Costly medical procedures vs. humane euthanization - Page 2

Felloffher, I guess I am in the same camp as you. I am not going to spend thousands to extend the life of a dog with a terminal illness for a year or two.

blast away,
Rik

I did and would do so again without a doubt, until such time I could no longer provide "quality of life" as done with my girl with severe congential mega-esophagus. Life, whether human or beast, is a gift to be treasured and with an individual that was indeed a "once in a lifetime" it was worth the effort amounting to just under five figures. 

If a person goes bankrupt spending thousands on a dog's health issue with no positive prognosis, then both dog and owner will suffer. Makes no sense and is irrational. The only winner is the vet.

You can all laugh at me but...  I was one of those people who said "it's a dog not a family member"  and then my dobe broke his leg.  Guess who ponied up the 2500.00 for his surgery and this was 20 years ago.  ( external pins first operation of it's kind in California) Anyhow that being said it is up to you the owner to decide what treatment you can afford, how it will affect the life of the dog and what is to be done. Not the Vet.  Don't let anyone tell you what is right for you or your family.  An aggressive form of cancer is not something I would treat.  I have seen the quality of life on these drugs and it is not the way I would want my pet to go out :(  But I also would not have ACL surgery done on one of my dogs either.  The suffering during recovery is horrific.  I boarded a small dog who had this done. ( he was boarded with me during recovery because his owners could not bear to witness the agony he was in.....)  I have never seen an animal in so much pain in my life. Why would anyone who loved a pet do this?   But lots of people get this done  and say it is a good thing and that the dogs goes on to lead a great life. 

Not to get too far off topic, but my main vet (an older guy in his late 60's), says prices are increasing because WE are paying for younger vets to buy and finance fancy equipment, extra staff and upscale office space that is not needed to do the procedure.  His main example was that many young vets are being encouraged to buy EKG machines.  His point was that a vet would need to charge around 100 clients, and addtional $100+ USD each to pay that machine off, however a vet really doesn't need that SPECIFIC machine to give the patient cutting edge treatment in most cases.  Essentially the EKG machine is optional, but young vets are buying the equipment and WE are paying for it with surcharges hidden in the invoice.  The equipment dealers even give them strategies to upcharge clients and pay it off sooner rather than use it only when needed. 

He gave one example when an EKG could come in handy, but said he could do the same procedure with without any greater risk using, one Vet tech and NO EKG machine.  His reasoning was that either he or another vet tech would need to read the EKG during the procedue and would have to have the skillset to read it properly, which would require a 3rd vet tech to be in the operating room.  Resulting in an increase in cost to the client.  We are getting duped by an unknown percentage of vets practicing out there, many of the expensive examples listed above may have had unnecessary  mark-up by vets trying to pay for unnecessary  overhead for staff to monitor and use unnecessary  equipment. 

I think the best advice is to shop around when the "costly medical procedures vs. humane euthanization  \" issue arises. Yes, you may have to pay for more then one set of X-rays etc, but I think we need to start presuring vets about telling us what we are really paying for on the invoice and that we are knowledgable enough to tell them "No, we are not going to pay for your poor business descisions". For example, my mother recently paid $1000 for a tooth extraction on her Beagle, nothing fancy, I had my vet look at it and he said it should have been no more than $300.  My mon was just too trusting of her vet, rather than call me and drive and hour to my vet and save $700+ dollars. issue arises. 

Well, folks, it's easy to say don't be stupid enough to spend so much money on a dog with a terminal illness until that dog happens to be your heart dog. Then you will mortage the house and get out the plastic. I ate the humble pie years back when I had the canine GSD love of my life treated for lymphosarc. The vets overstated the prognosis, forgot to say that most dogs do go into remission, but most don't hold that remission for more than a few months and then it's back to square one.  Treated dogs are immune cripples and must almost live inside a bubble so they don't come down with some opportunistic organism like fungal pnuemonia or a chronic bacterial infection. Dogs are never "cured" by chemo, they can't take a high enough dosage. They don't fight to live, they lie down and die on ther own. The best that can be hoped for is a longterm remission.

My dog's remission only held for 6  weeks, he died 6 weeks later; we opted to not treat him again.  The truth is - dogs do get sick from chemo, they lose weight and become too depressed to enjoy life much.  It makes them weak and gives them sad eyes. Had I been given the real story, I'd not have put him though it.

Chemo prices are based on weight of the dog, mine weighed 126. I honestly never kept a really good accounting of what I spent, but it was at least 3K not including the traveling expenses, special food and supplements I thought might help.

I agree with momo, vets don't need so much sophisticaed equipment, they can defer to specialists.
 

Brynjulf,
Not all ACL surgeries go that way.
Be careful of how you write that.
I have seen dogs that had ACL surgery up and around in a few days.
The recovery will take months, but, I have seen a number of dogs go through this and they weren't in pain at all.
A lot of restricted activity, but, not in horrible pain.

Agree with OGBS. Most ACL surgeries are very successful and relatively pain free.  A dog I bred, another large working breed,  blew out her knee when she was 10 years old and did just fine with surgery. Blew out the other at 11, had surgery and did well again; lived to be a happy 14+. Dogs generally have a much higher pain threshold than we inferior humans, but some small dogs are more, uh ....wimpy than bigger dogs.

IMO we get better answers regarding how far to go with a sick dog from other owners who have been there, done that than from most vets. I wish I could find a older farm vet these days. I worked for 2 when I lived in PA  and they were pretty darned good. Very basic, no heroics and very upfront with clients. However don't ever allow one to crop ears LOL.

OGBS  you will see that I posted "But lots of people get this done and say it is a good thing and that the dogs goes on to lead a great life.   "  I mentioned that there are people who supposedly have success with this.  I have just never seen it.  I have seen 3 different dogs who have suffered horrifically during the recovery time of 6 months or more.  My personal experience, that is all I can judge it on. Your experience has been different and from the sounds of things successful.

 One was a rottie, one was the little one mentioned and the other was a lab.  Ollie just recovered from the one and then blew the other.  Over a year in a crate. Not much of a life, again just my opinion. I personally and honestly could never recommend this surgery if someone asked my opinion.  But I am not a vet and whenever anyone asks my advise I simply say ask your vet. It's about all I can do.

i love my dogs and they are part of my family but when my male got lymphoma which spread everywhere in a matter of 4 weeks i chose not to do chemo there was no reason for me to be selfish and allow his suffering i kept him comfortable and happy untill i could see that he was not doing well and that was the day he went over the rainbow bridge. my dogs are my family and my best friends but i refuze to let them suffer for my sake. if i knew chemo had better odds in a dogs life i probably would have done it but it dosent.