dog nasal discharge advice

[mrnice1234]

dog nasal discharge

My dog has had unilateral nasal boogers/nuggets since January (about 2 mos now). They have not gotten better or worse. Head x-ray was negative, along with nasal swabs. The boogers are only noticeable if you look up her nose, nothing ever drips out. It’s more of a collection of boogers that harden. I can remove them easily with a q-tip and they often go away after play outside or car rides with her head out the window. They are greenish in color. Just wondering if anyone has experienced this or has any idea what could be going on? Her vet has seen her 2-3x since and doesn’t seem very concerned after X-ray was normal. The only reason for doing x-ray was because she knows that I am a paranoid pet mama and wanted to cover all bases to ease my mind. Of course my Google searches have lead me to nasal tumors.

She was given antibiotics per my request but I’ve held off on giving them as the discharge accumulation seemed to get slightly better. Trying to avoid anesthesia/rhinoscopy, which would be our next steps after giving antibiotics a try.

Otherwise totally healthy, and still has normal bilateral watery/clear discharge when playing or eating etc. You would never know anything was wrong unless you looked up her nose and stumbled upon it, like I did.

Looking for any advice or input!

 

[shela710]

@mrnice1234 What my vet dismissed as allergies ended up being nasal cancer.

What started as unilateral weeping in one eye and being a little snotty turned into occasional nosebleeds and a massive snotting issue out of one nostril.

Did your vet check if the other nostril was obstructed? You can check yourself with a clear piece of plastic or glass or small mirror.

I managed her symptoms for 2 years until she had a major blowout which lead to a rhinoscopy and cancer diagnosis. She lived 20 months after diagnosis; she was an extreme outlier, as the expectancy with that cancer is 3 months.

Antibiotics helped clear the snot out. I'd recommend doing a course. In the end, my dog was on Doxy for a couple months before she died. It certainly helped, and managing infection was something I could control.

Have you tried antihistamines? Zyrtec and/or Benadryl? It should help dry her out.

Hindsight, I wish I had done a rhinoscopy sooner. We were going to, but covid lock downs screwed things up, and by the time I saw the vet again, she plainly said that if it was cancer my drug would have been dead already.

I'd try antihistamines, if they don't work in 2 weeks, I'd schedule a rhinoscopy if I were you.

How old is she?

 

[mrnice1234]

@shela710 She’s 5. Nostril is not obstructed and she’s not necessarily snotty, it’s one small “booger” that almost looks dry that accumulates over a few days in her right nostril. No sneezing, coughing, or discharge actually coming out of the nose. This has been going on since beginning of January and nothing has gotten better or worse. I have a dozy rx at home that I have not started yet, bc I had thought there was some improvement and didn’t want to give antibiotics if they weren’t truly necessary. I tried Claritin for 1 week with no change so I had stopped that as well.

How did you go about booking rhinoscopy? Is general anesthesia needed for procedure?