Paging @Petdocd

ncase2 · July 2014

@petdocd

NBR at all - we've been going round and round with our vet currently because we found out at a routine vet appointment that my dog has a polyp in her ear (either a polyp or tumor, they don't know, but they think it's a polyp). The specialist they referred us to wanted to charge enough to buy a gently used car, so that was out of the question. Now my vet is saying she can try to take it out - she's certified, she just doesn't do a lot of surgery, and it's much more reasonable.

My question is, should we even do the surgery? My dog has had allergies her whole life, and has always had ear infections - we've had to clean her ears out routinely and put ear drops in ever since she was a puppy. The vet thinks the polyp is due to the allergies, so I'm afraid we're going to go through all this only to have it come back in a few years - and we really can't afford to do this surgery more than once, even without the specialist. Any words of wisdom on this?

Also, we tried two rounds of antibiotics before coming to this point, along with cleaning her ears out and putting drops in.

Cute baby/puppy pic for your time.

huntjul · July 2014

How old is the dog?

hartsl01 · July 2014

I hope your puppy feels better soon! Also paging @wedding06 and @huntjul - they have both given me great furbaby advice and are both in the vet field.

ncase2 · July 2014

She's 5 years old @huntjul

ETA: I don't know if it makes a difference, but it's an inner-ear polyp.

huntjul · July 2014

I assume that if this was found on a routine exam that it is a polyp in the ear canal not truly in the inner ear (which isn't visible on exam).

If the dog has had chronic allergies and infections, the polyp is most likely non-cancerous--but there is no way to say this without a biopsy. However, the presence of a polyp is going to narrow the ear canal and make treating ear infections pretty tough or impossible. The risk in not taking it out is that it could continue to grow, continue to block the ear canal, and make it impossible to clean the ear or instill medication. At that point, ear canal blocked, the only surgery that will fix it is a total ear canal ablation, which is a specialist surgery and a big one at that.

The risk in taking it out you have already identified--there is a possibility that another could grow. However, this risk could be minimized by keeping the ears cleaned regularly (and by that, in an allergic dog, I mean every 1-3 days) and treating and resolving any ear infections that are present and keeping them gone. A polyp removal surgery isn't going to cure the allergies or necessarily prevent anything from growing back, but it sure is going to make the ear infections easier to treat and control.

ncase2 · July 2014

Thank you!!!!!

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