Good Plastic Surgeons do some great work, uch more than face-lifts and such. I guess it was in the late sixties or early seventies when I had a cyst in my lower eyelid and the cyst straddled my tear-duct. My doctor referred me to a Plastic surgeon who removed the cyst. It was a delicate and intricate operation, the surgeon referred to it as a "challenge", I mentally thought uh,uh. It took quite a while, with my eyes wide open, but it was done without any scarring and I kept a working tear-duct.

What about when its too late to not get a pet? I have one and he was recently diagnosed with epilepsy, this was after $3000 worth of test and that was our last bit of money. now he's getting bad seizures and we had to do emergency vet care that we knew we couldn't afford and we are now another $600 in the hole and this is just the beginning. we can't afford this. We love our dog and are broken up over this and we don't know what to do. we are worried we won't be able to find someone to take him from us that can care for him properly and we know that we can no longer care for him properly. So far we can't find anyone to take him and if we keep him that means when he has more problems or more seizures since the medicine doesn't completely keep them from happening it just controls them to make them less severe, so when he does have them we can't afford to take him in to the hospital when he has more than 4 in a day (he has cluster seizures). We are very torn as to what to do, it seems as though euthanizing him may an option because what kind of life is that if he needs medical attention we can't give him because we don't have the money.

It doesn't matter laser vs scalpel or cautery, it all depends on the surgeon's ability to get the entire growth out. Depending on what the growth is, that can be easy or not so much. Some types of growths send out microscopic finger-like projections that you just can't see grossly, and then they recur. However getting a biopsy will tell you what the growth is and whether or not the surgical margins are clear. On a paw pad, I would tend towards cautery because of better hemostasis than scalpel or laser. But that's surgeon's preference and availability of equipment. I think the advice of searching for a vet who has had experience removing this type of growth is very good. I've removed one paw pad growth a couple of months ago and the margins were clear so we don't expect it to recur. It was a corn (has a fancy histopathological name I can't remember). I probably just got lucky:) Used cautery, since that's what we have available. Obviously trimming it down isn't providing a long-term solution, and since it is causing your dog discomfort I would tend towards surgery for removal. I would highly recommend biopsy to determine exactly what it is and to evaluate surgical margins. I have been surprised several times, both pleasantly and not, about growths and now very rarely will remove one without histopathology. Especially since your vet has never seen this before.

I agree with everything sylviatexas said! Two years ago when I had my one cat to a regional veterinary collage/animal hospital to be seen by specialists (three days spent at the hospital there!) to help diagnose a GI disorder, this 11 year old cat suddenly had a murmur for the first time while a patient at the hospital! They did an echocardiogram because they had to before they would anesthetize him for an upper GI scope, and the echocardiogram showed nothing was wrong! The vet there (a vet cardiac specialist) said that it is not unusual at all for cats to suddenly get a murmur when they are really stressed out! He said, in those instances, the murmur is really stress related and goes away when the stress does! I too would be very reluctant to stress any cat out any more with further tests since this murmur was something new and seems to have a definite cause and effect! I really question your vet's judgement on this and sometimes it seems some vets, like some doctors, will go strictly "by the book" without considering common sense factors. All I know is, our poor pets just don't know what is going on and are scared to death when we take them in to be treated, and unless I feel it is for their good and absolutely necessary, I can't see doing something purely for the sake of being someone's "science project".