So Otis has had a small setback.
He's been acting a bit crazy lately--laying down, not wanting to walk. And sometimes he favors his back legs and shuffles along after a long day. So I took him in to the vet on Monday. She was concerned that his back end looked too thin--she noticed some muscle atrophy. At the same time, she wanted to rule out the Lyme disease reoccurring, so she took more blood. Today we saw the Physical Therapist to see what else could be the matter and how to fix it.
We went in and told her what a normal day in Otis's life looks like. Three walks, a lot of playtime, some swimming, etc. She told us we're doing way too much with him. Did measurements on his thighs and on his hip range of motion. He's supposed to have 160 degrees in both hips; he has 120 in the left and 130 on the right. He also has tight hamstrings and atrophied quadriceps. Poor boy! We've been unwittingly hampering his recovery by pushing him so hard. :-( Bad mommy and daddy.
Apparently he wants to play and do stuff with us so he's been shifting his weight to his front end, making those muscles extremely strong--but keeping his back end weak.
The remedy? Back on pain meds (she says he's in a bit of pain when exercising) and rest. He can do two 5-10 minute slow walks a day, massages, damp heat treatments and stretching. Next week we start daily exercises like balancing, walking in figure eights, walking slowly in knee-high water and walking a small obstacle course. It could take 3 months to get his thighs back to a normal size and he may never get back full range of motion after surgery, but we are to follow this procedure for at least 3 weeks. Then we will go back and see if we've made progress and then we can go from there.
Live and learn, I guess. Note to all: take physical therapy seriously. We should have started this 6 weeks ago. After you've paid so much for surgery, it's difficult to justify really expensive physical therapy, especially when your puppy seems to be so much better and even normal in many ways. But fractures take 6-8 weeks to heal, and then it could be 2-3 months until the muscles and ligaments get back to normal--especially since he was probably favoring those same muscles even before surgery.
Sigh. At least we know now. And maybe we'll save someone out there the guilt? :-)
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