Need advice on my poor cat. Gross pic

[YourElatedLimeShark]

My little beautiful cat came in last week sometime and had a huge blob of pussy bloody gunk on her cheek. Cleaned it up with salt water. All fine. Wound looked nice and clean and dry.

Yesterday morning another lump appeared about the above cut. Hairless. Anyway this morning it’s grown significantly and she’s obviously scratched it and it’s looking awful. So took her to vets and she’s had a very slight temp (39.4). A shot of antibiotics, Metacam and antibiotic tablets for a week. (9am this morning).

Now it looks worse. Bigger. Vet said infection. I need some sort of reassurance because I’m so worried about her. She’s so adorable and loving.

she’s always hunting and occasional scratch from fighting but nothing like this :((

Poor cat, when that goes it will be impressive though (and the cat will feel better)

Abcess it needs vet treatment

Would an abscess form above a wound? So not at the site of the wound? Seems odd to me?

Ya, infection. The antibiotics will help. Keep an eye on his temperature if possible and don't be slow to ring the vet if it's not improving

Why have you left it so long? Your cat needs to see the vet. Ring the emergency vet first thing tomorrow morning! Poor thing. 😢

Cat are remarkable. Stick to the vets plan. Make sure your cat id taking in fluids and managing to eat

Read op post. She was at the vets at 9am this morning

Bathe with warm salt water. Abscess will burst and her pain will be relieved, and you already ave the antibiotics. I would keep her in ( with access to a litter tray, of course), for a few days.

Abcesses can be located pretty much anywhere in the local area of a wound, you often get abcesses on thr gum above an infected tooth for example.

Didn't notice that! Sorry @YourElatedLimeShark Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon!

Yes I’ve restricted access to outdoors for a while. She’s fuming about that. But being very needy at the same time. She’s had sardines for her tea.

The bloody bits are from her scratching. I’ll make a salt solution. Might help dry that bit out too actually.

I’m glad you’ve said this because I was worried it was something else :(

She may have been in a scrap with another cat or fox and any wounds from a bite can get infected. This happened to my cat and it was a similar looking wound.

My cat had one like that which didn't really respond to antibiotics. Vet lanced it. Quite a bit of foul stuff came out and dcat was as good as new. Looked a bit stupid for a while though because of the shaving.

Our cat had one like this - was dramatic - when it popped she seemed much better.

An abscess will have a capsule so should have incision and drainage followedd by antibiotics surely? Especially as so near eye and ear.

Get a collar on the poor cat to stop it from scratching and making it worse. Nobody likes the cone of shame but it’s necessary on occasion.

ETA… and back to the vet. Where you can conveniently buy a cone of shame.

Just be wary that if/when the abcess bursts, she'll probably be left with a deep hole. I've had a few cats with this and it is DISTURBING to look at, but it's amazing how quickly they recover.

She definitely needs a cone of shame - scratching will make it much worse and introduce more bugs. Keep it clean and dry, use warm compresses a few times a day and stick with the vets plan. If it keeps growing or she seems unwell in herself, get her back to the vets.

My bloody stupid beast is very good at getting abscess/infections after fighting. Generally speaking the antibiotics do their thing and it's should get better. Obviously if it keeps on getting worse then go back to the vet but I would expect it to reduce now and improve.

your gonna have to get her a cone ,it sucks but its for her own good .Clean with cooled kettle water with salt

My vet said that an abscess can take a while to appear. My cat had a wound which appeared to heal over but then 2 weeks later a huge gaping hole appeared. Vet said it probably healed with some germs or a bit of hair inside and then the access is the cats body doing it's thing to evict it. Fingers cross the antibiotics sort it all out quickly.

My horse trod on a nail and the abscess appeared above her hoof.
When that went it was AMAZING!!!!!
DHorse gave an audible sigh of relief

Six of my cats all had awful abscesses at the same time some years ago. It seemed that there was a very aggressive rat attacking them - i never saw it, but i wish i had. It must have been one hellof a beast. We had a huge amount of vers bills, and bi-daily pinning cats down and bathing whatever area was affected. Was gross. All the injuries were paws, one had the tendons torn out of the back of his back leg. This all took place over a few days and took us a while to realise what was going on. One of the cats was a huge maine coon. Massive hunter. She was the only one injured in the face. I think she was the only one who didn't turn tail and run! (I'm going somewhere with this story! 😁). There were no further injuries after her injuries - she finished what the rat started.

When bathing and draining one of her nasty deep absesses it burst. Phoning the GP to explain that both my eyes had been directly hit with a high speed jet of rat bite absess was an interesting phome call and I was on eye drops for some time. I have a large number of pets and livestock, and I've seen things...many things...but this won the most gross experience award.

OP - bathe and clean any absess with caution. Or better still, wearing glasses!

Surely the vet should have popped it - when one of our cats had one the vet nurses were very happy to treat it, they seemed to enjoy it.

I'll second the warning on being careful if you bathe it. A cat that wasn't ours but his owners neglected him had an abscess and it burst all over my lap when I was cleaning it. He was much happier, I needed a shower and clean clothes.