Mineral deposit in the shoulder???? - Page 1

Has anyone heard of a Mineral depost in a dog.  In this case a 3 1/5 month old pup near the shoulder, which is also where the chip is.

Cause or cure known.  Should it be cut out??

What does the veterinarian say?

Dog belongs to a friend and the vet so far has soaked her for $600 and not wants to do a blood work up and you all know what that costs.

Vet has puppy owner scared wants to cut this lump out says it is not attached to anything.

She now has the paper work and the vet calls it a Calcinosis conscripta

Anyone heard of this before We just read what little we could find and it does not give much information

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/calcinosis-circumscripta-and-cutis

http://www.gopetsamerica.com/dog-health/calcinosis_circumscripta.aspx

A couple articles I found. The vet should have sat your friend down and shown her causes, if any, treatment, if any and results.

Small deposits may be resorbed. Larger deposits may be spontaneously pushed out through the skin. This may cause a wound which may need surgical attention.
I personally would feed the dog full of digestive enzymes - meaning raw diet. Commercial diet is often overloaded with minerals which need to go somewhere and may cause the spontaneous calcium deposits. I would also supplement the dog with a proteolytic enzyme. JMO!

Blood work is a normal and very useful diagnostic tool that perhaps your friend should strongly consider doing if the veterinarian recommends it.

Or I suppose she could take random advice from people who did not go to school for 8 years to learn about animal medicine and who did not take stringent licensing exams. Usually the way that ends is that the animal gets sicker and is finally taken back to the vet when it's on its last legs, then the owner blames the vet when the animal either dies or requires many thousands of dollars of care.

Jill, you talk like a vet. :)
I can tell you endless stories where vets made stupid and fatal mistakes. To find a good vet is extremely difficult even though they go to school for 8 years. Seems like these days vet learn how to take samples for a lab work and then they get computer printout as a diagnosis. This is a very expensive approach and a trained monkey can do the same. The vet who makes diagnoses first and confirms it by lab test, the vet who does treat more than symptoms and on and on are extremely hard to find. 

 I personally strongly advise for the dog owner not to be a passive recipient of meds and bills but to educate itself BEFORE and AFTER  he goes to vet. 

In this case, however, the bloodwork is called for, as without it the vet is unable to determine if this is just an idiopathic calcium deposit, a clinical symptom related to adrenal or kidney malfunction, or the malignant, metatstatic form of the condition. Sure, the owner can just wait and watch and see if it resolves--but if the source of the deposit is glandular or organ malfunction, or cancer, it will do the dog no benefit to delay treating him for the problem.

Were this my pup, I'd be having the bloodwork done. If your friend feels the vet they've been seeing is overcharging them [I'd need to see what the itemization was on the $600 before I'd agree that they'd been 'soaked'], then I suggest they seek a second opinion with a different vet.

Hexe, sending you a pm.

@prager if you don't like one vet's opinion, go see another vet. But make damn sure it's a VET you go see, because they are quite literally the experts. NO ONE ELSE is an expert on animal health and medicine no matter what they think of themselves.

Chances are in this case, given the diagnosis, the second vet will also likely want blood work, or in the current vernacular, to "soak the owner for more money."

"I personally strongly advise for the dog owner not to be a passive recipient of meds and bills but to educate itself BEFORE and AFTER he goes to vet."
Educate oneself? How, exactly? Internet searching? Reading Mercola's nutjob web site? Asking other non-vets? Taking a time out and going to 8 years of vet school? The fact is it is not possible for the layperson to "educate oneself" about medical issues in any way comparable to the knowledge and experience of an actual veterinarian. Your best defense against confusion and ignorance regarding medical conditions in your animals is to have a good, trusted veterinarian who can explain it to you. Again, if you don't like what s/he says, see another vet (thus "soaking" yourself for even more money). If you get the same answer twice in a row, that's probably your answer.

Vets are not infallible, especially not when diagnosing an illness brought to them by a client who doesn't want to spend any money, who wants to argue about everything, who quotes breeders/friends/internet searches/whatever in their defense while arguing with the medical professional who is doing their best to treat the animal appropriately.

Anecdata time: I recently had a pup get very and mysteriously (at first) sick. My veterinarians clearly saved his life with the help of expensive diagnostic tests that they told me they hardly ever do because owners rarely want to pay for them. Throwing money at this situation and trusting the doctors saved my dog. If I'd taken him home to "educate myself" and listened to people advocating for diet changes and general mistrust of veterinarians he would be dead.