Skin Biopsy On Ear

[Hawthorn]

Sophie's been losing the hair progressively on one of her ears for a couple of months now and there is also some redness and scaling, although it doesn't seem to bother her. We've been back and forth to the vets and have tried antibiotics, which didn't help at all, and have now tried Advocate to kill any mites which could be present.

 

We're giving it another couple of weeks to see if the Advocate will work, but at that point if there's no improvement it looks as though we'll have to have skin scrapings and a biopsy done. I'm not happy about this, as it will involve a general anaesthetic and a stressful day at the vets for my very-nervous-of-strangers little girl, but I can see that it might have to happen.

 

I'm also a bit concerned about how much skin they might have to take for the biopsy. I asked the vet about it and she was a bit vague, talking about how little spare skin there is on the ear, and taking a half-moon shape out of the edge of the ear, but this did nothing to assuage my fears at all. I have visions of my pretty little girl with a permanently mutilated ear.

 

Has anyone else had this done? If so, would you mind sharing how much skin was taken, where from, and what it looked like?

[GeorgeofNE]

A skin scraping does not generally involve anesthesia. I've had it done on both a cat and a dog as I stood there holding them.

 

If you're talking about a cut biopsy, only a mild amount of anesthesia would be involved, and with modern protocols, this is NOT a big deal at all. They can give her gas, do the biopsy in minutes, and wake her up. You're not talking about full-on, knock the dog out for major surgery anesthesia. Unless your vet is totally uneducated in the sensitivity of greyhounds, this shouldn't be a problem.