Anyone with nasal polyp experience?

My 11 year old calico, Mouse, has been diagnosed as having nasal polyps, she can no longer breath through her nose. She's lost 1 full pound in about 6 weeks because eating is so difficult as she can't breath and eat the same time. She scheduled to have surgery on Monday, May 11. I was just wondering if anyone else out there had any dealings with this and what was the outcome. Did it help long term?

 

I had a bony tumor in my right ethmoid sinus. Not sure that is sufficiently comparable!
My guess is they will sedate, intubate, possibly use some regional nerve blocks, excise as much of the polyp as possible, possibly use some cautery to stop any bleeding so they don't have to pack the nose or maybe use a dissolving foam packing, maybe keep him overnight if there are any concerns, send him home with pain meds and monitoring instructions, plus a follow up appointment

 

Ouch, that had to hurt like heck! Her breathing has gotten so bad, I wish her surgery was tomorrow.

 

They did prescribe hydrocodone, a derivative of codeine. I'm lucky that I am a slow metabolizer, so a little goes a long way.
The first major air pressure change with a storm front moving in, about a month after the surgery was killer, though. Scar tissue reacts poorly to sudden barametric shifts!

 

adding prayers for a successful surgery and speedy recovery....

I had a nasoplasty.... it wasn't awful but it sure wasn't fun either....

 

Two of my boys (littermates) Frankie and Teddy both had them when they were kittens. Poor Teddy we usd to call Darth Vadar. He was sedated and intubated and then they just pulled the polyp out. (It was on a long stalk). He came home the same day as he was wrecking his cage!!! A few months later Frankie started going the same way and had a few choking fits. They tried to remove it when he was castrated but it was too small to grab. A few months later they tried again. He got something called Horners Syndrome which affects the third eyelid, but within a few months he had got over that (No treatment given). That was nearly 8 years ago and no problems since then. One thing I have noticed is that from the second Teddy came home all that time ago to now, he cannot stop sniffing everything!!!!

 

Oh gosh, that doesn't sound good! Kinda scary! I know we need to do this, but I'm a little scared for my girl. She's such a lovey cat, but she's getting worse, so...

 

It really is nothing. If you were to open her mouth wide open you would see it dangling at the back of her throat and blocking her airways. The op lasts minutes and the effect is amazing. As I said Teddy was home within 3 hours. He was supposed to stay overnight but the vets said there was no need as he was fine. He was eating and drinking and tearing round the house after his brother as soon as he came home. If she doesn't have it done the thing will grow so huge it will totally block her airways. You are doing the right thing.

 

Thank you Sue, that does make me feel better. We've tried to look in her mouth but the little stinker turns into a MOUNTAIN LION when you try to do anything in her mouth. I worry because she also has asthma and a heart murmur so the surgery isn't without some added risks, but if we don't do it she'll starve to death or suffocate.

 

Frankie has a heart murmur too which is Cardiomyopathy but he came through the sedation then and ones this year for his teeth and CT scan. They take extra special care when they know they have extra health issues.

 

@Mogmom and Goofus. Has Mouse had her surgery? How is she?

 

Thank you for asking Sue! Sorry I didn't update sooner, this was a crazy week. Mouse had her surgery last Monday. For the first few days, I was worried that I'd done the wrong thing as her breathing was horrible. She didn't want to eat at all and would get chokey while drinking water. It turned out that the polyps were laryngeal and there were only 2 that he could see, one large which he removed completely, and one smaller one that he could get at very well, but took some for biopsy, which makes me nervous. She has so much inflammation that he wants her on liquid prednisone for several weeks, maybe longer, which makes me really nervous. Please, God, don't let me end up with 2 diabetic cats!

He said the larger polyp looked pretty normal, but the smaller one looked a little different, that's why the biopsy. So, we're about a week out and she's a totally different kitty. Her breathing is soooo much better and she's not constantly at the water bowl, the vet said she probably drank a lot as the water was soothing to her throat. She's hungry all the time now, the pred, I'm sure. But she just seems so much better and happier.

 

The biopsy is normal for any growth removed as they send my two off as well. Naso-pharyngeal polyps are usually benign so I'll keep my fingers crossed but she should be fine. As she had two polyps, her throat was probably very inflamed after surgery which is why she wasn't given standard anti-inflammatories. All sounding good so far though.

 

Oh yeah, I'm pretty confident that she'll be just fine, but the little stinker will just about bowl me over anytime she hears me walking in or toward the kitchen! Lol for that last 2 months she hadn't been eating enough to keep a bird alive and now she's just a chow hound! Well, cat. Lol

 

That's good to hear.

 

Woke up at 4:15 am ago Mouse gagging and choking as bad as she had been doing pre-surgery. Don't know what to make of that. I'll call my regular vet after 6 am as the specialty clinic that did her surgery doesn't take emergency calls.

 

Could it be swelling? What did the vet say?

 

Sorry, gone all day. Vet says that sometimes the pred works really well at first because they also give a steroid injection, but then the injection wears off, so they might backslide a little. He said not to worry at this point, but that if she seems like she's really having trouble breathing, to bring her in and he'll put her in the oxygen tent for a while. He also said that he feels that the vet that did the surgery is tapering the pred a little fast, so to ask about that.

Mouse does seem a little better tonite, not gagging so much, but still not breathing thru her nose very well.

 

adding speedy healing vines .... swollen passages are no fun... been there myself.

 

Thanks for the vines! I'm afraid she's going to need them, her breathing is terrible this morning! The vets office opens at 8am and I've already left a voicemail for a return call asap.

 

This a picture of Mouse, next to her is my rescued Pekignese, Bandit.

 

The vet that did Mouses surgery called earlier, Good and bad news. He got the histopatholgy report back, of the two polyps sent in for biopsy, neither were cancerous, so that's good. The bad is that she has very severe laryngeal inflammation that could produce squamous cell cancer. She'll need to be on a steroid for at least 2 months. He also said that due to so much inflammation it was really hard to see so he's hoping that after a couple of months, he'd like to sedate her and have another look.

 

She wasn't doing very well is morning, Dr Jeff wants to sedate her tomorrow morning ( couldn't today as she'd already eaten and I couldn't get away from work) to see if there's something else going on.

 

Has he mentioned stomatitis? It can be a cause of severe oral inflammation, generally around the teeth and may extend into the back part of the mouth and the throat.

 

The vet appointment went ok today, he said the inflammation actually did appear to be lessening. He mentioned something about a fold of skin on the larynx,( I think) that can move some and cause breathing difficulties when a lot of inflammation is present. He also said I need to put her back on her asthma med, which she hates and I don't like as she shakes her head and spits much of it back out. And it makes her kind of loopy. I had them do a dental check up on her, he said he teeth looked good.

 

Have you been to the Fritz The Brave website on feline asthma? Perhaps you might get a few ideas you haven't used yet.

 

Thanks BJM, I'm going to look at that! I just read the histopatholgy report, now I'm really scared. The hp'ist believes that the severe inflammation is probably coving up already existing squamous cell carcinoma. He thinks this because of some lesions that are suspicious in nature. The vet wants to sedate her again in a couple of
months when, hopefully, the inflammation will have signifigantly dissipated. It's going to be a long road I'm afraid.