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Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 4th 11, 04:32 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
Elle[_2_]
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Posts: 4
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair

My cat broke a rear ankle five years ago prior to my adopting him. A
veterinary orthopedic surgeon repaired it with screws and a plate. The
vet said to stay on the lookout for protruding screws over the years.
Recently a screw came through the skin. There is no bleeding or
anything. It looks perfectly clean. The cat does not seem sensitive to
the touch at the screw area (but who knows). There are no signs of
infection. He gets around fine, has a good appetite and seems fine.
Before we report back to the orthopedic surgeon for his opinion, has
anyone else had the screw from an orthopedic repair on his or her cat
protrude through? What was the outcome?
  #2  
Old March 4th 11, 07:17 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
MLB[_2_]
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Posts: 2,298
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair

Elle wrote:
My cat broke a rear ankle five years ago prior to my adopting him. A
veterinary orthopedic surgeon repaired it with screws and a plate. The
vet said to stay on the lookout for protruding screws over the years.
Recently a screw came through the skin. There is no bleeding or
anything. It looks perfectly clean. The cat does not seem sensitive to
the touch at the screw area (but who knows). There are no signs of
infection. He gets around fine, has a good appetite and seems fine.
Before we report back to the orthopedic surgeon for his opinion, has
anyone else had the screw from an orthopedic repair on his or her cat
protrude through? What was the outcome?


Not my cat, but I had a screw from a repaired broken hip go through the
bone and touch the bone on the other side -- unbelievably painful!!!
  #3  
Old March 5th 11, 06:42 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
at
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Posts: 130
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair

On Thu, 3 Mar 2011 19:32:21 -0800 (PST), Elle
wrote:

My cat broke a rear ankle five years ago prior to my adopting him. A
veterinary orthopedic surgeon repaired it with screws and a plate. The
vet said to stay on the lookout for protruding screws over the years.
Recently a screw came through the skin. There is no bleeding or
anything. It looks perfectly clean. The cat does not seem sensitive to
the touch at the screw area (but who knows). There are no signs of
infection. He gets around fine, has a good appetite and seems fine.
Before we report back to the orthopedic surgeon for his opinion, has
anyone else had the screw from an orthopedic repair on his or her cat
protrude through? What was the outcome?


If your cat has no sign of infection, and seems to be walking and
running without any limping, etc., I'd leave well enough alone.

A veterinary orthopedic surgeon is EXPENSIVE, and sure as hell, he'll
want to do X-rays, etc.

You know the old saying: if it's ain't broke, don't fix it.

The other old saying is: if you go to see a surgeon, odds are, he'll
tell you you need surgery...because that's how he makes money.

You could easily spend several hundred dollars, to have this expensive
vet tell you your cat seems to have healed fine.

Or, he could tell you your cat needs more surgery. Expensive surgery.

The bad economy has hit specialty vets, just like everyone else.

Leave well enough alone, for now, but examine the area carefully for
signs of infection, tenderness, or anything else out of the ordinary,
regularly, from now on, just in case.

This costs nothing.
  #4  
Old March 5th 11, 11:05 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
catlady
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Posts: 192
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair

On Mar 3, 9:32*pm, Elle wrote:
My cat broke a rear ankle five years ago prior to my adopting him. A
veterinary orthopedic surgeon repaired it with screws and a plate. The
vet said to stay on the lookout for protruding screws over the years.
Recently a screw came through the skin. There is no bleeding or
anything. It looks perfectly clean. The cat does not seem sensitive to
the touch at the screw area (but who knows). There are no signs of
infection. He gets around fine, has a good appetite and seems fine.
Before we report back to the orthopedic surgeon for his opinion, has
anyone else had the screw from an orthopedic repair on his or her cat
protrude through? What was the outcome?


Ignore the idiot that is more concerned about cost than the cat. This
is not something I would take a wait and see approach about. With
repairs like this every part of the reconstruction is cruscial, and
although the cat may seem fine, the fact is that without the screw it
is very possible that the repair could destabilize and it will turn
into a problem. You can liken this to some of the bridge collapses
that have happened over the years. For example, the I-35 collapse was
likely a result of a design flaw in the gusset plates (sized a half an
inch too thin in the original design) joining the steel beams.
Seemingly small in the grand scheme of things, but that flaw cost many
lives and broguht down a huge mass of concrete and steel. Sometimes
something as small as one screw, and the failure of that screw, can
change the enitre landscape of the repair and cause it to fail, and it
doesn't necessarily happen overnight.
  #5  
Old March 5th 11, 07:18 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
Elle[_2_]
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Posts: 4
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and thoughts, MLB,
gandalf, and catlady. My cat has 13 tiny screws holding a veterinary
cuttable plate (VCP) in place and fixing his ankle. As I wrote, only
one screw is coming through. So I am hopeful he truly is not in pain.
Also it seems that fusing of the bone is the desired outcome, and this
surely has happened by now. So I hope bone is not moving across bone
in any kind of painful way, as I agree with MLB is surely possible in
some cases. I found the net even has some papers on this. See for
example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1780233/.

I do see he has less flesh and muscle in the area of where the plate
etc. is compared to the normal rear ankle on the other side. I imagine
this is usual. He cannot flex the repaired ankle the way he can the
normal one, so I can see how muscle in the repaired ankle would shape
differently. (He is still a roughhouser with his sister at times. This
repaired broken ankle hardly has slowed him down.)

Hopefully it is okay for a screw or two to be removed over time, in a
natural healing process.

Beloved pud has an appointment with the orthopod on Wednesday. The
receptionist got off the phone with me for a few minutes to go talk to
the staff about whether this was an emergency. The orthopod's staff
said since the cat was eating and drinking and otherwise seemed
normal, this was not an emergency but do get the protruding screw
checked. Now I remember that the vet even talked about how the bone
would fuse over time, per plan. So hopefully this visit to the
orthopod will be just a quick once-over. I will post an update.

Thanks again all.
  #6  
Old March 6th 11, 02:31 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
Blockade Runner
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Posts: 17
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair

Bacteria are drawn to metal. get him to vet asap, hopefully he will not
catch MRSA, animals get it to .can be very EXPENSEIVE to treat .


Michael Lane

The men American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring
liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try and tell
them the truth -- H. L. Mencken
































**
**




















  #7  
Old March 7th 11, 07:43 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
MaryL
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,779
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair


"ingold1234 (at) yahoo (dot) com (gandalf)" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Mar 2011 19:32:21 -0800 (PST), Elle
wrote:

My cat broke a rear ankle five years ago prior to my adopting him. A
veterinary orthopedic surgeon repaired it with screws and a plate. The
vet said to stay on the lookout for protruding screws over the years.
Recently a screw came through the skin. There is no bleeding or
anything. It looks perfectly clean. The cat does not seem sensitive to
the touch at the screw area (but who knows). There are no signs of
infection. He gets around fine, has a good appetite and seems fine.
Before we report back to the orthopedic surgeon for his opinion, has
anyone else had the screw from an orthopedic repair on his or her cat
protrude through? What was the outcome?


If your cat has no sign of infection, and seems to be walking and
running without any limping, etc., I'd leave well enough alone.

A veterinary orthopedic surgeon is EXPENSIVE, and sure as hell, he'll
want to do X-rays, etc.

You know the old saying: if it's ain't broke, don't fix it.

The other old saying is: if you go to see a surgeon, odds are, he'll
tell you you need surgery...because that's how he makes money.

You could easily spend several hundred dollars, to have this expensive
vet tell you your cat seems to have healed fine.

Or, he could tell you your cat needs more surgery. Expensive surgery.

The bad economy has hit specialty vets, just like everyone else.

Leave well enough alone, for now, but examine the area carefully for
signs of infection, tenderness, or anything else out of the ordinary,
regularly, from now on, just in case.

This costs nothing.



Please, NO!!! When the original surgery was done, the OP was told "to stay
on the lookout for protruding screws over the years." There was a reason
for that warning. The cat should be seen ASAP--*before* infection sets in
or further damage is done.

MaryL

  #8  
Old March 7th 11, 07:46 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
MaryL
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,779
Default Five Years After Broken Ankle Repair


"Elle" wrote in message
...
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and thoughts, MLB,
gandalf, and catlady. My cat has 13 tiny screws holding a veterinary
cuttable plate (VCP) in place and fixing his ankle. As I wrote, only
one screw is coming through. So I am hopeful he truly is not in pain.
Also it seems that fusing of the bone is the desired outcome, and this
surely has happened by now. So I hope bone is not moving across bone
in any kind of painful way, as I agree with MLB is surely possible in
some cases. I found the net even has some papers on this. See for
example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1780233/.

I do see he has less flesh and muscle in the area of where the plate
etc. is compared to the normal rear ankle on the other side. I imagine
this is usual. He cannot flex the repaired ankle the way he can the
normal one, so I can see how muscle in the repaired ankle would shape
differently. (He is still a roughhouser with his sister at times. This
repaired broken ankle hardly has slowed him down.)

Hopefully it is okay for a screw or two to be removed over time, in a
natural healing process.

Beloved pud has an appointment with the orthopod on Wednesday. The
receptionist got off the phone with me for a few minutes to go talk to
the staff about whether this was an emergency. The orthopod's staff
said since the cat was eating and drinking and otherwise seemed
normal, this was not an emergency but do get the protruding screw
checked. Now I remember that the vet even talked about how the bone
would fuse over time, per plan. So hopefully this visit to the
orthopod will be just a quick once-over. I will post an update.

Thanks again all.


Thank you! I had posted a message before I saw this follow-up. I am so
glad you are making plans to take your cat for evaluation.

MaryL

  #9  
Old March 10th 11, 12:19 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
Elle[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4
Default Six (not Five) Years After Broken Ankle Repair

Beloved pud is back from the ortho vet's, snoozing in the sun. He is
well. Main points:

-- An x-ray was done immediately. The ankle bone has fused nicely.
Bone healing looks great (after six years, not five, pardon).

-- No signs of infection.

-- The vet said the screw could stay or be removed; it was my choice.
He did not list any particular pros or cons. I naively did not realize
pud had to be put under for this, so it was kind of a big deal. (Big
doh on me again, remembering the screw goes into the bone and must now
hurt just having been removed.) I did decide to have it removed, on
the premise it bothered the cat in general and could lead to worse
things. But I really have no idea. Pud got one stitch to pull the skin
over where the screw was. No meds were prescribed. This is a reputable
vet hospital and I trust their post-op instructions, which were
nothing this time.

-- The x-ray showed that the plate, now held in place by 12 screws,
actually broke at its vertex. The vet said this is very common. The
cat's ankle is at a fixed angle now, the same as the angle of the
original plate. The vet said removing the plate is done often. After
surgical removal, the cat would be in a splint for 4-8 weeks and have
to be confined so he does not pull that superman flying from the table
top stuff. The screw holes would fill with bone over time. If the
plate is not removed, the question is whether the plate will start
moving around and causing the cat pain. The surgery for removal is not
too expensive ($400 to $850, depending on how things look when the
surgeon actually gets in there). I asked the vet if it were his cat
what he would do. He hesitated. I am sure he gets this question a lot.
He was pretty clear it did not have to be done, at least not without
other signs. Earlier he asked the cat's age, and I think he was
factoring this in, too. If I had all the money in the world, yet there
continued to be no signs of malaise, pain or infection, I think it
might be cruel to put the cat (about eight-years-old) through another
surgery and that gosh awful convalescence. At any rate, no decision
has to be made immediately. I will monitor the ankle and ponder it.

Pud with his sister got a special treat of shrimp when we got home.

Thank you all for your input. Sometimes just not being alone in these
decisions helps. I got all teary-eyed just watching the many dog and
cat patients passing through the doors, along with a few human
visitors with special treats who had come to see their loved ones as
they convalesced there, which the staff encourages. It remains the
same fine hospital I know from six years ago.




  #10  
Old March 10th 11, 02:10 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
MLB[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,298
Default Six (not Five) Years After Broken Ankle Repair

Elle wrote:
Beloved pud is back from the ortho vet's, snoozing in the sun. He is
well. Main points:

-- An x-ray was done immediately. The ankle bone has fused nicely.
Bone healing looks great (after six years, not five, pardon).

-- No signs of infection.

-- The vet said the screw could stay or be removed; it was my choice.
He did not list any particular pros or cons. I naively did not realize
pud had to be put under for this, so it was kind of a big deal. (Big
doh on me again, remembering the screw goes into the bone and must now
hurt just having been removed.) I did decide to have it removed, on
the premise it bothered the cat in general and could lead to worse
things. But I really have no idea. Pud got one stitch to pull the skin
over where the screw was. No meds were prescribed. This is a reputable
vet hospital and I trust their post-op instructions, which were
nothing this time.

-- The x-ray showed that the plate, now held in place by 12 screws,
actually broke at its vertex. The vet said this is very common. The
cat's ankle is at a fixed angle now, the same as the angle of the
original plate. The vet said removing the plate is done often. After
surgical removal, the cat would be in a splint for 4-8 weeks and have
to be confined so he does not pull that superman flying from the table
top stuff. The screw holes would fill with bone over time. If the
plate is not removed, the question is whether the plate will start
moving around and causing the cat pain. The surgery for removal is not
too expensive ($400 to $850, depending on how things look when the
surgeon actually gets in there). I asked the vet if it were his cat
what he would do. He hesitated. I am sure he gets this question a lot.
He was pretty clear it did not have to be done, at least not without
other signs. Earlier he asked the cat's age, and I think he was
factoring this in, too. If I had all the money in the world, yet there
continued to be no signs of malaise, pain or infection, I think it
might be cruel to put the cat (about eight-years-old) through another
surgery and that gosh awful convalescence. At any rate, no decision
has to be made immediately. I will monitor the ankle and ponder it.

Pud with his sister got a special treat of shrimp when we got home.

Thank you all for your input. Sometimes just not being alone in these
decisions helps. I got all teary-eyed just watching the many dog and
cat patients passing through the doors, along with a few human
visitors with special treats who had come to see their loved ones as
they convalesced there, which the staff encourages. It remains the
same fine hospital I know from six years ago.



Sending heartfelt purrs that the kitty will do just fine without further surgery. The cat will usually slow down as it ages (hopefully) and may not try flying leaps. Best wishes. MLB

 




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