SCC/Stomatitis update-new diagnosis:parotid gland tumour
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:07 pm
4th October: biopsy results are back and it’s not good news. Lulu has a malignant tumour in her parotid gland(adenocarcinoma I think).. It’s already spread beyond the parotid, causing pressure behind her eye and limiting her jaw movements...she lost 250grammes in the last week, so now weighs 4.65kg, which may sound ok but she’s lost 2 kilos! She is a huge bagpuss looking cat! She is having problems opening her mouth, looking like she’s in pain when she tries to yawn. The vet agrees that the kindest thing for her is to pts...vet will come tomorrow afternoon and make her a fully fledged angel. She’s such a sweet cat...going to miss you baby girl
..Hi cat family. I have a 11-14 year old, female, spayed, vaccinated rescue cat, that I adopted 3 years ago. She has had ongoing respiratory and skin issues, plus gingivitis all the time I’ve had her. We think she is probably a calici/herpes carrier, with flare ups several times a year, which are treated with steroid inhaler, antibiotics and depot injections when necessary. 3 months ago, I noticed that she always had food around the right side of her lips and on closer inspection, I could see that the upper canine was biting into her lower lip, near where she’d had the lower canine removed 2 years ago. It looked like food was accumulating in this pocket...she also was showing ‘food approach-avoidance’, wanting to eat, but letting out a cry and running away from her food bowl, so off to the vet it was. The vet examined her mouth and said she had severe gingivitis around quite a few back teeth as well, and suspected she need several back teeth removing as well as taking the front canine and the piece of inflamed lip. My cat Lulu has always had inflamed gums, which I now know may be related to her being a carrier. So, after the surgery she recovered slowly, having had 6 teeth removed as well, although her gums still looked inflamed. I was told they would send a sample of the sore patch for testing, although I was never told the result...assumed it was ok, or that they’d ‘forgotten’ due to dental proving more difficult than anticipated-apparently they found it hard to differentiate between root and bone, plus they didn’t have dental X-ray, so only warned me some roots were left in. I didn’t think much of it, until her gums started flaring up again within 3 weeks, accompanied by her exhibiting the same symptoms as before...she was scared of the food bowl, pawing at her right cheek, making weird mouth movements,( like she was yawning but found it difficult to open her jaw wide enough) and hiding. I took her back to the vet, who said she had a swelling on the top gum/jaw, right at the back and it looked like some pieces of broken retained roots were protruding through the lower gums, causing upper gum to become inflamed, therefore she would need another dental ASAP to remove any root fragments in the gum. I was going on holiday the next day, so asked if it needed to be done whilst I was away, or could it wait 3/4 weeks...I was so upset! The vet said she would give her antibiotics and meticam and as long as she was eating it could wait, but she would need to be referred to another vet for surgery as she would need dental X-rays-I’d never ever realised that my vet didn’t have dental X-ray! My mum looked after Lulu whilst I was away, giving me daily updates and said she was eating well and improving each day. So, now we are up to 4 weeks ago, when I was back home and made an appointment to reassess the situation and figure out referral. She had stopped eating again within a couple of days of me getting home. It was at this time that I started thinking she may have stomatitis and that the retained root fragments and teeth were being attacked by her body. I found a local vet with dental X-ray and made appointment for the following week, giving me time to take her back to original vet, hoping to get more antibiotic and maybe more meticam, plus get her records sent over to new vet. So, we went to the original vet practice, though different vet, on the Thursday, where I explained everything again and said we had appointment for following Tuesday, but I felt she needed something to help with possible infection and pain, just until she could have the root fragments removed. The vet gave her an injection of depot medrol, which I later found out was going to complicate her next dental! He didn’t give an antibiotic.Lulu didn’t improve by the Saturday, so I took her to the new vet and asked if they could help. It was this vet who said he thought her dental and respiratory issues were all connected to calici virus and she would need full mouth extraction to stop her body attacking the plaque/remaining teeth. He also said the depot medrol would complicate things as it would delay healing and make it harder for her to fight infection, due to it suppressing the immune system, but she needed the dental and couldn’t afford to wait the 6 weeks he would of liked to wait, for the drug to get out of her system. He also said she couldn’t be given the usual pain meds either, due to this depot medrol, which was another negative. She couldn’t even have the meticam. So, the next Tuesday Lulu was admitted for 2nd dental in 2 months. Again, I was warned healing would take longer and she couldn’t have the painkillers they’d usually give, so gave her something different. This dental took place about 3 weeks ago. She did seem to take longer to heal than the first time and still seemed to be in some discomfort, making weird faces, avoiding food, and me by this point, and her weight continued to go down.I have been taking her back to the vet about 2 x weekly for follow up, giving her an appetite stimulate weekly and 2 weekly antibiotic injection.On Friday the vet examined her gums and said they were mostly healing, but still not as well as she’d like, particularly on the upper right side. I said she still wasn’t eating, but vet thought this was most likely due to her respiratory issues having flared up, probably due to stress, saying if she can’t smell then that could stop her eating. I said it doesn’t normally affect her appetite-her normal weight was over 6kg, though she was now down to 5kg! The vet ordered in some Lysine and gel for me to apply to her gums, hoping that would help, again saying she would’ve liked to give her anti inflammatory but previous depot made this risky. Another appetite stimulant given also. I picked up the gel on Monday and decided I’d start it on Tuesday, yesterday, as she was hiding under the bed all evening. Yesterday, I got everything ready, wrapped her in a blanket and attempted to apply the gel to her gums....however, I noticed a fair amount of blood on my finger and stopped as I was scared I was hurting her. I rang vet and made appointment for yesterday evening, checking on Lulu regularly to ensure bleeding had stopped, which it had quickly. I took gel to appt and asked vet to show me how she’d apply it, thinking I may of done something wrong...I told vet that she still wasn’t bouncing back and now hated me! The vet started to apply the gel and the bleeding started again, quite a lot, like you’d expect from pulling a tooth! The vet managed to settle it but cannot understand why she just started bleeding. The vet has previously cleaned out food from around the stitches, without the gums bleeding. It looks like there is an angry patch on right upper jaw, really far back, and the blood appears to be coming from there, though hard to see properly. The vet has booked Lulu in for a GA tomorrow, so she can have a better look and take a biopsy of the gum tissue. The vet thinks this sore patch is too far back to be connected to her recent dental and the word ‘cancer’ has been mentioned... I’m so upset that my fur baby is having to suffer like this and I’m hoping this sore patch is stomatitis, not scc, although I realise stomatitis is incredibly painful. Idk what to think.I’m hoping the GA goes ok and the vet is able to make my little girl more comfortable.
SORRY for such a long post! Well done and thank you, if you made it this far down the page! Any advice most welcome...or similar experiences???
UPDATE: Lulu had her GA today and vet found that she has a throat tumour. Think the tumour was aggravated during the removal of the back molars on the right side, so is now visible at the back of the mouth, maybe having spread into the root space and into the oral cavity. I’m not going to put her through further, unnecessary tests or treatment,as I know this is an aggressive tumour and have seen the devastating treatment that humans would perhaps undergo...I’ll try to make her comfortable at home for the next few days and reassess what’s in Lula’s best interest. Having her pts will be heartbreaking for me whether she’s with me another few days, weeks or months and I have to ask myself, ‘why are you keeping her alive- for her or myself?’ If she will take her pain meds in food, without me having to traumatise her by squirting liquid buprenophine and gabapentin capsules into her mouth(which she is totally stressed out by), and doesn’t appear to be in pain, then maybe I’ll give her more time, but not if she’s struggling to eat and hiding in pain...one day at a time...
..Hi cat family. I have a 11-14 year old, female, spayed, vaccinated rescue cat, that I adopted 3 years ago. She has had ongoing respiratory and skin issues, plus gingivitis all the time I’ve had her. We think she is probably a calici/herpes carrier, with flare ups several times a year, which are treated with steroid inhaler, antibiotics and depot injections when necessary. 3 months ago, I noticed that she always had food around the right side of her lips and on closer inspection, I could see that the upper canine was biting into her lower lip, near where she’d had the lower canine removed 2 years ago. It looked like food was accumulating in this pocket...she also was showing ‘food approach-avoidance’, wanting to eat, but letting out a cry and running away from her food bowl, so off to the vet it was. The vet examined her mouth and said she had severe gingivitis around quite a few back teeth as well, and suspected she need several back teeth removing as well as taking the front canine and the piece of inflamed lip. My cat Lulu has always had inflamed gums, which I now know may be related to her being a carrier. So, after the surgery she recovered slowly, having had 6 teeth removed as well, although her gums still looked inflamed. I was told they would send a sample of the sore patch for testing, although I was never told the result...assumed it was ok, or that they’d ‘forgotten’ due to dental proving more difficult than anticipated-apparently they found it hard to differentiate between root and bone, plus they didn’t have dental X-ray, so only warned me some roots were left in. I didn’t think much of it, until her gums started flaring up again within 3 weeks, accompanied by her exhibiting the same symptoms as before...she was scared of the food bowl, pawing at her right cheek, making weird mouth movements,( like she was yawning but found it difficult to open her jaw wide enough) and hiding. I took her back to the vet, who said she had a swelling on the top gum/jaw, right at the back and it looked like some pieces of broken retained roots were protruding through the lower gums, causing upper gum to become inflamed, therefore she would need another dental ASAP to remove any root fragments in the gum. I was going on holiday the next day, so asked if it needed to be done whilst I was away, or could it wait 3/4 weeks...I was so upset! The vet said she would give her antibiotics and meticam and as long as she was eating it could wait, but she would need to be referred to another vet for surgery as she would need dental X-rays-I’d never ever realised that my vet didn’t have dental X-ray! My mum looked after Lulu whilst I was away, giving me daily updates and said she was eating well and improving each day. So, now we are up to 4 weeks ago, when I was back home and made an appointment to reassess the situation and figure out referral. She had stopped eating again within a couple of days of me getting home. It was at this time that I started thinking she may have stomatitis and that the retained root fragments and teeth were being attacked by her body. I found a local vet with dental X-ray and made appointment for the following week, giving me time to take her back to original vet, hoping to get more antibiotic and maybe more meticam, plus get her records sent over to new vet. So, we went to the original vet practice, though different vet, on the Thursday, where I explained everything again and said we had appointment for following Tuesday, but I felt she needed something to help with possible infection and pain, just until she could have the root fragments removed. The vet gave her an injection of depot medrol, which I later found out was going to complicate her next dental! He didn’t give an antibiotic.Lulu didn’t improve by the Saturday, so I took her to the new vet and asked if they could help. It was this vet who said he thought her dental and respiratory issues were all connected to calici virus and she would need full mouth extraction to stop her body attacking the plaque/remaining teeth. He also said the depot medrol would complicate things as it would delay healing and make it harder for her to fight infection, due to it suppressing the immune system, but she needed the dental and couldn’t afford to wait the 6 weeks he would of liked to wait, for the drug to get out of her system. He also said she couldn’t be given the usual pain meds either, due to this depot medrol, which was another negative. She couldn’t even have the meticam. So, the next Tuesday Lulu was admitted for 2nd dental in 2 months. Again, I was warned healing would take longer and she couldn’t have the painkillers they’d usually give, so gave her something different. This dental took place about 3 weeks ago. She did seem to take longer to heal than the first time and still seemed to be in some discomfort, making weird faces, avoiding food, and me by this point, and her weight continued to go down.I have been taking her back to the vet about 2 x weekly for follow up, giving her an appetite stimulate weekly and 2 weekly antibiotic injection.On Friday the vet examined her gums and said they were mostly healing, but still not as well as she’d like, particularly on the upper right side. I said she still wasn’t eating, but vet thought this was most likely due to her respiratory issues having flared up, probably due to stress, saying if she can’t smell then that could stop her eating. I said it doesn’t normally affect her appetite-her normal weight was over 6kg, though she was now down to 5kg! The vet ordered in some Lysine and gel for me to apply to her gums, hoping that would help, again saying she would’ve liked to give her anti inflammatory but previous depot made this risky. Another appetite stimulant given also. I picked up the gel on Monday and decided I’d start it on Tuesday, yesterday, as she was hiding under the bed all evening. Yesterday, I got everything ready, wrapped her in a blanket and attempted to apply the gel to her gums....however, I noticed a fair amount of blood on my finger and stopped as I was scared I was hurting her. I rang vet and made appointment for yesterday evening, checking on Lulu regularly to ensure bleeding had stopped, which it had quickly. I took gel to appt and asked vet to show me how she’d apply it, thinking I may of done something wrong...I told vet that she still wasn’t bouncing back and now hated me! The vet started to apply the gel and the bleeding started again, quite a lot, like you’d expect from pulling a tooth! The vet managed to settle it but cannot understand why she just started bleeding. The vet has previously cleaned out food from around the stitches, without the gums bleeding. It looks like there is an angry patch on right upper jaw, really far back, and the blood appears to be coming from there, though hard to see properly. The vet has booked Lulu in for a GA tomorrow, so she can have a better look and take a biopsy of the gum tissue. The vet thinks this sore patch is too far back to be connected to her recent dental and the word ‘cancer’ has been mentioned... I’m so upset that my fur baby is having to suffer like this and I’m hoping this sore patch is stomatitis, not scc, although I realise stomatitis is incredibly painful. Idk what to think.I’m hoping the GA goes ok and the vet is able to make my little girl more comfortable.
SORRY for such a long post! Well done and thank you, if you made it this far down the page! Any advice most welcome...or similar experiences???
UPDATE: Lulu had her GA today and vet found that she has a throat tumour. Think the tumour was aggravated during the removal of the back molars on the right side, so is now visible at the back of the mouth, maybe having spread into the root space and into the oral cavity. I’m not going to put her through further, unnecessary tests or treatment,as I know this is an aggressive tumour and have seen the devastating treatment that humans would perhaps undergo...I’ll try to make her comfortable at home for the next few days and reassess what’s in Lula’s best interest. Having her pts will be heartbreaking for me whether she’s with me another few days, weeks or months and I have to ask myself, ‘why are you keeping her alive- for her or myself?’ If she will take her pain meds in food, without me having to traumatise her by squirting liquid buprenophine and gabapentin capsules into her mouth(which she is totally stressed out by), and doesn’t appear to be in pain, then maybe I’ll give her more time, but not if she’s struggling to eat and hiding in pain...one day at a time...