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You may find your dog has a fungal infection which causes similar symptoms. Not having blood in the nasal discharge is a good sign so be positive, and it will only be when you have an xray or scan that you will know what you are looking at.
As expected, her health is in a steep decline. For a while she seemed to be fine (with sneezing and whatnot)...but she is having a very hard time breathing especially now since the tumor is growing rapidly....It's actually now the size of a baseball and is moving towards her left eye. Everytime in the morning when she wakes up (only happening recently) she is bleeding out of her left eye. We don't think she can see much out of it at all...
She is super thin as well...doesn't want to eat much because she either chokes on the food or it's just too hard to breath because she cannot breath from her nose anymore. She's a black lab (picture posted earlier in this forum) and it's sooo hard to see her not being a black lab! (aka. lover of food). Because of her gradual weight loss...she's losing muscle mass as well and her back legs keep giving out on her. I'm pretty certain this will be her last year with us.
I only known her for 6 years, and she is my boyfriend's dog...but it's so easy to fall in love with her. I guess my next post will be a memorial...
It is so sad to read this but maybe it is time to make the decision to end her suffering. When the quality has gone out of Pixies life I will not ask her to endure anymore pain and suffering. I kept my old Sharpei alive even though I could see he was not enjoying life, I just did not want to part with him. My vet took control and said, 'I am going to put this poor old man out of his misery' and I should have done it a week earlier. It is so hard for us owners who love our dogs so much.
I just recently found your forum here because I am totally in shock that my mixed-beagle is celebrating her 16th birthday shortly. About a year ago June 2011, Ashley was starting to develop what I thought was sinus problems. She used to get these all the time in the summer here in Seattle and I thought it was normal. Well fast forward to September 2011, on a hot day for Seattle 85+ and I wake up to her bleeding from her right nostril. I quickly rush her to her normal Vet (Atlantic Vet Clinic here in Seattle), they do the blood work and such and within one day the results come back that it's possible cancer.
The new owner of the clinic (Dr. Monahan taking over for Dr. Batinger who ran it for 31 years), immediately referred me to the VCA Animal Clinic in Lynnwood and specifically to Dr. Polly Pederson. Within 2 days of her bleeding, I had her at the VCA getting a CT scan of her brain. The worst was realized, she has mast cell cancer in her nose that just encroached on her brain, thus making her bleed. Dr. Pederson and team went in and "de-bulked" as much cancer as they could to make her breath again out of that nostril. The doctor said it appears that the cancer maybe growing moderately and that Ashley will have to come back and have further de-bulking.
Dr. Monahan said in these cases, most dogs live about 2 months, but Dr. Pederson was a bit more optimistic at between 2-5 months. So after 90 days, Ashley's breathing got worse and more surgery was needed. No other side effects were happening though and one in particular (seizures) were simply not happening even though I was told they were going to happen very shortly. At Christmastime 2011, she went in for a third surgery 2 months after the second and then...nothing, she just simply does well for quite a while. She must have thought I was crazy because I was loving her to death every moment of every day, almost to the point of being excessive (LOL), even more than I normally do.
Her energy and her appetite was still stong, her eyesight started going downhill at 13 but didn't seem to get worse and her hearing crashed at 14, but she still maintained about half her hearing. I kept calling both Vets asking them if this is normal and they were both amazed. The comment from both of them was, "I love being wrong". The worst part of her life was her back legs that started to go because of her age. The Rimadyl though takes very good care of that. In fact, it almost makes her into a puppy and she needs to realize that she isn't one anymore.
After talking to the doctors and their staff at both Vet offices, they concluded that many things are working in Ashley's favor...#1 diet - she ate Science Diet Lite half her life until I changed her to Nutro Senior dogs at 8. #2 exercise - she has daily gotten at least a 1 mile walk since she was a puppy (she has maintained a weight of between 44-46lbs since she was 3). #3 Vet care - this dog has cost me a fortune but who cares, right? She's my child and I will pay anything to make sure she is fine. The greatest thing was to have her teeth cleaned once a year by the Vet and then I brush them at least once a week. Her gums still don't bleed. #4 love - corny but true...best medicine of all.
A month ago I noticed she started to sniffle again and I thought it may be time to have some cancer removed from her nostril. Considering it's been 6 months since the last operation, she's done quite well. We both decided that a CT scan was in order just to see what is happening to this cancer. The scan did show that it has doubled in the 10 months since the first operation but it was growing in the center of her brain which most dogs don't use (the creative area). Her 4th operation was harder for her this time and had much more bleeding, however now over a week later...she seems fine again and totally recovered.
When I had brought her in, the vet tech couldn't believe it, she said her longevity for surviving this cancer was off the charts. When I left, Dr. Pederson didn't want to give me a new time range of life expectancy and just left me with some simple words, "You were given a gift, love her even more each day you have her". Believe me, I can't wait to get home from work each day and see her, spend time with her and my other dog who is 15 and also having issues. At this rate, I am sure both will go at once. No matter what happens, I can't thank modern Vet technology enough as well the wonderful food out there. I will take credit for the love and exercise.
I hope this nice story serves as some hope to other people. Cancer isn't an immediate death sentence in animals anymore, as it isn't in humans anymore. New technology is keeping our animals alive a lot longer, however it's still up to us to keep them healthy with diet and exercise and most of all, realize when something is wrong and get them into the Vet as soon as possible.
A quick update on Ziggy, who is still with us. I managed to decrease his Prednisone to 1 mg--one-half pill in the morning for the month of June. He is presenting with some swallowing difficulties from time to time, so I have increased the Prednisone to 2 mg now--half a pill in the morning and another at night. We have kept him mostly inside during the hot weather, and he likes to sleep on the downstairs bathroom floor directly in front of the AC vent. Every day is precious with him. The bleeding seems to be less, and I am getting the impression since he snorted out the big polyp-type tumor on June 1 that the tumor may be hanging down the back part of his sinus because he had quite a bout of reverse sneezing after eating a few days ago and now that sneezing is very minimal. So perhaps he continues to shed the tumor by swallowing it. The Prednisone seems to help quite a bit, although we are not fond of the side effects. Some days are good and some are questionable. The heat wave in the midsection of the country was truly awful, and if Ziggy didn't not have AC to cool him, I think he would have died. We continue with his bucket list of the things he loves....mostly ice cream cups, cottage cheese, and hot dogs (for his pills).
We had to put Ziggy to sleep on July 27, 2012. The hardest part was that even though he was in a great deal of pain (our vet said if he were human he would be on morphine), he was not ready to leave us. Our vet also said he had never seen such an aggressive nasal cancer. The tumors that grew out of his one nostril and then fell out were three in number--one fell out, and had regrown in less than 10 hours! The reason they fell out is that they grew so fast and outstripped their blood supply. A couple of weeks before Ziggy died, he started bleeding from the other nostril, and you could see the tumor bulge starting near his nose by the left eyebrow. He could no longer really sleep because of the pain and had to pant to breathe, but tough Brittany that he was, he held on to be with us. We miss him dearly and have considered another dog, but Ziggy would be a tough act to follow. We look forward to seeing him at the Rainbrow Bridge....
Hello everyone...
So on August 29th, 2012, we had to put Trixie down. My boyfriend's mom decided it was time a couple of days earlier...It seemed so surreal to me.
The tumor was so large on her face, she no longer could see out of her left eye, and it was the size of a baseball. We could see it was spreading further out of her nostrils and into her right side. We also suspected it was spreading towards her brain because there were days where Trixie would stand in a spot and stare at nothing (really sad). She was also losing a lot of weight...you can see her spine and ribs poking out...not like we didn't try feeding her either! We tried feeding her food with gravy, potatoes, meat, etc on top...it got to the breaking point when she didn't eat her own food for three days...
On August 28th, my boyfriend and I went to visit his parents house to spend the time with Trixie together for the last time...we spoiled her so much! We even had her favourite supper, fried bologna! We took family photos (to Trixie's dismay she had to stay put in a spot for longer than five minutes)...but it was a good goodbye...
The next day I left work earlier to spend time with Trixie and my boyfriend's mom. The guys had a really hard time dealing with the situation, so we thought it was just us going to put her to sleep. The drive on the way to the vet was really hard, but Trixie was actually behaving! (she always whined every time she went in a car ride) It was 4pm, so the vet office was not as busy as usual...they let us in a room and we had to wait for the vet to come inside...
The whole process was very hard to watch, but we knew it was time to let her go...Trixie gave a little sigh before she went to the Rainbow Bridge...she knew it was time and she seemed happy to know that.
She will be forever missed and I will never know a lab as great as she was. I love you Trixie.
Here's a digital painting I did of her after we put her to sleep...she was beautiful and was a perfect little soul.
I've read most of the pages on this thread. Some posts made me cry, some made me smile, some inspirational, all were appreciated. I love the pics of all the beautiful pups! I'm comforted knowing I don't have to go thru this alone. All of your stories are touching. I'm so glad to have come upon this site!
Around 3 months ago, my 9 (?) yr old Great Pyrenees Winnie began sneezing one afternoon. I noticed she was laying in a puddle of blood under her head. I realized it was her nose, left nostril. She seemed ok, so I helped get the bleeding down. It was on a Saturday afternoon and the vet had just closed. We talked to someone on the phone and they said it could be anything from an object in her nose, an abscessed tooth, trauma...and to bring her in Monday. She looked much better, no blood, and they gave her her shots. They sent us on our way.
Approx 3 weeks later it happened again. She felt fine, but what a mess! Got the blood under control and it only lasted a day. A month after that, she was sneezing again and it barely bled at all.
This past weekend was pretty bad. She looked like she didn't feel well. She had a lump under her left eye and her left nostrill was bleeding again. I felt so bad for her. I figured it was just a cold and gave her benedryl. She was breathing heavy, sometimes it sounded like Darth Vador. She would sleep with her head up, she'd sound like she was snoring while barely awake...I felt so bad for her. She didn't want to eat until I tried a can instead of her regular dry kibble. She loved it! I began googling to find out anything I could. I read about tooth abscess and figured that was probably it because Sunday morning the lump under the eye was gone. Her right nostril began to bleed but I felt so much better. She was still bleeding Monday morning when I took her to the vets but seemed to be feeling sooo much better. I wasn't prepared to hear what the Dr said.
The vet said her teeth looked fine, and if it were a tooth she'd probably have blood in her mouth as well, and that her breathing wouldn't be so affected. She was fairly convinced it was a nasal tumor. She told me about diagnostic tests, xrays, treatments and the high costs. I asked if we could try an antibiotic just for kicks. I asked about pain medication and they didn't think it would be necessary. I called back a few days later after reading these posts. They agreed to prescribe her Piroxicam and I'd have to wait a few days for it to be compounded. They called me today to say that it comes in a human version and it might be cheaper to go thru my own pharmacist. Winnie is 95 lbs and the human version isn't compounded. All I can think about is how much this might cost. I know when I've been without insurance, my rx has been hundreds of dollars per month. Does anyone know how much it costs to buy this at a regular pharmacy? It might very well be cheaper to fill at the vets.
Winnies left eye is now leaking a yucky yellow color but the nosebleed stopped several days ago. The noisy breathing is off and on, and when it's on it's very upsetting for me to hear. She's eating her regular kibble just fine. She seems herself, her activity level seems normal for a 9yr old big dog.
I feel so sad. She's such a sweetie. I know the sneezing must be uncomfy.
What have you guys paid for piroxicam? My girl is almost 100 lbs and I'm sure it depends on he dosage.
I'm sorry all of us were brought together this way, but it's sure nice to know I'm not alone.
Cathy, Piroxicam is Feldene and it is VERY expensive - like $3/tablet or something. It is a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory; is there any chance your vet could give you something less expensive? I'm not exactly sure by what you mean when you say the human version is not compounded - I have a pharmacist spouse who isn't around right now to give me the benefit of years of wisdom :-)
Check with Kroger, Walgreen's, etc. A lot of them are handling vet meds now and I'd bet that would be cheaper than the veterinarian, but Winnie may get the same relief with another medication. Our vet has always been very accommodating if there was anything else in the same class that would give the same benefit, but not break the bank.
I'm so sorry - I know it is hard to receive the information you never wanted to hear....but I also wanted to say the pictures are great and your girl is just beautiful!
First my sympathies for both Ziggy and Trixie . It is never easy saying good bye to a dog we dearly love yet it is something many of us are willing to do over and over again because of the love and friendship they give when they are here with us.
Wish I could remember what I paid for the piroxicam but it has been a couple years now, I had it compounded at a human pharmacy ( There was only one in town that could do that) a couple times as Dash was only about 4Olbs and then I got it from one of the online pet pharmacies but I do not recall which one it was. While it was not cheap I was not over whelmed by the price but the oncologist wanted blood work every month because of it which my own vet did as he did it cheaper then the clinic where the oncologist was and my own vet felt that was overkill to be doing blood work so frequently as that did add to the cost of using the drug.
The piroxicam was not being used for comfort but rather as an anti -angiogenic drug and I am not sure if they are using any of the other nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs for that or not. In 2008 it was the drug of choice for such. The comfort that came with its use was a bonus as Dash had been getting stiff and after being on it awhile he was running like a pup again.
Winnie is indeed a beautiful dog and I am truly sorry to see she may be facing the same fate as Dash and all the others here. My current dogs and I will be walking in one of the 2 Million Dogs "Puppy Up" dog walks next month to rasie money for canine cancer. We will do it in honor of Dash and all the other dogs here who have met his fate.
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Ashley - My Amazing Kiddo
Ziggy
