Any tricks to help with the itching as the sight heals? - Page 1

Poor Rose.  She is having to wear the cone of shame.   She was fixed last Thursday.  The wound is itching her like crazy.   Anything I can put on it to help?  She took her last pain med this morning and I have been applying Neosporin +pain.

I would use Vetericyn hydro gel.

Perfect.  I actually already have some of that here. I just put some on.  Thanks.

What about something like Anbesol to numb the area a bit?

I can second Vetrycin, although it wont' help with pain/itching, it's great to promote healing. Use it with our horses.

Ok, I have that too (you can tell we live in the country huh....).   I will give the Vetericyn a little  bit more time.  She has stopped pacing and squirming for now.   Poor thing; can't go play, can't lay on the couch, can't visit puppies, itches,......

I so feel for the families that go through a hip surgery on their dog.  There is one thread on here for a young male (WL I think) who is in the recovery stage.  Rose only has a week of this, I can't imagine 6 - 12 weeks on a young dog.

Neosporin is NOT recommended as it actually delays healing. Ive altered ALOT of dogs and they usually dont lick because it's itching. Are you sure the itching isnt from an allergic reaction to the sutures?

i was wondering that too.  my vet said to watch for weeping at the sutures.  i do not see any.   the insision is nice and pink; same with each suture.   is there something else i need to look for?   her itching came back this evening and i put more vetrycn on and she stopped squrming.

Figures.  Rose ended up with an infection at the wound.  Luckily we caught it before it became deep and we can still let the wound heal without wet packs.  I am disappointed in Vetrycin.  I had been applying that 3 times a day from when she got home.  She still got it infected.

fawndallas, don't feel badly...it's entirely possible that Rose had a site reaction to the sutures, and regardless of what you did, the incision would have become infected anyway.  Some dogs are sensitive to the dissolvable sutures, and that type of suture also happens to be a favorite of some vets, especially if they have a lot of client compliance issues as far as bringing the dogs back in for suture removal [it sucks trying to deal with removing non-dissolving sutures that have been left too long...not only do you get infection, but unless you get the material out, the infection will keep recurring].

For the itching at the incision site, I prefer to use a diphenhydramine cream to cortisone cream; the former is an antihistamine, which means it not only will be effective on the itching, but it will also have a slight sedative effect as well which is helpful in keeping the dog from bothering the incision; the latter is a corticosteroid, and I'm not much on using those unless absolutely necessary.