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Yesterday the stitches from the amputation surgery were taken out, so my husband and the cat were at the emergency hospital for that. Today, the cone came off, per surgeon's instructions. This morning, a few hours after removing the cone, I noticed an unusual, ugly sore or wound that looked infected. I sent photos to our primary care vet and the hospital surgeon. Primary care vet agrees it looks infected but is out of town. She gave me (via her office staff) some antibiotics but told me to check in with hospital surgeon first to see if they noticed anything when taking stitches out yesterday. It is nowhere near the incision site, so I am at a loss as to what this is and how he got it. He is indoor only, but perhaps he scraped his belly on our sometimes-rough wood floors while army crawling around after the surgery? We had previously been taking the cone off for him to eat, but ONLY when very closely supervised, and we hadn't noticed anything like this. It's Day 15 after amputation.
I'll try to post two photos, and I'm sorry for the graphic nature (please feel free to delete if this is against forum rules). One shows the sore itself (I had to hold the fur back a bit to take the picture, and it clearly bothered him, so it must hurt. The other shows where it is in relation to the incision site (which is on the right hand side of the photo). It was his right front leg that was amputated.
Has anyone seen this before? Should I be doing anything besides waiting to hear back from the surgeon?
Awww dang I'm sorry. Keep those antibiotics on schedule and hopefully they will kick in. Try not to worry, your surgeon sounds great and will be back before you know it. Sorry you are dealing with this.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
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That definitely looks like an abscess. You can clean it with just water - boil the water first, then let it cool down to room temperature. Just use a cotton ball. No peroxide. I would then put bacitracin (triple antibiotic ointment) on it then spray with bitter apple to keep him from licking the ointment off. I wonder if maybe it's a burn from the cautery or something? Sometimes a small wound under the fur doesn't show up until it opens up like that.
Donna
Donna, Glenn & MurphyÂ
Murphy had his right front leg amputated due to histiocytic sarcoma at 7 years old. He survived 4 years, 2 months & 1 week, only to be taken by hemangiosarcoma at 11 1/2 years 6/12/17 Â
Read about Murphy's Life on Three Legs
It is hard to say what caused this but hopefully the antibiotics will clear it up.
Pam
Quick update: The antibiotics seemed to clear it up pretty quickly, and when our vet came to do a check on him two weeks later she pulled off the scab that had formed, and there have been no recurrences. Whew! Theories are that he either bit/scratched himself OR that he cut himself on our wood floors (which can be a little raggedy) while army-crawling around after surgery. Either way, I'm glad that's over. And that I haven't had to text gross pics to our vet in weeks! 😉
midnighter94 said
That definitely looks like an abscess. You can clean it with just water - boil the water first, then let it cool down to room temperature. Just use a cotton ball. No peroxide. I would then put bacitracin (triple antibiotic ointment) on it then spray with bitter apple to keep him from licking the ointment off. I wonder if maybe it's a burn from the cautery or something? Sometimes a small wound under the fur doesn't show up until it opens up like that.Donna
Donna, I did follow your advice about cleaning with boiled, cooled water on a cotton ball. I didn't do anything else to it because the antibiotics "dried" it up so quickly (that's what it looked like), but thank you so much!
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