Vazzie's Story

Hi Marcy,

Well here is the current copy of my notes on Vazzie's abscess!

Dawn

I have a newly adopted senior bun that has recently developed an abscess. Vazzie is between 8-10 years old and his mate died earlier this year and he was very depressed, when his mom couldn't get him bonded to any of her other buns (they were all larger and attacked him, she just couldn't put the old guy through that) she asked if my two dwarf, incisor less buns may accept him and if so if I would keep him in his last years.  It took a bit, even though Daisy doesn't have teeth in the front she puts on quite a show (I'm even afraid of her once in a while:).  Needless to say he is staying and my two consider him part of the family.

Anyway on to the abscess!  I noticed shortly after his arrival that he had a small lump on his jawline.  Asking his previous owner she said she never noticed.  We decided to wait and watch.  Well a within a few weeks it got considerably larger and I could tell he was uncomfortable.

Turns out that Vazzie had a molar spur that had cause a cut in his cheek and that is where the abscess started.  So she filed the spur and we went over the options.  I wasn't too fond of the idea of surgery at his age, I thought he would have great difficulty recovering from having the whole area removed or even just opened and cleaned out.  It was draining slightly into the mouth.

We decided to try the bicillin and if there was no improvement in a week we would reevaluate.

Marcy had recommended that if we didn't do surgery to start with daily doses of the bicillin.  So this is where we have begun.  On the 5th day  I can honestly say it has shrunk about 2/3 of the original size!  He is much more comfortable and seems to be eating and moving about more.

On day 7 I think that is smaller still.  Consulting with my vet we decided to go with the daily shots for one more week.  Again we will consult from there.

At the end of the second week it is smaller still but not as much progress as the first week.  One more week of daily shots.

Third week of daily shot and the lump is down to the size of a pea.  Again going to continue with daily shots, don't want to switch to every other day too soon.

At the end of 4 weeks of daily shots the lump is almost unfindable (is that a word?) and now we are going to go with the protocol as it is written (every other for 8 weeks, every third day for 4 weeks).  We figure it is just like starting out after a surgery to remove the lump.

Into the second week of every other day treatment there is not lump at all, his appetite is good and his cheek no longer droops!

Time will tell if this will reoccur but so far this is much easier and stress free than any surgery, flushing, antibiotic beads, etc.
 

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