Cat with abscess, being treated but ...

[GlomOfNit]

My 13 yo neutered tom cat has been bitten on his cheek. We noticed the flat raw area on Wednesday and it looked ok (there was no indication it was a deep wound though I know bites can be hard to spot), I said 'let's monitor this' and that's what I did - checked the area for pulpiness, heat, etc and kept an eye on him. He seemed absolutely fine until late friday night when I realised his cheek on that side had suddenly swollen. He was shaking his head every so often as it was clearly a bit strange feeling, but his ears were nice and cool and at that stage he was still eating avidly.

Saturday morning he looked like he had mumps! I'd already decided to call the vet as soon as possible Saturday and get an emergency appointment, so that's what we did and he was seen Sat morning. DH took him as I had to stay home with our younger son who has LDs and would not have been helpful to proceedings. He said the vet seemed quite 'junior' and went into a back room to ask for a second opinion, but then decided to send him home with antibiotic meds (liquid) and Loxicom which is anti-inflammatory (and counter-indicated for our cat as it's made him sick previously - DH didn't know this and it seems not to have come up on his record, or at least the vet didn't mention it...). She didn't, as far as I know, start him off with an antibiotic jab. She said the meds were instead of operating but thought it would clear up on meds. We are to call back 'after the weekend' if it's not improving.

Cat is not happy. He's not eating (licking jelly off his food, the odd Felix biscuit treat) and I don't know if he's drinking, so I'm worried about that. He's lying on the bed at the moment but clearly not feeling his best - he's getting some sleep though. Earlier, he was quite unsettled and yowling (to be fair this is his default!) and ended up in DS1s room and squatted under his chair and actually had a shit!! (DS was extremely resourceful, saw what was happening and promptly put a bit of cardboard under his bum to catch it.) Our cat has done this sort of behaviour with urine before (when he's had cystitis) but not poo. We were keeping him in because I'm concerned he's just a bit dopey at the moment (vet didn't say whether or not we should do and DH did not ask...) but after that, let him out for a little while just in case. He's back in and on our bed, oozing slightly from the scab (lymph not pus, unfortunately - I don't think it's coming out at all and the vet didn't do anything to drain it).

So I don't know what to do really. He's had his daily meds and we should trust they will kick in, but I'm getting a bit concerned about fluids. When do we start worrying about that if a cat isn't eating their wet food? Should I try using a med syringe to dribble a bit in? (He won't like it!) I'm certainly going to call the vet tomorrow first thing. He's not hot, he's not roaming around upset, he's resting - doesn't quite feel like an 'emergency' to call on Sunday.

Has anyone experienced similar with abscesses - how long did the meds take to kick in?

About 48 hrs. I'd keep persevering with the Meloxicam though. From both having abscesses myself, and having cats with them, anti inflammatories are the best thing. The pain relief is huge.

If it was my cat I would take him back today.
It sounds like he's suffering and that the abscess needs to be drained.
Do tell the vet when you go that your cat doesn't tolerate meloxicam.

He's just eaten a full plate of wet food, I took it up to him and he suddenly remembered he ate hardly anything yesterday! I'm really relieved.

It really takes 48 hours for antibiotics to works. Sounds like you might have zodon a really effective antibiotic for cat abscesses, but it does not come injectable form
Meloxicam is commonly prescribed as abscesses are very painful.

If it’s as bad as it sounds it needs draining or it will burst (get ready for the smell and gunk).

With the slight ooze, I'd be expecting a spectacular eruption in the next few hours, probably just as you delicately move a slightly sticky tuft of fur.

Have old towels ready, along with a kettle full of water and sea or pure rock salt to knock up a sterile saline solution at a moment's notice to methodically clean, irrigate and shift any attempts by the body to seal up over the infection again.

Your DS sounds like the best person for this with his observation and lateral thinking skills. As long as you've taught him how to breathe through his mouth and not his nose for a fairly prolonged period.

We do hot salt water and flannels on cat abscesses until the burst.

Our cat was just like this til it burst then he was totally back to normal, after licking the wound clean 🤢

Just an update...thanks for all your comments, I do appreciate them.

My cat isn't better, unfortunately. He did perk up a bit later on the day I posted this and had some wet food (I tempt him by hand-feeding him a bit to get him interested). Since then he's not great. We saw a vet again on Monday (yesterday) because the raw patch was getting larger, but also the swelling has spread to under his chin and the other cheek! I just don't understand it The vet didn't either, she thinks it's oedema rather than pus. (This is making my mind go down various catastrophic rabbit holes, most of which have some sort of tumour at the bottom of them.)

The oozy raw patch is still growing, though I sent a pic of it to the vet this afternoon and she said she's not concerned. But it's not discharging pus or anything abscess-y at all! Just quite a bit of bloody lymph. (he's making little stains on everything he lies on.)

He's not himself at all. At his worst, I wonder if he's on his way out but then he eats a plate of wet food, or I take him outside and he has a supervised walk around, and that seems to make him feel much better. He's not hot, doesn't seem in pain but clearly isn't comfortable. We're seeing the vet again tomorrow morning, first thing, and she may want to sedate him to see if she can drain ... whatever this thing is.

I'm frankly really worried. I know abscesses are very common in cats and my old cat had a few nasty ones. This one isn't following a familiar pattern at all.

I really feel for you.
My cat has had numerous abscesses, and they have all followed the same pattern.
Lethargic, off his food, swelling, fur loss, then pop.He was licking it at the time and the look on his face was priceless. I quickly bathed it so he didn't swallow too much.
The smell was horrendous.
As soon as it burst though he picked up and was so much better.
It continued to drain for a few days, but it took 2 weeks to heal and looked really back.He had quite a crater looked deep, but it healed well.

I wonder why they didn’t give him antibiotic injection. I really feel for you, my old Persian has an abscess & too a while to see improvements. In the end they did give her injections which I’m sure had 3 things in but not sure what & that helped.

Oh god, it's not an abscess, it's a cancerous growth. Vet is 90% sure, though waiting on cytology results tomorrow midday. I'm picking him up from the vet in a couple of hours, they sedated him to explore what was behind all the swelling and though nothing is visible, there's a big hard lump in his cheek that is not abscess and didn't have pus inside. She took a sample so it'll confirm tomorrow but said we should prepare ourselves for it being a cancer. She also said the weepy raw area was looking as if it was necrotising a bit. He's had a big painkilling jab and I've got a painkiller/sedative capsule (it's powder inside, we've used it before to make him dopey before a blood test, and she's giving us some fishy paste to put it in), so he'll be fairly doped up and comfortable as possible, we hope.

I'm now trying to sort out the best way to do this. He's my 15 yo son's cat, they are very bonded, and he's going to be heartbroken. Son comes home in 2 hours. We don't get the results until tomorrow lunchtime. It's fairly clear it's not going to be fixable if it's cancer (I'm thinking if there aren't any cancerous cells in that sample, it's still looking pretty unfixable and he's not himself at all). So we have to talk about euthanasia. I really don't want him to have to make yet another car trip (he hates them) for that but the vets tend not to come out in the late afternoon/evening for this - they make lunchtime visits. There are other complications too, regarding younger son and husband's work. Please don't shout at me, I really don't want him suffering for any longer than necessary but I also need to involve my older son in this.

Isn't it horrific how fast this can happen? I can't believe it. He was running around the garden a week ago.

I'm so sorry for you, it's an awful shock. Don't berate yourself, you've done everything that you could for him so far. You got prompt medical attention.

Take some time to discuss things with your family, be nice to yourself, it's never easy going through this situation.

Oh no. I'm very sorry about this.

I'm sure you'll make the right decision for him. He has had analgesia for now, so he's comfortable at the moment.

Cats are amazing at hiding things, aren't they? One of ours ate half a tin of tuna on the day she was PTS. But she had a huge lymphoma and had lost loads of weight.

You know already that it's better to PTS early rather than late.

I'm so sorry you have to make this decision.

thank you so much. I can't face talking about this on FB, I think I'll get a lot of 'rainbow bridge' bollox (sorry if it offends anyone but I can't stand that!) and yes, lots of support from people who know me, but I can't face it yet. It's helping a lot to talk about it here.

We haven't had to make this decision in a long while. My lovely previous cat had a stroke overnight when she was 12 and we woke to hear her calling from behind the washing machine, where she'd wedged herself in to get away from the scary feeling. That wasn't a choice really, we rushed to the vet at 7am and there was absolutely nothing else they could do for her. This is less of a shock in a way, as he's been steadily declining this week, but ... a week ago he was out there chasing birds! (not something I'm proud of, but a surreal little moment over the weekend was when I found a dead bluetit in a dark corner and realised he must have brought it in only a couple of days earlier (it wasn't very smelly). So just a few days ago he was up for that sort of skullduggery and now he's like a zombie.

So no, it's not really a decision, it's a fairly clear path. But we have tricky logistics to juggle, like husband being up to eyeballs in lecturing tomorrow (I will make him cancel his lecture if needs be!!), DS2 who has ASD/LDs needing to be safe and not on top of everything (I can't take him with us to the vet, I'd basically be hanging onto him the whole time, and if he's at home he'll need someone to watch him while we're in another room with the cat). I don't know if I can woman up enough and be the only adult for this. Well I can, I might have to. DS1 is going to need a lot of support.

Bizarrely our 13 year old neutered Tom has just recovered from a cheek abscess. Our vet was brilliant - he did an injection of antibiotics that lasts 2 weeks and prescribed metacam.

The abscess swelling went down in 48 hours. A second abcess on his head burst and healed in the same time period. He started eating again about 12 hours after having painkillers (having not eaten for 3 days before we realised it was an abscess). 5 days on he's totally healed.

So the treatment you got does not sound great. I would go back and see a different vet if you can and ask for the antibiotic injection. It sounds like he needs it and they usually give an injected painkiller killer too to get the cat eating again. It doesn't sound like the vet knew what he was doing.

When our cat an abscess on his cheek from a bite, we also did the hot compress thing until it bursts. He rubbed his cheek against the kitchen cabinet...what a mess...but he was very happy afterwards. Like instant relief.

So sorry I hadn't read the recent posts. Sending you a hug. I'm so sorry.

So sorry just read recent post. Sending big hug XX

Our lovely cat died in July.
She was PTS the day after we took her in because she was breathing rapidly. We didn't think it would be anything serious but we were told that she had lung cancer.

She had essentially been fine until then. I mean obviously the cancer had been there, but she did not seem ill at all.

It's always a shock when a beloved animal becomes seriously ill. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this.

The situation, if possible, has got even messier.

Our lovely vet rang at about 7, his cytology results came through earlier than expected. She said it's inconclusive. The sample doesn't have bacteria in (not abscess/infection), but does have signs of something like necrotising inflammation (?? I was a bit head-swimmy) and also does NOT show any identifiable cancer cells.

So WTF?? What do we do?? She said three courses of action present themselves.
1- go ahead with Plan A and PTS tomorrow (or in next day or so anyway) as she thinks he's 'struggling' and she's heard me say he's very much not there, not himself, staring at us bewildered, facing corner of room etc. She said 'given that he's struggling, bless him, I think PTS would be a valid choice'

2- try him on a stronger dose of steroids than the one he had on Monday. She thinks (I agree) that the swelling (the oedema) on his face had gone down a tiny bit (she said 'marginally') so maybe a stronger dose would help. She made sure we understood that it wasn't in itself a cure - eg it will hopefully bring down inflammation but if it's cancer it won't cure that.

3 - do a tissue biopsy under GA. Carries obvious risk, he's 12 and definitely sub-par at the moment. And she stressed, might still not find out what this hard lump is. Or - the biopsy confirms her suspicions that it is still a cancer and we go back to plan A, several days of poking him around (and ££££s I presume - she didn't talk costs)

I mean, we could prolong this several days (and £££s) and still not find out what's going on.

DS is torn apart by this. He's his cat's favourite person and his cat is his lovely friend. He's 15, we're involving him in this discussion but I don't think he gets a deciding vote. He, of course, jumped at the 'hope' that the lack of cancer cells gave him and wants us to think about other options to PTS. He says that if this happens, he'll always wonder if his cat did actually have cancer, if he would have lived a lot longer... As do we all, but we can't know.

So we're seeing how tonight goes. He ate well actually, and drank, but now he's on my lap (I put him there) and he's had his gabapentin and is dopey, but his breathing is a bit rattly or snory. His eyes are open but I think he's not really there. He's not in pain, he's very peaceful and resting.

My car has one on her cheek. I didn't realise till I noticed she absolutely stank. I pressed it and it burst. Which was extremely satisfying. Took her straight to the emergency vet and it turned out she'd punctured her eye ball.

Just read your update. Sorry you've got such a dilemma.

So sorry to read this horrible situation OP.
If it were me I don’t think I could go straight for PTS either, as it has not been confirmed as cancer. I think see how he goes the next few days and go for the strong steroids, see if they have any effect and then you can take it from there. That’s my thinking though and appreciate it’s easy enough for anyone outside looking in to tell you this. Will keep all fingers and paws crossed and hope for the best.

that's ok, I asked for opinions or advice, at least.

Last night I honestly thought he was going. As I said last night, he was unresponsive, I'd put him on my lap and he was sort of zoned out, I presume asleep but eyes half open, mouth a bit open, a bit rattly... we thought, perhaps he may actually just go in his sleep. He didn't - after about 2/3 hours of this he got up abruptly and went into the kitchen after sitting around dopily. He eventually lay in front of his water bowl and rested his face on/in it - second time yesterday he'd done that. We took him gently upstairs with him after he'd had a pee, he spent the night on our bed with us and again, I was sure he'd slip away. He's still with us but is so so out of it. He's had painkillers and we're waiting for a vet and nurse, who'll be here in about an hour.

Thanks everyone for all your support. DS1 is so sad but absolutely thinks that after the downturn of last night this is the best thing now.