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absess or tumour?

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wales1000

wales1000

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I am not sure whether my guinea pig has an absess or a tumour - we noticed it tonight where his sweat gland is - it feels very hard and is a big lump, so he will be off the vets now in the next day. I cant remember what my gps absess felt like - is there anyway of telling which it could be?

thanks

natasha
 
I presume you mean grease gland, not sweat gland. it could be a sebaceous cyst or just a build-up of grease. Whatever it is will NOT need a general anaesthetic for it to be dealt with.
Remember, the word "tumour" is an all embracing word for lump. In itself it does not imply malignancy. Guinea pigs are not very prone to malignant tumours.
 
PS.
An abscess would be quite easily drained, pus has a very distinctive smell. The contents of a sebaceous cyst are rather like a white cream cheese and have no odour as such, unless the cyst has become infected, again, no problem to treat.
 
Sweat glands under the arms (these would be lymph nodes) or the grease gland on the rump? Lumps on the lymph nodes are more common. It may be a simple fatty lump, but abscess is certainly one option to explore.

Probably the first line of action would be a fine needle aspiration, to see if whatever is in the lump can be drawn out and cultured.
 
Sorry I meant the grease gland. I am going to give him a good bath tonight - it’s definitely a lump under the skin. You can see a tiny hole on the lump, but nothing seemed to come out last night. Maybe when I bathe him tonight something will come out.
 
CCC4
"Sweat glands under the arms (these would be lymph nodes)"
Are you saying sweat glands are lymph nodes or have I misundestood?
Why culture the lump contents? This might be fine for academic satisfaction but an antibiotic sensitivity test will more than not show that Baytril is the antibiotic of choice.
 
I meant it as in the location, not that lymph nodes = sweat glands. Given that lumps under the arms are pretty common, I felt it worth asking if the poster meant this area or if it was indeed the grease gland.

Culturing the pus of abscesses would determine what antibiotic would rid the infection. It's not an essential thing to do but in some cases, Baytril isn't the best drug for the job. If an infection didn't respond to Baytril, then culturing could be considered the next best step. Some infections respond far better to stronger antibiotics - doxycycline or chlorampenicol - than with the standard Baytril or Septrin.
 
hi i forgot to post back on here as with hospital and everything this week. Dylan had a blocked grease gland - i have never heard of that before, has anyone? when we took him last weekend they opened up the lump and all they got out for a load of grease - i have been washing his wound for a week now with stuff from the vets and he goes back monday for a check up. What can i do to prevent this from happening again?
 
I've never heard of it before either. I think the only thing you could do to prevent it is clean the grease gland (with washing up liquid or swarfega) as often as needed - maybe try once a week to start off with.
 
ok thanks. I'll try and do that once a week. I had a look on the net, but couldn't see anything about a blocked sweat gland before. But as soon as she opened the lump, there was nothing but grease in there, very strange.
 
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