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Dental abscess surgery - need advice on a couple ❤️

K

Kimmy

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hello ❤️

My prince Merlin has had a couple tooth grinding surgeries and now developed an abscess with his lower incisors. Tomorrow is the surgery date.

He’s been on antibiotics for a week (Baytril) in the hopes of shrinking it, and I'm not sure if it did anything but upset his tummy. He also can’t eat much so we feed critical care. Tomorrow, they will grind teeth and open abscess/drain and we have been told we’ll have to flush it often.

i was wondering: ...is coloidal
 
Hello ❤️

My prince Merlin has had a couple tooth grinding surgeries and now developed an abscess on his lower incisors. Tomorrow is the surgery date. :(

He’s been on antibiotics for a week (Baytril) in the hopes of shrinking it, and I'm not sure it did anything but upset his tummy... He also can’t eat much now, so we feed critical care. Tomorrow, they will grind teeth and open abscess/drain. We have been told we’ll have to flush it often.

Ive been trying to read on the subject. A couple things was wondering: ...is coloidal silver a good idea to mix with water when disinfecting? Is it bad because it’s in the mouth area and we’d rather piggy not ingest it? I read different ideas on the subject... I was wondering if anyone had experience with this?

Also, he is bonded to his brother, who is a mega-alpha-boar. Is it best to separate them for a couple weeks while he heals? His alpha bro tends to assert his maleness every so often...

Thanks so much for reading ❤️ Sadly, Merlin already has irreparable jaw damage, so he’ll have to have teeth grinding “surgeries” often, but at least I would rather the abscess never come back after this...

❤️Kimmy
 
I just wanted to offer support and wish your piggy well for the surgery.
Antibiotics do upset their tummies and probiotics are often given alongside to help keep their appetite up. Do continue to syringe feeds to keep the guts moving and weight up.
From my understanding, baytril isn’t really strong enough to deal with abscesses. @furryfriends (TEAS) has much experience with dental issues in piggies so is the best person to offer advice.
Colloidal silver - I don’t think I’d use it @Abi_nurse @Wiebke

Regarding separating, piggies often recover better when they’ve got their friend with them. Being separated is in itself stressful for them, so I wouldn’t do it (unless something specific happens that causes the need to separate.)
 
Oh poor little piggie. I don't have experience with abscesses so I can't help there. I do have a piggie who had to have her incisors removed completely and she manages very well without them. Good luck for the operation.
 
Kimmy said:
Oops - I hit “post” before my post was done... see following post. I am not sure how to delete this one? So sorry!
Click to expand...

When you post you have a set period of time where you can edit the post so that's the easiest way when hitting post early. Otherwise you can hit the report button on the unfinished post to let an admin or moderator know that you would like the post deleting and we can sort it out for you.

I can't add much to the above other than I wouldn't use anything like coloidal silver without consultation and approval by your treating vet.
 
Best of luck with the surgery, please follow the vets advice regarding flushing the abscess- colloidal silver does not sound like anything I've heard a vet recommend, I imagine if it is in the mouth then sterile saline would be best to flush it with, but the vet can advise you best. A stronger antibiotic may be needed, I believe zithromax is often used for abscess treatment, so discuss this with your vet too.
Healing wheeks for your piggy, he will be happier recovering with his friend for company, though you might want to feed them separately or give top-up syringe feeds and/or extra grated veg to your poorly piggy when he comes out of the cage for his medication to make sure he is eating enough x
 
All the best, I’ll be thinking of you both x Hoping he make a good recovery x
 
I had a pig with a similar issue (a few dental treatments due to molar spurs and uneven wear, followed by a lower-jaw abscess puffing up and needing to be lanced and drained.) So I totally feel for you, I've been there... abscesses are no fun!

Firstly, Baytril is an antibiotic that is generally not strong enough to shrink an abscess and can be really hard on the gut of some guinea pigs, so it may be worth asking to try a different antibiotic. My facial abscess pig was treated with chloramphenicol, others here swear by Zithromax for abscesses. A lot of times vets give Baytril for guinea pigs as it's one of the safer antibiotics and guinea pigs are restricted in which antibiotics they can safely use, but there are others out there and if your pig is not coping well with Baytril, a change may be in order. I've found pigs are hit and miss with how they do with Baytril... one was totally fine with it, one had stomach upset, and one had crazy behavior which was likely due to gut upset (she would try to eat non-nutritive items like my drywall, ripping out patches of carpet, etc., probably in an effort to rebalance her gut flora.) So definitely ask about a change of antibiotics!

As for cleaning the wound afterwards, I would be wary of colloidal silver, but you can ask your vet about an antiseptic solution to rinse (my vet gave me some when Sundae had this done) and you can use sterile saline to rinse as well. I used to just buy bottles of sterile saline for contact lens storage (not the cleaning solution, just saline.) I would use watered down peroxide to break down any scabbing over the wound (it foams off, softens the scab, and makes it easy to remove) and then either the vet's antiseptic or sterile saline with a syringe to irrigate the wound once the scab was removed.

Hope this helps a bit... wishing your pig lots of luck and a speedy recovery!
 
Thank you so so very much everyone! ❤️❤️❤️

I will ask my vet about a new antibiotic and hope everything will work out well after today’s surgery. My boar is 5 years old and has already recovered from a few ailments and surgeries, so part of me is super scared but also confident that he will get through this. ❤️
 
Update: they drained the abscess and ground his molars, but we have to go back for yet another surgery next week to remove the abscessed incisor (it’s at the root). Poor boy, he is quite spooked and stunned still...

We changed the antibiotic, since Baytril made him so bad, and are now giving 0.63ml Trimethoprim (TMS) twice a day.
They also took a culture of the abscess to make sure we’re giving the right antibiotic, so we will know next week.

We also have a solution of Betadine for flushing his abscess 2-3 times a day.

Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best! Any links to success stories would be super appreciated :)

❤️
 
Good luck and get well soon to Merlin! Abscess is a pain in the bum to treat. But with a good antibiotic and continuous flushing of the wound 2x a day, you'll get on top of it.
 
Hello again!

We’re trying to flush out the abscess pocket, and nothing comes out... yet there’s some kind of a « hard ball » in his jaw on the side, not sure if this is also part of the abscess...? That hard bit is not moving at all and really hard - we wouldn’t be able to squeeze it, also we are scared to do damage. What we do is we try to squeeze around the « skin pocket » and it seems to hurt him a bit and it’s so heartbreaking... only a couple drops came out today (he had surgery 2 days ago).

The vet didn’t show us how it’s done and we thought we would be able to do this... we apply gentle heat and then try to squeeze out pus/flush with Betadine solution.

Are there good « how-to » videos out there? The only ones we found were of opening abscesses and they were so full of put it looked so easy.

Thank you so much ❤️
 
Happy to help with this. We do this very often with bunnies, not as often in pigs. Often the area can be thickened and not actually have any pus in. I would flush aggressively to try to move anything in there. Did your vet stitch it open. Do you have a needle and syringe to flush? Also use cotton buds to clean out inside the wound to try and remove as much as you can. The key is to keeping the hole open for as absolutely long as possible. Is he on good pain relief at a good dosage?

x
 
Hello again!

It looks like we’re going to beat this - knock on wood... :)

Returned to the vet, who removed more pus and stitched open the wound this time. She also took out the incisor whose root was the start of the abscess. We keep flushing 3-4 times a day.

Checkup visit yesterday: the bacterial culture returned negative, no bacteria. We are still finishing the antibiotics tho. Apparently it is healing nicely and we were advised to keep flushing for a couple days and let it heal.

Merlin has been so much better since the abscessed incisor was taken out: he gnaws at wood again! :) I am so happy and hope it heals nicely and never returns!

He is still on Meloxicam and likely will be forever, due to jaw damage from previously overgrown molars. We might need to get them filed every 2-3 months apparently.

Thanks to everyone for their help with this! ❤️❤️❤️
 
What a cutie! Hope all continues to go well for him!
 
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