SUBWAY’S CORNER
PRIORITIZE TAKING YOUR PET TO THE VET REGULARLY Ivy’s Best Life
Hello humans! My name is Subway, and I am here to tell you something essential for us cats — taurine. Taurine is an amino acid that helps build the proteins we need to stay healthy. Unlike many other animals, we cats cannot produce enough essential taurine on our own, so we need to get it from our food. Taurine is crucial for our vision, digestion, and heart function. If we don’t get enough of it, our health can suffer. This is why dog food isn’t suitable for us — it doesn’t have enough taurine. If we don’t eat enough taurine, it can take months for symptoms to show up, but when they do, they are serious. Our eyesight can degenerate, leading to impaired vision or even blindness. Our heart muscles can weaken, causing heart problems like cardiomyopathy, and our digestive systems can become upset. If these issues are caught early, adjusting our diet to include more taurine can improve things. But if taurine deficiency is left untreated, it can lead to heart failure and even death. For pregnant cats especially, getting enough taurine is WHY DOG FOOD IS NOT SAFE FOR CATS
Ivy is a very sweet 14-year-old Shichon who first came in to see Dr. Carmo in December for a possible cut on her paw and not putting any weight on it. Once in the room, Dr. Carmo started her physical examination by checking everything else since that paw was so painful. Nothing else abnormal was noted. On the paw itself, first, we tried to localize where the pain came from: shoulder, elbow, wrist, or toes. In Ivy’s case, the toe was the source of pain. We examined it closer and saw some swelling; her nail looked slightly abnormal. At this point, we could be dealing with anything from a broken nail, infected toe, tumor, etc.
Since symptoms were acute, Dr. Carmo and Ivy’s owners decided to start her on pain medication and antibiotics. We scheduled a recheck for two weeks later. When it was time to see her back, Dr. Carmo did not notice as much improvement and decided to pursue further testing with radiographs. On the images, we could see what was going on much better. One of her nails looked thicker than the others, and the bone attached had lytic lesions. Lytic lesions on the bone must be taken seriously due to the high chance it indicates infection in the bone and cancer. Upon discussing the findings with Ivy’s owners, we decided the best route would be a toe amputation. We knew Ivy was older; however, her physical exam, bloodwork, and electrocardiogram had no significant contraindications for the procedure. In January, Dr. Carmo
performed a complete toe amputation and later sent the toe for a biopsy. Until we received the results, we made sure her incision was healing well. Two weeks later, we received her diagnosis, which was very surprising: a nail bed keratoacanthoma, which is a rare benign tumor. Despite being rare, removal is recommended due to being locally invasive and causing severe pain. Now Ivy is wholly recovered and living her best life. Dr. Carmo wants to emphasize the importance of taking your pet to the vet, even when it looks like a broken nail, especially if it is not healing. Please do not hesitate to contact us at Petersen Pet Hospital if you have any questions or concerns.
Simple Sweet Potato Dog Treats Inspired by AllRecipes.com
Contact us! 319-743-0554
2
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator