Yipes! Poor Nina has a badly swollen foot!

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KarasKavies
For the love of my girls!

Post   » Thu May 01, 2003 3:04 am


I know that Patty's foot took months to heal. I had her then T had her and then I was in contact with her new mom. I got her in July and her new mom told me in Feb. that the last scab had finally fallen off. Geeze, that's a total of 7 months. During the months that I had her, it got MUCH better. Then it just kind of slowed down. BUT... it did heal!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun May 04, 2003 12:17 pm


Well, for what it's worth, I decided not to wrap it yesterday. From watching her I felt it was worth not putting on the peppery spray to keep her from biting at it, since she generally showed no interest and I hoped it was originally done because of pain, discomfort and swelling. She did indeed leave it alone. This pic is about 4 weeks after I first noticed the swelling and a bit under 3 weeks since she pulled the skin off the top of her foot.

Things look healed and not swollen. I was concerned that her toes were going to stay squished together because of the wraps and felt getting some air and exercise might allow them to return to normal. This is what the top of her foot looks like today:

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You can see how well the skin has grown back and the hair even has grown out. The bottom of the foot has old dry skin that I feel needs to be naturally abraded off. This wasn't happening while it was wrapped.

So my plan is to monitor both front feet daily, do daily dilute chlorhexidine soaks, dry thoroughly and apply some preparation H. At the very least, I should be able to tell if the right foot starts swelling or if something ulcerates. It appears to me that the skin on the left foot (which was never wrapped) is thin.

One of the other benefits of daily soaking is that it will remove any poops that get stuck on the foot so they should not aggravate the situation.

Here's a small pic of Nina doing her foot soaks and a link to a bigger pic of her.

Bigger Pic

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Charybdis

Post   » Sun May 04, 2003 12:39 pm


Good news on the healing!

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lisam

Post   » Sun May 04, 2003 12:57 pm


That looks much better.

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Jill

Post   » Sun May 04, 2003 7:24 pm


I want to know how you get her to stay still!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun May 04, 2003 8:30 pm


I don't know why she stands still either. I think she is resigned, but she never really gave me a hard time. What I would do was pet her, rub her jaws and talk to her. I'd usually get over five minutes of soaking time then thoroughly dry with a blow drier (after blotting off). She has taken to shivering so maybe she is scared too.

By the way, I have settled on a quarter cup of water and 1/4 tsp. of chlorhexidine gluconate. I prewarm the heavy feeding bowl with hot water, do a warm water mix and go get her for a soak. The feeding bowl is ideal as it holds the heat a bit and is very stable. I used to mix up 1/2 cup of solution but she got too wet. The smaller amount is adequate to cover her feet.

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Jill

Post   » Mon May 05, 2003 12:27 pm


She's a beautiful girl. Glad to hear her foot is better. Are you writing down your soakin and wrapping techniques? I'd never be able to remember the details.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon May 05, 2003 1:35 pm


I may stick up a page with my experiences and what I used (and what didn't work). I think this is going to be somewhat ongoing and I will always have to keep track of her feet.

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drsgr

Post   » Mon May 05, 2003 2:16 pm


She certainly is beautiful. She seems to really enjoy the footsoak! Makes me want to prepare one for myself!
Susan

mysticunicorn66

Post   » Mon May 05, 2003 3:14 pm


i use Nolvasan Otic solution to clean the dogs ears. I don't know if it would work for that, but Valley Vet Supply has some other versions of it. I get mine from the vet or from http://www.valleyvet.com/ online. I get a lot of things for my dogs through them.

mysticunicorn66

Post   » Mon May 05, 2003 3:16 pm


See site for the Nolvasan Antiseptic info: http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html ... b0d0204ae5

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon May 05, 2003 3:46 pm


Interesting to see they make a chlorhexidine cream. I was using the antiseptic solution for soaks.

I'd love to know precisely what treatment is best for maintaining her feet. the left one (unwrapped) looks slightly swollen but never as bad as the one I treated. I soak both her feet and apply the Prep H. My plan, once both foot bottoms look more similar, is to try BNP on one and prep H on the other to see if one works better. Might be interesting to try the Nolvasan cream.

As for Nina being beautiful, she is a wonderful pig and very soft and squeaky. I imagine you may have seen this pic of her when she got into a tight spot once -- I don't know what she was thinking. Story in Cavy Chronicles.

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