Showing posts with label vet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vet. Show all posts

Monday, 8 August 2016

a new place to swim

Today Penny swam six laps at a new pool. It's at Greencross Vet Hospital at Narre Warren. For us it's quite a drive, about 50 Km each way, but well worth it if it enables Penny to stay in good health.

I think she could have swum more, but I thought we'd see how she pulls up after the exercise. It's evening now and so far so good.

The pool's not as fancy as the lovely one at Kepala, but the guy there said this new pool uses very little in the way of chemicals in the water, so that's a plus. I was also impressed that the use of a dryer was included in the price.




Saturday, 8 June 2013

clipper causes skin rash after surgery for lipoma

I hope you'll forgive me for yet another post about Penny's surgery, but I thought our experience might be useful information for other people deciding whether to go for this option if their dog has a lump.

We visited the vet for a check-up today, four days after the surgery, and the wound looked swollen around the stitches, which the vet said was 'serum' around the wound. It might have been the result of Penny's activity since the operation. We'll take it even more quietly for a few days until the wound is not swollen-looking. On the other hand, Penny has mostly been resting and we only go out to toilet a few times a day, on lead.

The ghastly-looking redness around the wound was most likely a rash from the clippers used to remove her coat around the site for surgery. Here's the photo from a few days ago:


 and today it is much less sore-looking:

In this photo you can see that there is no stitch at one end of the cut. The vet said he left this open in case the wound needed to drain.

Whilst reading up  for this post, I've come across a really good article at The Kerry Blue Terrier Foundation, dealing with the question of whether or not to have surgery for a lipoma.

The article discusses the pros and  cons, gives lots of case studies, and talks about other possibilities than surgery, including:
watch and wait
no treatment
liposuction
injection of collagenaze
weight loss, diet and exercise
acupressure
herbal medicines
homeopathy (not much success reported)
aromatherapy

One thing I was glad to read was that modern anaesthesia means that it should be safe for even an older dog to undergo surgery for a lipoma. I must admit this was highest in my list of worries when  we opted for surgery.