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He's actually not my Beagle, but my parents, but I grew up with him and visit him regularly. In the past 3 months he developed a growth on the upper, outer edge of one of his eyelids. It was never directly on the edge nor did it ever move inside the eyelid. It looked like a miniature brain, if you will. Pink in color with lots of cauliflower like mini growths within the overall structure (as opposed to being one smooth large continuous growth). It never seemed to cause him any pain or discomfort, but it would grow and grow until it was an inch or so long, hanging off the edge of his eye and then it would turn black and most of it would fall off by itself. But, then every 1-2 weeks it would regenerate and this cycle would replace it. He had no difficulty closing his eyes and although it was gross looking it didn't appear to interfere with his vision because it remained on the upper outer edge of his eyelid, never touching the inner edge.
When it's "fresh" in the beginning of its cycle it looks more fleshy and wet. When it's half-way through the cycle it looks dryer and more like the consistency of an eraser and when it's at the end stage, it's turned all black and crusty.
My parents' vet told them that these types of eyelid growths are very common in older dogs (Charlie's 11) and that he believed it was benign. He recommended surgery wherein the vet cut off the growth. Charlie had that surgery two weeks ago. Unfortunately, what the vet failed to make clear was that because the growth was attached to the eyelid he couldn't remove it entirely but only cut it down to as small as possible a size without damaging the eyelid.
Now, two weeks later, the growth/tumor is growing again. My Mom took him back to the vet today for his two week post-surgery visit and the vet simply peeled off the excess growth with his hands. Apparently it's just dead skin/tissue and so it didn't hurt Charlie at all to do this. But underneath still lies the "base" growth that never goes away.
The vet said the choices were:
He said with the freeze off option there's a risk of doing damage to the actual eye and/or eyelid.
I'm sure we're not the first on this forum to go through this. I feel like the vet duped my parents into spending $1k without making it clear that the surgery would not stop the growth from constantly regenerating. But this is where we are today. Anyone else experienced this with your dog? What happened in the long-term? Did you go with surgery/nitrogen "freeze off"/manual removal of the growth?
Pics below (taken today):
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When it's "fresh" in the beginning of its cycle it looks more fleshy and wet. When it's half-way through the cycle it looks dryer and more like the consistency of an eraser and when it's at the end stage, it's turned all black and crusty.
My parents' vet told them that these types of eyelid growths are very common in older dogs (Charlie's 11) and that he believed it was benign. He recommended surgery wherein the vet cut off the growth. Charlie had that surgery two weeks ago. Unfortunately, what the vet failed to make clear was that because the growth was attached to the eyelid he couldn't remove it entirely but only cut it down to as small as possible a size without damaging the eyelid.
Now, two weeks later, the growth/tumor is growing again. My Mom took him back to the vet today for his two week post-surgery visit and the vet simply peeled off the excess growth with his hands. Apparently it's just dead skin/tissue and so it didn't hurt Charlie at all to do this. But underneath still lies the "base" growth that never goes away.
The vet said the choices were:
- Have an opthamologist do some kind of nitrogen "freeze off" of the growth
- Simply let it be and, when necessary, gently peel off the excess growths when they scab up and appear to be ready to fall off.
He said with the freeze off option there's a risk of doing damage to the actual eye and/or eyelid.
I'm sure we're not the first on this forum to go through this. I feel like the vet duped my parents into spending $1k without making it clear that the surgery would not stop the growth from constantly regenerating. But this is where we are today. Anyone else experienced this with your dog? What happened in the long-term? Did you go with surgery/nitrogen "freeze off"/manual removal of the growth?
Pics below (taken today):
