Recovery tips after TPLO surgery?

[herm]

My 2-year-old lab is coming up on 2 weeks after TPLO surgery. If you've been there and done that, any advice or suggestions? Specifically, what should my expectations be for range of motion, limping/weight-bearing, etc? Her attitude seems good; appetite is great. We see the vet in a few days to get staples removed...anything I should ask? Finally, what about acupuncture? Vet suggested but I passed for now to save some money. Thanks in advance...and thanks also for a few weeks ago when posts here helped me get her diagnosed sooner than I would have normally.

[bobbymalone]

i'm sorry man... are you talking about acupuncture for your dog????

In sauk rapids? I thought you would probably have to come mpls uptown or somewhere on grand ave in sp to have that done!

LMAO

wishing your dog a speedy recovery though. good luck

[herm]

Believe me, I get your LMAO. That is what I thought until I did a little research. Turns out it's an emerging treatment - for the dog. (Me? No way! Them needles is scary!)

[Acemac]

swiming will prob be best or at least wadding the dog in water just deep enough to be on his tip toes swiming is great rehab for all kinds of stuff.

[Billy_Burbout]

Do not let her swim!! Didn't they give you any rehabilitation sheets? And let me guess...you went to granite city?? Iam on week 9 right now with my lab and he is doing good. You have to baby that knee. Massage it often, ice it, very short slow walks.

[herm]

BillyBurbot - Yes, I did get a detailed recovery plan - and I went to GC. I am following it to the letter. (Even when the patient fights the icing 3 times daily.) GC is being very helpful so far but its directions say nothing about what to expect. So I am looking for firsthand experiences to give me an idea of what to expect. Best example: She toe-touches and usually hobbles/limps at this point - something that has not changed/improved much since recovery began about 9-10 days ago. Is that normal? (And, yes, I will be asking that question to vet.) Are you GC patient, too? Thanks in advance.

[Billy_Burbout]

Yeah its normal. My dog did that too, the toes draging and such. I thought the vet cut something extra cause it looked like his foot wasn't working! He limped bad for i would say about 2 or 3 weeks. At this time he doesn't limp at all at 9 weeks but he does have good days and bad. About a week and a half ago i went for a long walk with him and on the way home i let his swim in a shallow pond on our property for about 5 minutes. An hour later he was very sore. He put pressure on the leg but you could see that it was bothering him. It still bothers him now so you have to be carefull. Last night he went crazy and wanted to play and took off running in the yard and i had to hollar at him to stop cause i dont want him to hurt it anymore untill it is completely healed. The vet did the post-op x-rays at week 6 and the bone was healing awsome but you could still see that the bone wasnt even close to being filled in with new bone yet. So be carefull. No i didnt go there. People i talked to had a 50-50 expierance with them so i went to alexandria vet clinic. They didnt try to push the extra garbage on me (acupuncture and other stuff) plus they were cheaper and the surgen (Calvin Kobluk) is the best in the state IMO and paying that amount of money I felt he was the best choice.

[duckbuster]

Here is some info I picked up from other sites. Hope some of it can help you.

Swimming is useless until the limb is full weight bearing. Swimming is more stressful than walking and if they are not fully weight bearing while walking they will simply not use the limb and swim with the other 3.

Until the osteotomy is healed (+\- 8 Weeks) extreme activity should be avoided.

Missy had her 2nd TPLO the first couple days of last May. The doc had me give her crate rest for the first 2 weeks. After that he removed her staples and said I could start walking her on lead and swimming her for short distances.

I took her to a rehab vet a couple days after her staple removal. She examined the dog and had her in the underwater treadmill for 10 minutes and gave me some excercises to do. I went back for underwater treadmill sessions twice a week for a couple of weeks and then once a week thereafter. The rehab vet had me walk on lead/swim the dog for 10 minutes the first week of rehab and then increase the daily swimming/walking 5 minutes a week thereafter. The rehab vet didn't differentiate between swimming the dog and walking the dog on lead. It was 10 minutes of one or the other or a combination of both.

The rehab period was 6 weeks. 10 minute swim/walks the first week. 15 minutes swim/walk the 2nd week. 20 minute swim/walks the 3rd week, 25 the 4th week, 30 the 5th week and 35 the last week. From the 3rd week on I took her to the rehab vet once a week for a look see and an underwater treadmill session. This was a much more aggressive rehab than her first TPLO rehab. The last week of rehab I took her to a park with 4 soccer fields joining each other with no fence inbetween. I'd walk her for 15 minutes on lead to get there, give her 5-10 minutes of off lead time while I still walked so she was going in a direction and another 10 minutes walk back to the truck twice or 3 times. She loved her off lead time on a big field as it was the first off lead time she'd had in almost 2 months.

I took her in for x-rays 8 weeks post op and the surgeon said I could put her back in training. The rehab vet said the same thing the next day.

I put her in training with the other dogs and she was fine. I did train her every other day and we took another day or two off, but mostly we just trained as normal. She got a rimadyl at least once maybe twice after I put her in training but just the once or twice not every day or anything.

At 10 weeks post op I took her to a Lardy training seminar for 4 days, her first days training every day instead of every other day. She won an open and a 2nd in the am at 11 weeks post op.

__________________

[Muskiebait]

Had it done two years ago at the UM, follow the recovery sheet as in how far to walk the dog each day, etc. the dog will put the weight on it as time passes, I think it took around 3 months or so but like i said it has been two years now and you couldn't tell which leg it was on, dog is like a 4 your old pup now full of enery every day, and runs like a champ...