Frankie had suffered with an episode of cystitis-type symptoms six months prior to the visit which resulted in her becoming our July Pet of the Month. When the problem recurred and Frankie’s owner brought her in, on examination, this time her bladder felt very abnormal and hard.
An x-ray gave us the answer to Frankie’s problem: a single, huge stone filled poor Frankie’s bladder. We had previously tried to identify Frankie’s issue using ultrasound, but the scans were difficult to interpret as we couldn’t get a ‘normal’ view of the bladder. Ultrasound waves will not pass through anything as dense as a bladder stone. And we couldn’t even achieve a recognisable ultrasound image of the bladder itself as Frankie’s stone was so large it completely filled it!
Frankie needed surgery to remove her bladder stone. The surgery went well but because of the size of the stone, we needed to make an unusually large wound in her bladder to retrieve it. A contributing factor to the wound size was irritation from the stone to the bladder wall, causing it to become thickened over time.
We can’t remember ever seeing such a large, single bladder stone, and certainly not such a large stone in such a small dog. Much more typical is for multiple bladder stones to build up over time rather than just one.
The surgery came as a huge relief to Frankie: now she can relieve herself once more!