Lump on Tail :o(

[Katherine]

Crunchie is on another course of antibiotics - 10 days this time and a different kind.
He said if this doesnt work then he will have to remove the lump by sugery.
Fingers crossed the antibiotics work.

[CurlyCatz]

sounds awful 

yep lucky dog i'd say, its clearly very loved.

[Millys Mum]

They couldnt amputate as it was some kind of bacteria that had eaten its way upto the stomach    good on the people for stumping up the cash tho, many wouldnt even try. That episode is what made me look into insurance 

[CurlyCatz]

i can imagine, maybe it was life or death if hind limbs were involved but something that can be removed i dont think i would put my animals through several surgeries at that type of cost

I'm sure also i have heard skin transplant humans saying its very sore, or maybe with where they "razor" off the donor skin from ?

[Millys Mum]

I saw a tv prog do a graft on a horse, they rolled the skin out over and over to make a mesh but they had to keep it the right way up or the hair would have grown upside down! 

There was also a dog who had grafts on a back leg, it took several surgeries to get it to heal all over and the people spent £10,000!!

[CurlyCatz]

eeeek horses legs and skin , yes i know about that LOL (not personally but from vet rounds)

I've seen a couple of VERY expensive horses although nothing as fancy as skin grafts, just mulitple weekly vets visits for a couple of months and getting the skin to gradually grow over whilst applying stuff to deter granulation tissue from growing over as that isnt good on the leg in horses apparently 

I also seen on tv a few months back fantastic treatment on a tendon injury where they took bone marrow, spun it down to retrieve stem cells and injected them into the tendon, the stem cells grow as they tissue type around them so in this case tendon cells and the injury totally healed whereas had it not had that fancy treatment its competition and possibly riding life was over.  Amazing what they can do 

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

I once saw a skin graft on a horse. The graft was needed because an injury to the leg refused to grow back. On a horse, the only spare skin is in the area just under the end of the neck, between the legs. It was carried out by a Vet college and was completely successful... but then again, it was an expensive horse. 

[CurlyCatz]

no their balance doesnt particularily seem to be affected, perhaps they are just good at compensating.

pinkbear no i dont think skin grafts are feasible in pets, atleast they arent common place and certainly not by "normal" vet practices.  I havent heard of them being done as such in university hospitals but i couldnt say that for sure.  If you think about human skin grafts where in general fur isnt a problem they still have to be highly clean and surgical and takes lots of specialised  care to make them "hold" even then as far as i know there can be fairly high chances of breakdowns, (i'm no expert on that of course but is what i believe to be the case from anything i've read/seen on telly etc)
Also in animals they are fortunate enough to normally have "spare" skin which is really handy but that doesnt extend on the tail and wheather its cat or dog these types of ops can always be tricky. (have to say its more common in dogs than it is in cats)

[Katherine]

hehe
I laughed a little bit, oops

[blackcat]

yes, it doesn't seem to bother them. It is mainly the aesthetic impact - that and they tend to spend time licking the floor when they run out of tail unexpectedly when grooming (never laugh)

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

Katherine, I had a cat who lost a tail - they manage fine. 

Lynn - are skin grafts not feasible in cats, then?

[Katherine]

( she has such a beautiful tail.
Can they balance ok without them?

[CurlyCatz]

thats makes it even harder then as less skin.

Keep us posted that it can be resolved, but even if the very worse happened cats do really well with tail amps, but hopefully it wont come to that.

 

[Katherine]

Thanks
Yes its about 2/3s the way down towards the body end.

[CurlyCatz]

where abouts on the tail is it ? I'd expect it to be just down from the tail base on the thicker part of the tail ?

its true sebaceous gland cyst then they can be a pain, also very hard to remove as the vet said due to lack of skin.  Depending on how big it is you could press them to try and remove it.  They may be able to put very loose stitches in and dress it to allow secondary healing where granulation tissue will eventually fill the void.  THis would mean a buster collar for a reasonable length of time.  Ive seen it done though. the thing to do would be to try and get it all under control and reduce the size as much as possible, possibly anti inflammatorys then to tackle the surgery.

Its a pity they didnt remove it a year ago but these things can go either way really.

[Katherine]

Hi
I havent posted for ages but maybe some of you will remember me.
I am a bit worried and just after any advice anyone has.
Crunchie has had a lump on her tail for about a year, I took her to the vet when it first appeard and he said it was probably a cyst and if it wasnt causing her any pain then to leave it. It has not changed at all until about 2 weeks ago when it started to weep fluid, it still wasnt causing her pain but I took her to vet and he said it was infected cyst and put her on antibiotics.(After squeezing out a load of pus - not nice!)
It seemed to be getting better but yesterday started weeping again and this time is painful, she wont let me near it.
I will take her to vets again but am worried he might want to amputate her tail or something awful like that. He said last time if it was anywhere else on the body he would take the cyst off but that there isnt enough skin on the tail to do that and sew it back up.
Katherine