Balto – Dog Carpal Instability Splint – BT SPLINT

1 review for Balto – Dog Carpal Instability Splint – BT SPLINT

1. 

   Sue – 30/01/2020

   Our cat Bubbles, a British shorthair, currently 18 months of age, inflicted a carpal hyperextension during her stay at a cattery, 6 months ago. In terms of catteries, I had now learned my lesson, that it would be much safer (perhaps more pleasant for cats as well) to board your cat in a shoebox, rather than in open and larger presidential suites/ resorts that encourage cats to jump up and down on slippery surfaces. When we got her back, we took her to some very well reputed cat only vets, who told us that our only choice was surgery, meaning Bubbles, at 1 year of age, should get metal plates screwed under her flesh, and all those little bones in her wrist would be fused together, meaning her paw will not be able to move an angle for the rest of her life. We were also told that hyperextensions are extremely painful, any delays for surgery would be an act of carelessness, euphemistically. But of course, regardless of what, no surgery was going to happen to my cat. I began searching online, looking into anything and everything I can. I found out there were several types of braces available for such injuries, however, the Balto ones looked much lighter and adaptable compared to other designs, also importantly, it was available in Australia. I sent an inquiry about sizes, Erol replied to me on the same day, and the brace was in my hands two days later. Erol also recommended The Vet Practice to us, a place that has assisted us beyond expectations.

   During nearly 6 months of medications at the Vet Practice, Bubbles has had stem-cell injections, daily lasers, and is currently on her final rounds of ACS injections. These treatments won’t be possible or would be meaningless if without a brace. The Balto brace works well in holding her paw in position, although we had to come up with several modifications in how to keep her to wear it. it is also worth mentioning that Bubbles is an exceptionally cooperative cat, if it was not for her cooperativeness, things would really have to be done differently. Even though, until now, Bubbles has only gained a partial recovery for her carpal hyperextension. By partial, I mean, ultrasound showed that her injured soft tissues had recovered, she is not in pain, however, for some reason, the tendons are still not strong enough to fully hold up her paw alone. We had to accept that this is going to be a long journey. But for us this is an acceptable outcome, she still gets to use her braced paw, she is happy, cheeky, playful, and energetic. For her it’s like nothing has changed, perhaps it’s just the humans who have obsessions for a quick fix.

   During her use of the brace, we did some modifications that might be useful to other users.

   1, The Balto label on the side could be fully removed by removing the stitches. Doing so won’t harm the brace, but will make the brace less bulky and less jerky, at least for small braces like Bubbles’.

   2, The metal support that’s inserted in the brace tends to slide upwards during use. Some stitches at the top help to keep it in place.

   3, My first solution of’ How to make cats wear Balto carpal brace’, has two big downsides. First is the irritation caused by sticking medical bandage directly to the leg, second is that you can’t change it very often, because you don’t want to peel the sticky bandage off of her arm too many times. However, at early stages, sticking was necessary, as that was the only way to actually keep it on her. But as she is getting used to something being attached to her arm, we came up with a less irritating solution, which is by replacing the medical bandage with Elastoplast cohesive compression bandage (same as pet wrap, but the human ones are softer, thinner, and easier to remove. Images are attached for directions). This solution holds the brace really well, I could confidently say that, for Bubbles, it can hold on for at least 5 days. But we don’t usually leave it on that long before we change, that’s because since it does not involve any sticking to her leg, we open it up approx every 3 days to let her groom and clean.

   4, A tight wrap with cushions inside the brace was fun to make but did not work for Bubbles. I’ll post the images out for reference anyway.

   Thanks for reading. Please see attached for all modifications that are being made for Bubbles so far.

   Regards,

   Sue

   How to make cats wear Balto Carpal Brace
   Elastoplast solution
   Cushion solution that did not work