Aowyn; Swollen Lymph Node Gland?

[ZZSW7Y]

Late yesterday I was feeling around Aowyn's rear leg and I felt a hard lump between her leg and abdomen. Best description; the armpit of her rear leg. Its pretty big and seems to have grown out of no where. After having had a mast cell removed a couple of months ago I definitely feeling a bit of trepideation that its something bad. Unfortunately the vet has been closed and the earliest to go in is tomorrow. It appears to be a swollen lymph node gland and I know she has been going crazy with allergies the last couple of weeks so it could be related to that.


She is acting just fine, plenty of energy very happy, and you would never think there was anything wrong. I am praying its nothing more than just a swollen glad.

[Charlotte K.]

May all go well with the vet check!

[POPTOP]

Hate lumps and bumps. Sending good thoughts.

[smartrock]

Hope it's just something minor!

[ZZSW7Y]

The vet visit went okay...the lump is definitely the Lymph node gland under her rear armpit. Its about 3 inches by 1 inch. So pretty big. No other lymph nodes seemed to have an abnormal size and her temperature was normal. it could be one of three things; 1- swollen due to an infection, 2 - Mast cell growth on her lymph node, or 3 - lymphoma.

So all in all pretty sucky news. She said she could do a needle aspirate but that may not be truly conclusive and a biopsy would likely be needed. Either of those options I was not comfortable with. First, i don't want to irritate it and make it worse. The first biopsy we did for the mast cell wrecked her for about 2 weeks then we had to do the surgery. For a dog that used to love going to the vet she is starting to hate it so that tells me that for a dog that is 12.5 years old that its too much. Especially since she is so very happy and acting like she is very healthy. The needle aspirate i wasn't going to do either, don't want to irritate it and cause other issues. I elected to go with a less invasive method; do a round of antibiotics and predinisone and monitor. I did notice that after giving her some rimydal last night that it seemed to be a bit less swollen, but that could be Dad just being optimistic.

After the last surgery my wife and I ruled out any further surgeries we just want to give her quality of life. I am hoping its just an infection but preparing myself for the other.

[barry581]

It's tough when they get to that age and having to make these decision. My Fannie had a mast cell tumor removed from left front armpit when she was 15. It came back with a vengence 6 months later, we made the decision to send her over the bridge with her dignity intact. Realistically she probably would had lived as long without the surgery, but you never know.

I wish you the best for many more happy days.

[ZZSW7Y]

I am not counting her out yet.

I am going to be ordering some Chinese herbs for lymphoma and we will focus on having fun. I am going to hold off on the prednisone for a couple days. I was thinking it through and that by combining the pred with the antibiotics it may make it hard to truly determine if its an infection versus lymphoma or mast cell. If i do both and it starts to shrink and go away then is it the AB or is it the pred.

[Dennis Thomas, DVM]

You appear to have made a wise decision in knowing how you want to move forward with this. I have seen many of these cases over the years and a couple of things to remember. One, the prednisone might bring the swelling down whether it is allergies or a cancerous lymph node. So, don't use the response as a definitive diagnostic tool. The fact that a mast cell tumor was removed in the area most likely suggest that it has moved to the node. Do you remember how they graded the original tumor? If the node does not go down or stay down, then all is not lost. There are many ways to help your dog such as diet modification and supplements that slow tumor growth. Might want to look into this if you have an interest. Good luck and I hope that all goes well.

[ZZSW7Y]

You appear to have made a wise decision in knowing how you want to move forward with this. I have seen many of these cases over the years and a couple of things to remember. One, the prednisone might bring the swelling down whether it is allergies or a cancerous lymph node. So, don't use the response as a definitive diagnostic tool. The fact that a mast cell tumor was removed in the area most likely suggest that it has moved to the node. Do you remember how they graded the original tumor? If the node does not go down or stay down, then all is not lost. There are many ways to help your dog such as diet modification and supplements that slow tumor growth. Might want to look into this if you have an interest. Good luck and I hope that all goes well.

Dennis, she had a sub cutaneous MCT with a MITIOTC rating of 0. The way it was explained to me is that because it was a sub cutaneous that they don't score them with a grade. My reading on them is that they don't typically spread but its possible that it did in this case. I am hoping this is all allergy related because she is a very allergy affected dog. When she was 2 we took her to a board certified dermatologist and he rated her extremely allergy prone. I am definitely going to investigate diet modification and supplements to help with slowing the growth of the tumor. I have been giving her 1 tsp of Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang twice a day. This is supposed to help with MCT growths and there is another I am looking at that is good for Lymphoma. I am also giving her a vitamin grade tummeric with her meals.

If you have other recommendations please do provide me them as I am all about prolonging her life with quality of life.

[ZZSW7Y]

Anyone know how quickly pred will affect the size of a "tumor" or swollen lymph node?

I ask because I elected to hold of giving Aowyn any pred as I wanted to see if the antibiotics the vet prescribed would impact the size. She has had three doses (3 days) of 100mg of Simplicef. I given her 3 (1 day on pred) doses of 20mg of pred starting last night, one this morning and one this evening. I checked the area and it feels as if the swollen lymph node has reduced in size about 20 percent. I don't think pred affected her MCT on her knee that much over the week plus she was on pred, and I don't remember it working that fast. I am hoping Dennis is right and this is more an allergy thing and the antibiotics are helping.

Any thoughts let me know.