16-year old cat with CKD, mild HCM, and now OSCC. Because he is really the unluckiest cat ever, he also recently developped a ranula - a large fluid-filled (saliva) cyst under his tongue due to a damaged salivary gland.
The general treatment for this is marsupialization (making a permanent opening for draining) but of course would require general anaesthesia, which we are weary of due to the HCM. We have been wondering about incising and draining the ranula - we were told this generally led to re-occurrence but our vet did not know how quickly the re-occurence would be since she had never done a draining. I can't find any information (specifically about the ranula type of mucocele) online about speed of re-occurence.
The idea is that we would prefer to try that first if it had least had the chance of lasting a couple of weeks or so (we don't know how much time we have left and we don't want to put him through too much) - of course, if it only lasts a day or two, then it's pretty pointless.
So if anyone has had any experience with this, please let me know. We're not getting any guidance except either just leaving it or being pushed through surgery. It's clearly making him uncomfortable and we would like to help him.
The general treatment for this is marsupialization (making a permanent opening for draining) but of course would require general anaesthesia, which we are weary of due to the HCM. We have been wondering about incising and draining the ranula - we were told this generally led to re-occurrence but our vet did not know how quickly the re-occurence would be since she had never done a draining. I can't find any information (specifically about the ranula type of mucocele) online about speed of re-occurence.
The idea is that we would prefer to try that first if it had least had the chance of lasting a couple of weeks or so (we don't know how much time we have left and we don't want to put him through too much) - of course, if it only lasts a day or two, then it's pretty pointless.
So if anyone has had any experience with this, please let me know. We're not getting any guidance except either just leaving it or being pushed through surgery. It's clearly making him uncomfortable and we would like to help him.