Sampson had his annual wellness exam last week.
There were a couple of things that were concerning to me and I was anxious to discuss them with the vet. The first up was Sampson’s physical well being.
Sampson’s been licking at his front paws for at least three years now. He goes on an off with it. I put him on a supplement and he does well, then after a short while, he starts licking at them again. X-rays taken when it first started showed nothing. We couldn’t determine if he was licking at his front paws because they hurt, or he was licking because something hurt somewhere else and his paws were the easiest thing to reach.
Since his ACL surgery 20 months ago, he doesn’t put full weight on his back feet. Since each back foot takes approximately 20% of his weight, I wasn’t sure if the extra pressure on his front was causing him discomfort.
His back legs tremble when he stands. Like when we stop on a walk. And he doesn’t care for standing, if he has to stand for too long, he’ll lie down.
Then about 10 days before his exam, he was running around the house and he started holding up his left front foot. I massaged the leg and the foot and he went right back to using it. In my mind this confirmed that his front paws were bothering him. I filed it in the back of my mind to mention at the vet.
Sampson at the vet’s office, you can see how much he hates going.
I shared all of this with Dr. Soutter who after examining him determined that Sampson has arthritis in the two middle toes of both front paws and he also has it really bad in his left wrist. He also has it at his surgery site and more than likely in his hips. As for the trembling, she says she can’t say with certainty, it could be something vets refer to as “geriatric trembling,” or it could be that stinking Illiosoas.
My poor guy.
The next question was how do we make him comfortable?
Well he’s already on Glucosamine, an Omega product and Zyflamend for anti-inflammatory. Our choices were to put him on pain pills for days when he’s really struggling, or we try Adequan injections. Then Dr. Soutter suggested he might be a candidate for PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy). Clearly we had some decisions to make.
Next we talked about his noise phobia.
Sampson never used to have an issue with noises. Oh a sudden and loud noise might startle him, but thunder storms, fireworks and wind never bothered him.
Until recently.
In the past year he gets very anxious when any of these events take place. When I’m home, we typically go in the bedroom where we can snuggle on the bed. If I am beside him reassuring him, he usually does pretty well. If I’m not home, he heads downstairs to my mom’s apartment. With the apartment being in the basement, it is typically much quieter than the upper part of the house.
He also takes issue with my husband and my mom’s cell phones (either ringing or text alerts) and my mom’s house phone. Mind you, when my phone goes off, whether it be ringing (actually my phone barks) :-), text alert or one of my crazy alarms, it doesn’t bother him at all. Long time readers may remember that last summer we had a problem where the smoke detector went nuts. We don’t know for how long it was beeping but poor Sampson was really freaked out by it.
Dr. Soutter thinks his new aversion to sounds could be as simple as the frequency of the phones is the same as the smoke alarm.
My poor guy.
He does have one bad tooth, right in the front of his mouth. He had that last year too, but it doesn’t appear to be bothering him. Dr. Soutter suggested we take care of it sooner, rather than later because it could cause a bone infection. So I went ahead and scheduled him to have it removed in January.
Other than those issues, he seems to be okay. He’s maintained his weight of 85 pounds, and everything else seems good. We had blood drawn to check for tick borne diseases as well as heartworm and those were both negative.
The biggest issue is making him comfortable and as pain free as we can. Next week I’ll let you know how we decided to treat his arthritis. In the meantime, have you had experience with pain management, Adequan injections or PEMF? If so, would you mind sharing them with me? Thank you!
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