Lipomas

What This week I wasn't sure what to write about so I sat down with my dog. Whose 14 years old and while stroking her I felt under her skin her lipomas and thought why not write about them because most dogs get them as they get older.

Lipomas

These are fatty benign tumours that are very common in older dogs and some dog breeds. They aren't dangerous however if you notice that a lipoma is going at an alarming rate in your animal take it to the vet where and needle biopsy can be done to make sure that it is just a lipoma and nothing more serious like cancer. These lumps are normally painless and soft to touch and movable a little bit. I know that my dog has quite a few however they don't hurt her and she's not bothered by them so we have no need to remove them.

My experience with a lipoma 

When at one of my weeks of experience I was fortunate enough to see an operation on an elderly labrador which was having a large lipoma removed from his inner thigh. Now this dog was very overweight coming in at 45kg. The vet had advised the owner that this lipoma didn't need to be taken out. However the owner had insisted and so the dog went in for the operation. Once the first incision was made the vet discovered what he thought would be the case, which was that the lipoma was between two muscle layers. Now this elongated the healing period and it also means that once the lipoma was removed weighing in at almost 2kg. The vet had to put a drain into the pouch where the lipoma had been removed. This was to make sure no fluid built up and led to another operation. Finally the vet had to stitch the muscles together then to sub cutaneous stitches to give a nice clean finish. The dog was totally fine after the operation and woke fine 2kg lighter.