[Dailydrool] Tail cysts and wound healing.

[Menzie Campbell]

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Hey, something I've had personal experience with!  A couple of years
ago, Hector got a large cyst on his tail.  It needed to be removed,
and my vet warned me then that tails do not have a great amount of
blood supply and it might have trouble healing.  Sure enough, in the
weeks following the surgery, in spite of antibiotics and daily bandage
changes, the tissue at the incision site continued to degrade and die,
and needed debrided.  Here is what we did that worked.

First of all, my vet has a solution he uses to encourage the growth of
new flesh.  It's betadine with a ton of white sugar dissolved in it.
This should be about the consistency of syrup, or a little thicker.
The theory is that the surgar is an "irritant", and just as a pearl
will form around a grain of sand in an oyster, so new flesh will grow
in response to the sugar.  During this time, we did a daily bandage
change, in which we removed the bandage (soaking it off so as not to
pull any new flesh away), then soaked the tail in a solution of
betadine and warmish water (we used a tall vase for this, and just
dipped his whole tail down in it!), then painted a thick layer of
betadine/sugar solution on it, then re-bandaged with a telfa non-stick
pad.

The second thing that we personally did was take Hector to our
wonderful chiropractor, who has a cold laser that he uses on patients
with sore muscles.  It also helps promote new tissue growth.  Hector
has one treatment with that, and I swear to you that his healing
accelerated after that.

So we did the betadine/sugar thing for three solid weeks.  Finally, my
vet decreed that it had grown enough new tissue that we could stop
using that.  Then we switched to daily bandage changes, but putting a
thick layer of antibiotic ointment (like Neosporin) on the wound
instead.

When all was said and done, it would probably have been less trouble
to simply have done the partial tail amputation.  But Hector was
inordinately proud of his tail (seriously, you could tell), and the
vet was actually curious to see how his experiment would work out, so
we decided to try it.

I do know that partial tail amputations sometimes have a bit of
trouble healing properly, for the same reason - not enough blood
supply, so the area around the incision doesn't heal properly.

Sorry this is so long.  If your vet wants more details on the
betadine/sugar thing, I can certainly ask my vet for a detailed
"recipe".

-- 
Menzie Campbell
Save a Life - Don't Shop, ADOPT!
Owned by Pw. Annabelle ATB, Hector TVL, Barney, Bozlee, Millie and now
Pippa and Bonnie (the sisters)