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HELP PLEASE! Surgery tomorrow and not sure about it!

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Callislf

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Hi All,

Toffee and Fudge are sisters aged approx 2 1/2. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a lump on Fudge's head, just at the side of her ear and when I squeezed it it burst. I took her to the vets and she said said it was an infected bite. She was on anti-b's orally and I've been squeezing it daily and cleaning it. There is a hole in the middle of the lump

After 7 days it was smaller but still with pus coming out so I took her back to vets. This vet said it was an infected gland and it needed removing. I've continued to squeeze/clean/and administer the anti-b's (2 weeks now) and got to a point where I thought all the pus was out. A couple of days later a small amount of pus started forming again. She has started crying when I squeeze it now so I know it's hurting her.

She is booked in tomorrow to have an anaesthetic and have it removed. I'm not sure she needs it.... does anyone have any experience of what this might be and what the chances are of it going without surgery? I don't want to subject her to an anaesthetic if I don't need to (not to mention the £95 cost :{).

Thanks in anticipation, Lisa x
 
My piggy recently had an abscess, connected to dental issues, his eventually disappeared with lots of squeezing, flushing out, cleaning and Baytril. No Anesthetic or op's, Hopefully someone on here will be able to advise.
 
Thanks Toffeewoffee. I've read lots about dental abcessess but not about ones on the top of the head!
 
Go with you gut instinct on this one, either ask more questions with your vet, and if you are still not happy there is nothing wrong with asking another vets opinion. Have you read the thread about Squeak's abcess this may help you.
 
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It sounds like an abscess.... I hear you on the difficulty deciding, it can be a tough call. One of my pigs did have an abscess surgically removed under anasthesia and I was very nervous about it. In her case, it probably was the best course of action... it was a large abscess, it had been lanced and drained and cleaned thoroughly on a daily basis twice, and then the skin covering the abscess basically dried out and flaked off from the trauma of the lancing/draining so that the outer wall of the abscess was essentially pressing through the skin... just didn't look like it would heal on it's own! Luckily the surgery went really well, the abscess never recurred, and within a few days you would never even have known that she had surgery (except for the big shaved patch on her back! LOL!) Have you asked your doctor how experienced they are with guinea pig surgeries, what kind of anasthesia they use, etc? My vet is an exotics vet and does a lot of rodent surgeries and they use gas anasthesia, which is supposed to be the easiest to reverse... I was still nervous about the procedure but at least after asking my questions I was confident that the vet knew what she was doing, which made me feel better! Wishing your little piggie well!
 
One of our boys had numerous abscesses (egads i hate them!) anyways i found he did have to have a few ops to remove them at different stages.
She'll be groggy and off her food, cut food up into smaller pieces and offer it to her. Also make sure she's getting enough fluids.
Ask lots of questions about what exactly is being done and then ask about the after care too.

I'll be checking to see what happened later on.......

GOOD LUCK XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
 
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