Violet's medical thread

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Jan 13, 2016 6:24 am


You might want to read www.guinealynx.info/.html with particular attention to Talishan's advice on pain relief. It's important not to knock them out too much. There's a balance that needs to be reached (it might help you - I think there may also be a link on that page to more detailed info on pain management).

Difficult to tell from the photo if it is pus or what behind the sutures (certainly looks like it could be pus). The opening of the incision, what you see might be some granulation of the tissue (a good thing, generally, though you still don't want the infection locked in).

Let us know what the vet says.

p.s. how does he irritate it? Can she reach down with her teeth? Is she scratching with her claws? If the latter, it might be possible to wrap the feet to limit further injury. I think there is some info on the bandaging page about my wrapping my guinea pig's feet when she had pododermatitis. www.guinealynx.info/.html

In all cases, one does not want to bandage and leave bandaged. Unwrapping the bandaged area to let dry in the air, preventing moisture accumulation by leaving open for a while every day is quite important. New kinds of bacteria grow in moist environments.

When you flushed the wound again, did you see pus?

I wish she was more cooperative! This little pig is definitely worth it. Sure hope it never happens again.

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Zaphy

Post   » Wed Jan 13, 2016 9:07 am


All right. I did not give her the full dose of buprenorphine, and haven't given it to her since because it doesn't look like she's scratching at the original place any more.

Yesterday pre-buprenorphine she was scratching at it with her claws so wrapping the feet might not be a bad idea at all... I'll definitely check that link out. Thank you! She cannot reach the wound with her teeth but has been trying to, she's got a few small areas all around it that she's been barbering the hair away.

Last night when I flushed it again I did not see pus- all that yellow stuff just kinda stayed there. However, just now I flushed it again aaaaaand it started coming out of the wound. So I'm guessing that it is indeed pus. Vet opens in just a couple hours.

Edit: It's also worth nothing that I could not flush all the yellow stuff out of it. There appears to be a significant amount stuck to the walls of the wound.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Jan 13, 2016 10:21 am


I believe it is the walls of the wound that produce the pus. With a successful surgery to remove an abscess in its entirety, the wall is also removed and the wound likely sutured shut without need of draining (all the infection is removed). I think it likely that it is difficult to remove the whole thing in some cases as there can be multiple infected chambers. So you are having to go the flushing, keep it open, let it heal from the inside out route.

I think.

By the way, it might be interesting to see if those covers that are put on cat's nails to stop scratching could be put on your pig's front nails to prevent scratching the injury. Good luck.

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Zaphy

Post   » Thu Jan 14, 2016 5:10 am


Update! So the vet had me bring her in yesterday instead of waiting till today. He said that considering everything that it's been through, the wound actually looks pretty good. We're going to try leaving it open to drain this way a few days. He says keep flushing several times a day and keep changing out the towels she's on of course, and we've been trying to work out a way to keep her from bugging the area and making it worse. And as I type this at my desk (which is where I do all the flushing etc) I notice that the last suture has been ripped out of the wound, I just found it.

Lynx, he liked your idea of wrapping the feet to keep her from scratching at it. He also gave me some different sizes of the fabric sleeves you put under casts to try putting around her head (to be changed out frequently of course). There is one size of that which she will tolerate, but she absolutely WILL NOT stand for any gauze to be placed on the wound under the sleeve. She chilled for a while with it on before I took it off to flush. She looked pretty comfortable all things considered.

I realized at 2:30 am that I completely forgot about her 8pm antibiotic, so I gave the full dose to her then. Would it be better to wait 12 hours from that time to give her the next dose (it's twice a day, so wait till 2:30 pm), or to revert to the original schedule and give her next dose at 8am like normal?

She was also down on her weight this evening when I weighed her, 925g from 950g. Hopefully it was mostly water weight or whatever. I fed her more CC and water, and will continue to do so.

Here's what the wound is looking like right now. She took a scab off the side of the incision so it's oozing blood again, but hopefully that's not TOO bad:
Image

Bonus shot of when I tried to use the large size of fabric sleeve to make a dressing. Despite everything she's been through during the last week, and everything I've had to do to her gaping wound on her throat, this is still by far the most "mother how could you" face she's given me this entire time:
Image

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:00 am


What antibiotic is she getting again? What dose? Antibiotics can affect appetite. www.guinealynx.info/_advice.html

If Baytril, I think maybe resume your normal time after 12 hours has passed.

The nails look pretty sharp. Any chance you could use a human nail file or a grinding Dremel tool to round them nicely so they would be less likely to be able to be used to scratch the area? If you watch closely, perhaps it is one leg she tends to scratch with and you can do that one first?

It does seem to be looking better!

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Zaphy

Post   » Thu Jan 14, 2016 11:08 am


She's on chloramphenicol, 30 mg/ml. 1.5 ml twice daily.

I can do that, yes! She also has not been scratching at it much any more so that's good. She'll still bend her head down to try to get to it, mainly licking it after I flush it, but progress, yay!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 14, 2016 12:06 pm


Ah, chloramphenicol. The antibiotic advice still applies but it looks like she's doing pretty well.
Last edited by Lynx on Thu Jan 14, 2016 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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countrygirl49
Supporter in '13

Post   » Thu Jan 14, 2016 2:35 pm


Sorry to hear that you are having complications! Keep up the good work with her, you'll both make it through!

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Fri Jan 15, 2016 2:43 am


What a feisty pig! Good for her!

Not so much for you, though. ;-) She is not the first pig on GL to rip a drain and/or sutures out, but still, I can imagine how you felt. !!!

Are you still flushing the area and if so, are you getting pus from it?

Does she go back for a recheck and if so, when?

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Zaphy

Post   » Fri Jan 15, 2016 5:23 am


Update: Nothing terrible happened today for once!

Yeah... when it happened it may have been one of the scariest moments of my life. I'm just glad it wasn't worse, holy cow! And on the plus side, since the drain came out and the incision opened, flushing it has been quite a bit easier! Nice big target to aim at now :)

So yes, I am still flushing the area, heh. I'm not using the sides of the drains as often as I'm mainly going through the front now. One of the sides went and closed up pretty solidly, and it looks pretty clean from the outside so I'm not worrying about it too much, just making sure to hit that side of the inside from the front in case there's anything hanging out behind that nice clean scab that I can't see. I am still getting pus (and there is still a noticeable odor as well)- I've been taking photos a lot, partly because I like to see the progress the wound is making and partly to help me see if I've missed any stuff that should be coming out. So hey, why don't I just show you! They're all from today. The last one (there's a chunk of pus/dead tissue material on the cloth you can see, everything I've been getting out of it is in chunks like that) is just a couple hours ago.

Image
^Before any flushing this morning
Image
^I'd gotten a few good squirts in but hadn't gotten much out so this was to see if anything looked like it should be moving (answer was obviously yes)
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^This was after the first flushing of the day.
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^Before the last flushing of today (obviously there'd been a couple sessions between this and the previous one)
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^After the last flushing of today plus bonus scabpustissuebooger thing at bottom right

She has her recheck scheduled for Monday morning. Unless she does something else awful to herself before then, heh. The receptionists and techs who answer the phone know her by name when I call now xD

She's only been bugging her wound during/right after I flush it today. So I've been popping the fabric sleeve on her when I'm done with a flushing to keep her from it:
Image

And then it'll take around 15-30 minutes for her to calm down about it- she'll try to shake it off and scratch, paw and bite at it but... I dunno, not that hard I guess, I know she's capable of removing this size of sleeve on her own because she has a couple times when I first put it on her, but maybe I just had to find the correct placement for it not to bother her enough? Cause she'll eventually moderately relax if I put it on right:
Image
And that's when I'll remove it again so that it doesn't dry to the wound or anything, she'll leave the area alone after that.

P.S. Lynx, thank you for adding my pictures, and double thank you for the nice crops on them :D

P.P.S. I am using different fabric sleeves each time and washing them between uses.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Fri Jan 15, 2016 8:24 am


I did some drastic crops (that I will add in a bit) since there are so many pics. I'm on dialup and the smaller the images, the better! p.s. you do a great job with photo compression. I'm just making them a bit smaller yet (mainly cropping). Focusing on the injury.

Violet is a sweetheart.

That you are still getting pus (and can smell the odor) I think shows you how important the flushing is. I am betting the vet is learning a lot about guinea pig abscesses too!

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Zaphy

Post   » Sat Jan 16, 2016 4:31 am


Definitely! There's been so much gunk in it the last couple days... The smell has been reduced today though, so that's a nice sign! Still producing some pus but not nearly as much as yesterday. The vet said this is one of the most challenging cases he's had.

Today was another good day. Also! Violet finally started drinking on her own! Woo hoo! I'm thinking I'll probably continue to supplement with Critical Care for a while, make sure this isn't just a fluke, but I'm pretty happy about that. She's really active, I haven't had to give her burprenorphine in a couple days, and when I tickled her little feet (she'd caught some string in her toes) she did that little indignant popcorn thing that pigs do sometimes :D

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