
A few posts ago I mentioned that Daisy was struggling with arthritis in her back legs. She was struggling enough to start putting together a proper pain plan for her. The main problem the arthritis is causing apart from the pain is the fact that she isn’t able to move about enough so is resting for such long periods that her faeces are sticking to her fur. She is also unable to clean herself properly, even though she can reach her ceacotrophs she can’t hold the position long enough. Last year she managed by using Apollo as a support but even that is not helping much anymore.
***Warning Unpleasant Faeces photos coming up**
Below is a photo of the aftermath of Daisy lying on her mattress for long periods of time.


As you can see from the above photo, both her feet were becoming compacted with faeces, hay & shredded paper. I would like to point out I had let it build up to that extent so the vet could get a better picture of her, I wouldn’t normally let her get that bad. Her movement when hopping had become very stiff & her back legs landed with a thud. She was having regularly baths to remove the mess.
Daisy was initially started on the appropriate dose of Metacam. Normally, you would select a reasonable dose & if it works you’d aim to reduce it to see how low you can go. With Daisy it was obvious after the first few days we needed to go higher. We tried several different dosages & had introduced liquid Paracetamol into the mix. Sometimes two painkillers work better than one higher dose of just one painkiller. This was the next result:

We also had to make adjustments to the Metacam as we suspected it was making her faeces watery.

The above was not good as it easily stuck to her fur compounding the issue. She was needing regular baths at this point. We needed to raise the dosage of the Paracetamol but because of Daisy’s age we had to think just how well her kidney’s & liver were functioning. Some painkillers can cause these organs if damaged or not working fully to deteriorate. So Daisy had a blood test, remarkably all her results were within the normal range. We did not expect that given that Daisy is 10.5 yrs old, we thought at that age her organ functions wouldn’t be 100% for sure. Daisy then started an increased dose, this required a couple more tweaks but we finally got to a compromise.

Daisy is still having some compaction on one of her heels & the odd faeces gets stuck to her, but her other foot is remaining clear. The vital areas underneath her are also staying clear with maybe just the odd bit stuck. The build up to what it is in the photo takes roughly 6 or 7 days. Every week she now has a foot bath instead of a feet & underneath bath. This is much better for everyone’s stress levels & actually she is very good with it considering she isn’t afraid to use her teeth. Daisy is also moving around a lot more & is even jumping off things which I have to say I don’t quite like her doing when it’s high. Another reason we didn’t want to push anymore painkillers if she is coping, is the next step would be Tramadol & I would like to avoid that for as long as possible. Like humans you just never know how they will react & I don’t want her on the last chance saloon yet. I also have to consider her guts as tramadol can affect them. I suspect when winter comes I may well be forced onto it but until then, as long as she is managing, well in herself , comfortable, we’ll stay as we are. Another one on the slippery slope though.
