Opinion on old German Shepard and limpoma

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Thekid

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Sep 18, 2014
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It might be a long shot posting this on here but I'll give it a shot.

Our German Shepard is 9 years old and has had this limpoma since the start of the summer. We had it checked out at the beginning of it all and the vet told us that it was nothing to worry about. We noticed that it had grown slightly more in July and August but we were told that it was normal and we should expect it as she grew with age. Prior to this she had a few that stayed small but nothing like this. The bump grew in small spurts up until the new year when it grew noticeably for the past two weeks. Just today she got noticeably worse for wear and it took a little bit of convincing to get her to eat.

The vet said that the two options were to leave it and watch it or we could cut it open and have it aspirated. He also said that the only other time he seen it was in a shiba inu and it was a 15 pound tumor on a 35 pound dog.

Here's a picture from today-image.jpeg
 
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Charney Charney ?
 
My Granma's dog, a terrier/lab mix developed a huge lipoma on chest, over a period of a year it grew to a grapefruit. Being an older dog they were hesitant to remove but after the removal the dog just came back to its normal self. I don't remember her refusing to eat though and looked to be more detached than the tumor on your dog..
 
very well could be a lipoma. Lipomas are typically benign growths that are common in goldens, labs and GSD. The way to know for sure it to aspirate it. The aspirate is typically just fat because that is what a lipoma is a fatty tumor. The vast amount of lipomas are benign. There are infliltrative lipomas and liposarcomas out there that are very much malignant and tend to be aggressive tumors.
If she has just a regular lipoma it should not affect her attitude or appetite. Even when they are really big its more of a cosmetic issue or less interfering with locomotion. She does not start to act better I would wonder if there is something else going on. If it is really thought to be related to the mass then I would want to find out what the mass is. hope this helps somewhat
 
Charney said:
very well could be a lipoma. Lipomas are typically benign growths that are common in goldens, labs and GSD. The way to know for sure it to aspirate it. The aspirate is typically just fat because that is what a lipoma is a fatty tumor. The vast amount of lipomas are benign. There are infliltrative lipomas and liposarcomas out there that are very much malignant and tend to be aggressive tumors.
If she has just a regular lipoma it should not affect her attitude or appetite. Even when they are really big its more of a cosmetic issue or less interfering with locomotion. She does not start to act better I would wonder if there is something else going on. If it is really thought to be related to the mass then I would want to find out what the mass is. hope this helps somewhat
Click to expand...
I went on to Reddit and opened a thread in the "askvet" subreddit where you can practicing veterinarians for their opinions and from what I was told that I have three possibly four options:
-leave it and keep an eye on it
-have it aspirated sucking up the cells with a needle
-have it cut all the way open and completely removed, but was told I should do this sooner rather than later due to the lack of tissue to close to wound.
-it was mentioned that we could antibiotics and an anti inflammatory and hope it is an infection.

She seems like she's having trouble swallowing as well. She's gone to drinking like a pigeon instead of a typical dog.
 
Thekid said:
I went on to Reddit and opened a thread in the "askvet" subreddit where you can practicing veterinarians for their opinions and from what I was told that I have three possibly four options:
-leave it and keep an eye on it
-have it aspirated sucking up the cells with a needle
-have it cut all the way open and completely removed, but was told I should do this sooner rather than later due to the lack of tissue to close to wound.
-it was mentioned that we could antibiotics and an anti inflammatory and hope it is an infection.

She seems like she's having trouble swallowing as well. She's gone to drinking like a pigeon instead of a typical dog.
Click to expand...

Then it's time to bring her in for a recheck. The mass may not be your problem.
 
Charney said:
Then it's time to bring her in for a recheck. The mass may not be your problem.
Click to expand...
She's got an appointment tomorrow. What do you think it is? All I'm finding about head tilting is talking about ear canal problems.
 
Took her to the vet this morning and it turns out that it had blood in it and they're draining then they'll have blood work done.
 
Just a little update
She got thhe lump aspirated yesterday morning and was sent home with the instructions to keep changing the bandage until bleeding stops. She was diagnosed with a blood clotting disorder when the blood work came back from last time. I stayed up with her last night changing the bandages every hour when they become saturated with blood. This morning I took her in before I went to school to have her re-evaluated and they said they would call my mom If they had any updates on her condition. They called once at 8:30 to tell us they were having trouble finding her blood pressure and that they put her on an IV and that they scheduled an appointment for eleven o'clock to decide if we were going to put her to sleep. When we went in she had a catheter in but was doing much better and we decided to not fallow through with the euthanasia. When we picked her up at 5:00 she was alert and doing better.

She still has the catheter in but is eating well and is alert but still not mobile.
When would you call an end to the fight?
Charney Charney
 
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