TTA Surgery Healing at Home Part 2

By Bosquebay

In the last segment on healing from TTA Surgery, we covered icing down your dogs knee(s) after surgery. This will cover exercise, constipation and pain relief.
For pain relief she had a Fentanyl pain patch located on her foot, which was removed after five days. Then she started taking anti-pain medication.

Constipation with the Fentanyl pain patch is a potential side effect, so we gave her canned pumpkin and this brought much relief.

• Discourage your pet from licking at their incision(s). Licking may lead to chewing and your pet may remove sutures by doing so.

• Knee movement will benefit the rehabilitation process and should be encouraged. We began range of motion exercises of her knee joints as soon as she allowed manual manipulation — directly after ice packing.

• You should schedule an appointment with your surgeon about 10-14 days after surgery. This is to confirm tissue healing and for suture removal. X-ray’s are scheduled at eight weeks, to confirm bone healing.

• Short walks of less than 1/4 mile, at a slow pace, are acceptable for the first four weeks. Always use a leash and belly sling. Do not let your pet take any stairs or steps without the support of the sling.

• Starting with weeks 5-8, she could walk 1/4 to 1/2 mile. And as long as she wasn’t sore after these walks, we performed them multiple times throughout the day.

The doctor imposes these instructions during the bone healing process to secure the surgical results. Still, no free activities are allowed until after healing has occurred – which is confirmed by x-rays.

Now the fun really begins and the rehabilitation process starts in earnest.

The first eight weeks were a long road, but our girl was such a great patient – we were very proud of her.

She tolerated the icing of her legs, never licked her incisions, and she understood she wasn’t allowed to run and play.

To judge her comfort level, we watched to see if she got excited about more activity. Did she seem stiff? Did she complain? If so, we had to reduce the amount of her activity.

But by this time, I have to tell you, she was ready to go!

At this point, we hooked her to a recliner near her bed in the living room, and this is where she hung out while we were home.