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Our 11-year-old 40-lb. spayed female shepherd mix has a round mole-type growth on her outside lower right eyelid, about where a tear duct would be if there were one on that end. She's had it for a while now with no complaints apart from a little extra eyegunk now and then. A year or so ago, the vet gave us an antibiotic salve to "soothe" it, I guess, but since the growth has only gotten (a little) bigger even after dutiful daily application of the salve, our vet is now suggesting we let her take it off. The growth is a little smaller than a pencil eraser and fully spheroid, so it must be rubbing the eyeball, which would definitely explain the eyegunk. Our vet mentioned this procedure as kind of a "while we're at it" deal alongside a dental cleaning, our dog's first. What's making me extra leery is that my mother's childhood dog went under to have a tooth pulled and never woke up out of anesthesia. This was forty years ago, but that just means I've been hearing about it my whole life, and this horror story has been lurking just beneath the surface whenever (adult/senior) dogs and anesthesia are mentioned in the same breath. I understand there are risks to any surgical procedure, but I would very much appreciate it if a goon in the know could set me straight and hopefully set my mind at ease while they're at it. Thanks in advance.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:17
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 21:21 |
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Anesthesia was very, very different 40 years ago. Amazingly different. Obviously anesthesia is never risk-free but if your animal is fairly healthy (and it sounds like they are) then the risks are very minimal.
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Aug 11, 2015 04:23
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Thank you for this; it's very reassuring. I had reasoned that veterinary science/anesthesia had come a long way, and also that a teeth-cleaning and eyelid zap, even combined, are not as invasive as a tooth extraction--and God knows there are tons more invasive/risky procedures that are performed every day with excellent results and uneventful recovery. She's a very healthy dog otherwise (even lost the excess weight she'd been carrying), so we're reasonably sure she'll come out of it fine. We'll make the appointment this week. Thanks again.
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Aug 17, 2015 01:02
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I'm a surgical tech at a veterinary surgical referral practice and can confirm that while it does occasionally happen, it is extremely rare for an otherwise healthy animal to just up and die under anesthesia, especially for a procedure as relatively quick and minor as what you're describing. In the couple thousand procedures I've been involved in, I can recall one, maybe two where it's happened, and even those were most likely due to an underlying issue that no one knew about. That said, my own dog is in today for a dental cleaning and I'm climbing the walls in my house waiting for the phone call that she's awake and recovered from anesthesia, so it is totally normal and understandable to have a healthy anxiety over it. 
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Aug 19, 2015 14:15
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My oldest Dane, Sage, had to have a similar lesion taken off last year. It ended up being a type of slow growing cancer, so I was very glad I had it removed. She did great with the surgery, despite being an 11 year old Dane, and even had her teeth cleaned while she was under. No problems with sedation, unlike when the lovely vet I used to take her to almost killed her when she was spayed. As long as you've got a good vet, everything should come out fine.
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Aug 20, 2015 20:18
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Our vet is older, which is both encouraging (she's got a lot of experience!) and a little nervous-making (will she be up on the latest techniques?). But we will definitely go through with it, especially hearing that the lesion could potentially be cancerous. We still haven't gotten around to making the appointment, but we will, I swear!
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Aug 20, 2015 21:25
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My Lab just had two tumors removed from his eyelids. He is also ten, and epileptic. The surgery was quick and he was back to normal the second he got home. I am sure you've picked a good vet and everything will go fine!
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Aug 22, 2015 00:16
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All of your replies have been so helpful and encouraging; thank you very much. Our pup is booked for eyelid surgery on Tuesday morning, with a teeth-cleaning while she's out. I'll report here afterward. Again, thank you!
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Aug 22, 2015 01:44
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She's home! Home and exhausted. They recommended a collar to keep her from scratching at her eye, and while that is guaranteed comedy gold, we've set it aside until we actually see her pawing at her incision. (She had a hard enough time maneuvering into and out of the car, poor thing.) Everyone at the vet's office said she did great. Thank you all again for your reassuring replies, and may all of your pets be healthy and happy companions for a good long time.
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Aug 25, 2015 23:02
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Yay! Hey, if you are talking about an anti-chew/scratch collar, the typical Cone of Shame...when my dog needed one, she was such a clod I knew she'd be running the damned thing into everything. I looked for an alternative and found this video that suggested using a regular towel folded up instead, and it worked like a charm. The only thing I changed was that I took a length of cardboard from a packing box and wrapped the towel around it (just to reinforce it a bit) and used packing tape to secure the wrapped towel instead of a belt. USPS Prioroty Mail tape in fact, it worked great.  Here's the video I watched to learn how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pszNSfn7lzc My dog was comfortable, could eat, drink and move normally--just couldn't chew or lick the spot on her tail where she had her wound (she got a spider bite on the underside of her little tail stub, of all places). And she didn't destroy the house with her Cone of Shame! Bonus pic of Dusty in her pretty aqua just-leave-it-loving-ALONE collar: 
Velvet Sparrow fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Aug 29, 2015 |
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Aug 29, 2015 23:30
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Velvet Sparrow posted:Yay! I'll have to remember that if Stanzie has any more surgeries. It turns out she hasn't rubbed her eye on the carpet or tried to scratch at it like we thought she would, so the Cone of Shame came off pretty quickly. As you point out, it gets in the dog's way and can be a real PITA for the owners, too.
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Aug 30, 2015 03:46
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Your dog's safety is worth that pain in the rear end for them and for you. But cones of shame are not fully infalliable. Make sure it really blocks her off. We put one on KD in 2013 when she was healing up from Amy's grand treachery and she managed to wriggle it just right so she could pluck the staples out of herself. I generally wouldn't trust a towel. VS likely has a notion of how tight to make it, but wrapping poo poo around your dog's neck if you aren't 100% sure what you're doing is likely to result in another vet bill.
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Aug 30, 2015 09:20
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:Your dog's safety is worth that pain in the rear end for them and for you. But cones of shame are not fully infalliable. Make sure it really blocks her off. We put one on KD in 2013 when she was healing up from Amy's grand treachery and she managed to wriggle it just right so she could pluck the staples out of herself. I was really skeptical and leery of the towel collar at first too, but I followed the instructions in the video (made sure I could get my fingers between the towel and Dusty's neck so she wouldn't strangle for instance, and asked my vet for his blessing on the thing) and watched her like a hawk--she was in the house anyway to heal and we were home 24/7--and we never had any problems with it. She ended up wearing it for several days, we'd take it off from time to time for short intervals to make sure it wasn't harming her and to let her move normally for a bit. But she could wear it safely and comfortably, especially at night. It really did work amazingly well! 'Grand treachery', heheh...
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Aug 30, 2015 22:41
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Velvet Sparrow posted:I was really skeptical and leery of the towel collar at first too, but I followed the instructions in the video (made sure I could get my fingers between the towel and Dusty's neck so she wouldn't strangle for instance, and asked my vet for his blessing on the thing) and watched her like a hawk--she was in the house anyway to heal and we were home 24/7--and we never had any problems with it. She ended up wearing it for several days, we'd take it off from time to time for short intervals to make sure it wasn't harming her and to let her move normally for a bit. But she could wear it safely and comfortably, especially at night. It really did work amazingly well! I don't doubt that you're able to do it. I'm saying we probably shouldn't encourage the lurkers who'll find this in eight years to do it because then there will be some hollerin PI thread goin "my dog's head exploded and it's all PI's fault!" and it'll link here and nobody will have archives.
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Aug 31, 2015 02:20
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Hey, look at it this way: if their dog's head explodes, they'll have a towel to clean it up with.
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Aug 31, 2015 08:55
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Velvet Sparrow posted:Hey, look at it this way: if their dog's head explodes, they'll have a towel to clean it up with. Hey look at it this way: if the dog dies lol funny jokes because you told someone to do something that is for farm level- medium kinda people and that lurker doesn't even know they should go to the vet because their dog has a limp. I wouldn't tell you where to get off about chickens, but this is stupid as hell and dangerous to people who don't know what they're doing. You can tell them how tight to put it on as much as you want but without actually being able to show them properly in person, man, don't tell people to wrap poo poo around dog necks. Just use the e-collar. At least that poo poo breaks if the dog flails and is in danger. Fluffy Bunnies fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Sep 1, 2015 |
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Sep 1, 2015 15:07
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Wow....yeah, ok. Not doing this.
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Sep 1, 2015 23:47
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:Hey look at it this way: if the dog dies lol funny jokes because you told someone to do something that is for farm level- medium kinda people and that lurker doesn't even know they should go to the vet because their dog has a limp. It was a joke and she wasn't disagreeing with you. We're allowed to make jokes here, remember?
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Sep 3, 2015 03:13
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 21:21 |
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what kind of nerd dog gets eyelid surgery, harden the gently caress up princess dog.
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Sep 3, 2015 13:34
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