Zack's story told by Nina

On July 30 2009, Zack received his yearly DHLP/Parvo along with Bordetella and a 3 yr Rabies vaccine. As usual that morning I gave him 2 benadril tablets, cuz of an earlier reaction to his shots as a puppy. In September he started chewing on his front legs and feet. I took him in to get medication to relieve his chewing and he received Temaril P.  

The end of September, during a game of fetch, Zack ran right under the rubber stick and gave a yelp and that's when I saw him shake his head. The very next day a small bump appeared on the bridge of his nose, which I figured was from the trauma. The following month I installed a bed rail because Zack had fallen out ofbed. That night he didn't realize the rail was there and he hit his face jumping into bed. The following morning three more bumps appeared and they were very solid to the touch. I took him to see the vet and explained about the night time trauma. The vet didn't feel they were caused by the trauma but they were infected hair follicles. I was sent home with antibiotics and told to watch them to see if they grew any. I scratched my head and thought a perfectly smooth face the night before just doesn't get infected hair follicles in a matter of four hours.

The whole month I would give him medication and ice to reduce swelling, because I still felt the trauma had something to do with this.  Well these bumps about doubled in size, so it was back to the vets. This time I had the other vet, and he felt they were cysts. In fact he was positive they were because if they were from the trauma they would have shrunk in a months time. He explained to me that there were three different types of cysts and that they were not going to go away. I explained that Zack had a small cyst on his shoulder and I expressed the contents from it and it went away. He told me they would eventually come back. Being that he said that these cyst grow bigger, I felt it would be better for him to get them removed while they were small. 

So one week before Christmas 2009 Zack had surgery to remove the cysts which was to be small incisions. The simple removal of cysts turned out being treated as cancer since these were solid masses. Zack came home with three incisions that were about two and a half inches long. Right then and there I knew his gorgeous face would never be the same. A week later the biopsy report came back stating he had histiocytoma/ possible histiocytosis if any reoccur. Oh and the Vet said that these would have probably gone away on their own.

About a month or so after the surgery, Zack started to have more bumps on his face right in the scars tissue itself. It was backto the vet's and this time I wanted to see a specialist. The specialist diagnosed him with having cutaneous histiocytosis (CH) mainly because they were in the nasal planes area. Currently Zack is being treated with 250 mg Tetracycline and 250 mg Niacinamide because they work well on reducing inflammation.  After two weeks on this medication some of his bumps are smaller and some the same size. He had two of them on his front legs which I noticed just before the specialist, and those are almost gone.

I pray each night that these bumps go away and never come back, but only time will tell.  

The one thing I regret most, is not having his bumps tested before the surgery. I have decided to not make Zack have yearly shots anymore till I know for sure they are not harming him.

UPDATE - May 3, 2010
The coarse of Tetracycline didn't work, it mainly kept them from growing. Doing nothing was worse they multiplied and grew, till we couldn't bear to look at them any more. Zack is now seeing a Dermatologist and the treatment is; Medrol (2 tabs twice a day), Azathioprine (half a tab every other day) and doxycycline (1 tab twice a day). Within the first couple of days the meds reduced the overall swelling. It has been almost two weeks on these drugs and all but two bumps are gone (9 in total). These last two are about a forth of the original size. Zack may need drugs the rest of his life but possibly not. The one thing that came out of this is Dr. Jeromin agrees that Zack should not have yearly shots or rabies ever again.

The next photo's were taken after almost 2 weeks on the new medication

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