them - just management. Some people opt for surgery, but it's ill-advised as corns will generally come back, no matter what.

 

Many vets are unfamiliar with corns and won't make the appropriate DX. I myself spent over $3k trying to treat what turned out to be a corn (which I had suspected at the outset, but I had at least 4 vets unable to DX it because they weren't familiar with the phenomenon and the corn took a very long time to surface). And 4 is not too young - Turbo got his at 4 and I've seen younger dogs with them as well.

 

First, make sure it is a corn. Your vet can do a nerve block on the affected toe(s) to check. A good layman's way of checking is to take each toe and firmly but gently squeeze the pad from the sides. If the dog pulls back or reacts, there's a pretty good chance there's a corn. Another indicator is lameness on hard surfaces, but being OK on soft surfaces such as grass or carpet.

 

Turbo had regular hullings by a good vet, but that didn't always alleviate the pain. What worked for us was using Therapaw boots and tramadol. You can also soften the dogs pads with Kerasolv and use duct tape to try and extract the corn yourself. There are at least 6.7 billion threads here on corn treatment, so you should be able to get lots of ideas.

 

Good luck! They really are a pain in the butt