calliecritturs
Posted : 3/16/2008 10:24:47 PM
Gosh I'm sorry I'm so late with this -- I've had a TON going on today.
First -- we ALL have mast cells in our bodies. They are ... in a 'grade 1' COMPLETELY normal. They are a "histamine" cell. It's just plain what they are.
So by getting Benedryl IF by some freak when they excise the tumor they should 'nick' a mast cell it can then spread it ... and by giving a hefty dose of Benedryl (an "anti-histamine";) it prevents that spread from happening.
Next -- have you considered putting her on a cancer diet? Frankly no matter what the pathology comes back it won't hurt and it could help. There are 97 varieties of cancer diets out there -- mostly they are simply no grain carbs (usually with high-antioxidant veggies as your 'carb' source as a veggie carb which is *different* than grain carbs- like squash, sweet potato, etc. and cruciates, etc to balance the deal out). It's a well-established medical fact that grain carbs feed cancer and help it 'grow' ... so a cancer diet simply slows that down.
The other thing I would hugely suggest is finding a TCVM vet to augment her care. When we treated Muffin the Intrepid for mast cell we KNEW they did *NOT* get clear margins (they couldn't -- there was no more tissue to 'take';) and because of that recurrent nature of mast cell AND the fact that he was a cocker (which tend to be hard-wired for cancer anyway) -- we opted for chemo.
It was one of the vets up at U of Florida (we took him up there to get the chemo done at first) who suggested we add TCVM (acupncture + Chinese herbals -- TCVM=traditional Chinese veterinary medicine).
Long story made short we did chemo, and then just 3 months later we "discovered" he had a toe that was literally a tumor (the entire toe itself had become a tumor) and it was LIKELY the "primary" source of the cancer. We had it amputated (outer toe on his back right foot) and frankly he never missed it. We had the pathology done on it and between the chemo and the TCVM they almost couldn't FIND the malignancy in this whole toe that was a tumor. Literally what we'd done had killed most of this primary tumor.
My point is this -- we only did the chemo because we were unable to get "clear margins". BUT the TCVM is so awesome at treating cancer that frankly had I known then what I now know I probably wouldn't have done any chemo at all past that first couple of months.
The Chinese word for cancer is "stagnant blood". When they find a patient who has mast cell they put them on "blood movers" -- literally to make the blood do a better job of 'cleansing' and moving the blood. Very often since then I've seen them put a dog on these herbal blood movers and tumors never come back. it stacks the odds in your favor.
I'm *not* telling you to leave your vet -- not at all. A good TCVM vet will work *with* your vet -- keeping them in the loop and working treatments WITH your vet's knowledge and approval.
It's not costly, and it truly can give you incredible longevity and it's not something you need tons and tons of 'visits' -- just periodically to monitor care unless you choose to continue acupuncture for some reason.
If you go to http://www.tcvm.com and look on the left side there is a "locator" that will help you find someone near you. Holler if I can help. But man, I've seen this work SO awesomely and it can really take that "ticking time bomb" feeling out of dealing with mast cell.