My whippet needs my help...

& i need help to help her. :flowers:

Hello. My name is Ray & i have an 11 year old whippet bitch, she's a lovely girl, brindle/blonde & has had 4 previous homes. I have had her since she was 7.

At that age she had not been spayed & so i had her spayed. Shortly after the op' she developed a small cluster of lumps (The size of gun shot) near the healed wound, on her left side at the rear of her rib cage. My vet did not comment other than to say it could be some residual tissue.

Moving on 3-4 years the lumps had slowly grown & were still growing albeit still slowly & there were more apearing toward the top of the left leg.

I took her to a different vet who advised me to have them examined & removed if they hadn't spread any deeper than near the surface.

I should add that thus far the condition of the dog was otherwise very good & the lumps never did appear to bother her.

I took the decision to go with the operation because i feared the problem would worsten. The vet xrayed her & confirmed he was willing to perform the op' & there was no sign of further/deeper growth... & so i agreed.

OK, following the op' she was very good, full appetite, energetic & bright. She healed well & after a few weeks i was able to let her off the lead again & she was looking very good & as mad as ever, i was happy.

Moving on the the current issue then.....A week or so later there was an open cut where the stitches were. I bathed it & treated it like any cut but it wouldn't heal. I returned her to the vet again & it turns out that it wasn't a cut, but ulcer & then more ulcers appeared. These are at the top of the front left leg at the armpit ! (I'm sorry, that's the best description i can give, armpit >_< )

Weeks have passed & the ulcers reached a point where they are not getting worse but they are also showing no signs of healing, very stubborn. There are further ulcers now on the outside of her shoulder & left side of throat although those are not as raw.

She has had 2x 10 day courses of antibiotics & is still on pain killers daily.

I have been using manuka honey, an animal formulated/thick syrup, trying aloe vera & anything else that i think might help but these things are very stubborn.

It pains me to see her suffer with this soreness. I accept that this is related to something more sinister, probably lymphoma & that one day i will have to make that horrid decision but right now she is only suffering with localalized soreness & so i am looking for remedies that i have not thought of. If anyone has any ideas or has seen the same thing in their own animal before i am open to suggestions & ideas. It's for the animal, not me.

Thankyou all.

Ray.

Hi Ray. Your poor little girl. Well it does sound you have been doing your very best. The only thing I can suggest is give Ainsworths Homeopathic Pharmacy a call. 020 7935 5330 and just ask advice for a whippet, they usually have someone who specialises in animals, they have helped me in the past.....I am a great believer in homeopathy and have treated my whippets very successfully over the years. Depending where you live there is a excellent vet outside Chichester Mark Elliott he also does Homeopathy. Good luck with her.

Poor thing ..i dont know where you live but there is also a fantastic holistic vet in Babbinswood oswestry.http://www.vetholistic.co.uk/.

Thankyou folks. I have had tissue samples sent off for lab examination & we now suspect it could be histiocytosis, possibly systemic. Either way it's a very sore & unpleasant time for her.

Hopefully i will find out more in the coming days with a view to easing her symptoms.....Thinks on & sticks with it. :flowers:

Oh poor love. The open wounds must be so sore for her and they're such a potential risk for letting infection in as well as being painful and a sign that her immune system has gone rather wonky.

The term hystiocytosis can be used for a whole group of diseases and syndromes, so until the samples have been checked by a pathologist there's no way of knowing whether the diagnosis is good news or not I'm afraid. Either way round, there is treatment, so I suppose that's good news in itself.

If you haven't done this already, can I suggest that you get her a few t-shirts that fit quite tightly around her torso? If you change them daily and launder them carefully with disinfectant they can be very helpful in filtering out bits of dirt that could otherwise get into the ulcers, and they're very good for tucking dressings into and the like, and it's possible that you could get standard human t-shirts with the right chest size for very little and then adapt them to fit with scissors and thread, or a clip to hold the folds which will come up behind her ribs.

I hope that the news is good, when you get it

An update then.

The test results have come back & the verdict is that it is in fact the cancer (lymph) & an aggressive one too. This is what we thought before the idea of histiocytosis was offered & so we are back where we started but with a further advanced condition.

I feel better knowing a more definitive answer however unpleasant it sounds, better to know. I've been advised that there isn't anything they/we can do for it apart from cleaning the ulcers & making her as comfortable as possible.

That, of course is the treatment up until she appears to decline & then well, i think you know the rest.

All i can add is this. We took this dog freely & she had been to 4 previous homes. She was 7 years old then, hadn't been spayed & was insecure & neurotic. She is 11 now & we have given her 4 years of affection, training, engagement, excersize & good quality food. She improved & became more confident & happier.

I know that she is not the only dog to have been this unfortunate with her health but when i look at her time with us here i can honestly say that we did our very best by her & i think that is all we can do for any dog. No regrets, just an unfortunate infliction & it would have got her regardless of where she was.

Thankyou to the members here for your sentiments & input. I will now go & enjoy my whippet as much as i can, Her name is Gwen & she really is a lovely girl.

Oh Ray, that's not the sort of diagnosis that you can smile easily after, is it? I'm so sorry to hear that Gwen has such a difficult tumour.

However, as you say, as long as she's well in herself then there's no reason to take any action other than to keep the ulcers clean and treat any pain that she may have, and share in a happy life with her.

I hope that you have a good long time with her yet

Bless you Ray for giving her the best life you could. She looks beautiful and hopefully you will lots more time together x