femur external fixator
I recently found a emaciated Dutch Shepherd (estimated two or three years old) in a parking lot with a broken leg, I was able to get him a surgery in Mexico to fix his leg due to the extreme price difference versus surgery in the US. He was taken to Mexico through a rescue who helped me fundraise for the surgery and they used their personal shipper to get him there. When he came back, I received no instruction, xrays, or protocol for recovery despite me asking, i was only told “spray the site with hydrogen peroxide”. based off of what I’ve read online, I believe he should be starting to weight bear on the leg. He’s about 3 1/2 weeks postop, and only occasionally lightly sets the leg down but holds the leg up completely in movement. I worry about how the bone is healing. i’m very grateful for the rescue who helped me and even made the surgery possible I’m just a bit lost as far as his next steps. I do believe that most of his challenges are mental, I was able to get him one x-ray here in the US (provided in photos above ⬆️) before he went to Mexico and they told me that the break was not too new and that he’s probably been on the street for a while with the broken leg, this was confirmed as one of the only things I heard about how the surgery went in Mexico is that they did in fact have to scrape the bone before merging it back together because it was starting to calcify. that being said, he’s been walking on three legs for a long time prior to me finding him, i’d love to get him into hydrotherapy, but I don’t think I can until his fixator is removed but I’m just really concerned about how he’s recovering and would like any and all advice or feedback on what I could do for him to help him relearn how to use his leg. I’m not sure if he has scar tissue around his joints as I tried to do some flexions and it just feels kind of stuck. This could just be him locking out his leg though as he doesn’t want me to bend it. He has an assisi loop I use on him and he also gets magnawave PEMF once a week, he also has been getting daily red light sessions, adequan injections, and i have a cold laser (not medical grade) that i use as well, I also use an ems and TENS stimulator and use a no toe dragging brace on him sometimes too and i think it helps him set his leg down more often. I feel like swimming would be a game changer for him and his muscle atrophy and also like brain coordination with the leg but since the break is on his femur, it’s too high up to waterproof with anything that I can think of.
also, I wanted to add that I do feel like when I move his leg I feel a clicking and I took him to a vet here for just advice about a week ago and they told me it’s probably his soft tissue making the sound, but unfortunately, they couldn’t offer me any advice as they told me it was out of their expertise and they’ve never seen an external fixator be used before so none of my questions were answered.
I was not given a date for when he has to get his fixator removed, however, when he does get it removed, I plan to take him myself to the vet instead of using the shipper again so that I can ask questions without having to go through an extra party for answers.
I also am not even sure what vet he was taken to as none of that information was disclosed to me, and I did not receive any of the paperwork or receipt.